Boy raised by feminist speaks out. Mods mute anyone commenting on feminism and lock the thread

I'm sorry this is so long, I just- I've been screaming inside my head for a long time now and there's a part of me that hopes someone here will understand.

My mother considered herself an outspoken feminist and activist. She was beloved and admired by many people around her for her "moral fortitude" and dedication to helping people. In the left-leaning community that I was surrounded by growing up, she was a figurehead and had some notoriety for her political writings, her work as a medical professional, and later her time as a post-secondary educator. If there was a committee, she was on it. If someone was asking for volunteers, she was the first to sign up. But while she maintained the image of a caring, tolerant woman for outsiders, at home behind closed doors, it was a different story.

It was never okay for me to be a boy. Men were evil. Men were responsible for all the world's problems. I was going to grow up to be a rapist or a violent criminal. I wasn't allowed to be friends with boys, lest they influence me to be bad - but of course I didn't have any friends, because what girl would want to friends with a yucky boy like me? I had been born disgusting and only she could teach me to be better. My job was to serve her, to learn at her feet so I could atone for the sins of all men who had come before . And for a long time, I really believed her. I grew up thinking that I was born evil and only she could teach me to be better.

She would bring me around to her circles and events and publicly lavish me for being so sensitive, so quiet - around her friends, I was a "good boy", a shining example of how feminist parenting could raise boys to be different. At home, any argument or disagreement was quickly shut down with the cold stare and the familiar refrain - that I was the aggressor. She had to hit me if I yelled, because I was the aggressor. She had to lock me in the closet if I cried too loud, because I was the aggressor. I can remember the terrible shame I felt that somehow no matter how hard I worked I couldn't stop being bad. She used to say often that it was lucky that I had her as a mother, because only she had the grace to love me even though I was so difficult.

At meals, I was only allowed to eat so much - it was important to her that I stay small and thin. If she thought I was getting too heavy, I would be sent to bed without dinner for a while. Wanting to eat more was "me trying to take up more space than I deserved". I quickly learned how to save granola bars from my lunches at school, to hide in my room so I didn't go hungry later. She kept my hair long - I was absolutely NOT allowed to cut it. She was so angry when I finally did cut it short when I was 16 - how could I hate her so much that I had cut my hair, just to upset her? It was always like that - as far as she was concerned anytime I did something for myself it was an attack on her.

Her dream for me was that I would do ballet, but I had 2 left feet and was never good at it - after much grief, she decided she could settle for me being an academic and started calling me her "little absent-minded professor". She started me doing IQ tests when I was 6, excitedly telling me and everyone else that I was a genius - but privately being sure to let me know that I would never be smarter than her, never better than she was.

It took me a long, long time to admit to myself that she had sexually abused me. She had raised me to believe that women weren't capable of that - and she was an excellent manipulator. If I didn't want to touch her or look at her, it was my problem - I needed to learn how to appreciate the female form, become comfortable with what a "real woman" was like. If I protested her touching me, I was making a big deal out of nothing. When I tried to get her to stop bathing with e, well into my teens, she was hurt that I would reject being close with her, saying it was normal for a mother to bathe her child and be close with them. My body was always commented upon - she was fond of my hips, or my baby face, or my long legs. She told me often that she was happy my penis stayed so small, or that I didn't grow much taller than her. Well into my early 20's she would grab at me intimately, stroking me and not letting go - or she would strip me, to see what kind of underwear I was wearing.

When I started dating a girl in highschool, she hated my girlfriend and always complained that I loved my girlfriend more than I loved her - and no matter how much I tried to tell her I loved her, she wasn't happy until we broke up. "You don't need to be in a relationship," she told me after, "You aren't very good at it anyway."

I finally managed to escape from her when I was 23. I'd tried before but I had been so dependent on her, so intertwined with her that sooner or later I found myself back under her roof, under her control. I dropped out of university, and moved all the way to the other side of the country. In the 4 years since then, I've only seen her once, at my grandmothers funeral. I've been to therapy a little bit, but nnever could bring myself to talk about any of I have a psychiatrist. I take medication. And I'm almost one year sober after many years of secretly abusing alcohol and marijuana. But I have no idea how to make friends, or even just have a casual conversation. I'm very scared of women and I don't feel like I know how to talk to men. People at work comment frequently that my voice is very soft, that I seem like a nice, gentle young man, and I hate it because it just reminds me of how vulnerable I feel. I find myself wishing sometimes that I knew how to be more masculine, but I don't even know how to let myself buy a t-shirt with a skull on it without feeling ashamed (I swear I could hear her in my head, "Violent imagery is for misogynists!"). And even though I wish it didn't, feminism triggers me. I can't trust it, don't know how to interact with it without feeling like I have returned to the rhetoric of my childhood, where underneath the guise of tolerance and activism there was only pain. And I feel like I can't talk about it, like no one will understand, like I'm not supposed to be the way that I am, like no one will believe me or care - so I keep myself isolated because it's the only way I know how to feel safe.