Cracked Surface: 2

Cracked Surface is the sequel to Surface Tension and continues exploring my personal struggle with the desire to lead a normal life through the eyes of David Mathew. In Surface Tension David is sixteen years old represents the USA and wins the gold medal at the 1979 World Springboard and Platform Diving Championships in Tønsberg Norway. David has a secret. In spite of his unprecedented victory he attempts to hide his tumultuous journey of grooming manipulation coercion and sexual abuse by coaches benefactors and medical team he trusted. With his dreams of Olympic glory put on hiatus due to President Carters boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow Russia David relocates to California to focus on the 1984 Olympics. Cracked Surface continues with David attending the University of California as a pre-med major on academic and athletic scholarships. An encounter with Jennifer a sorority pledge and theatre major leads David to help with her audition for the fall play. David gets a part in The Visit of the Old Lady a lead role in Single Parents a Movie of the Week and an extra role on ABCs General Hospital. Davids hopes for normalcy shatter when he finds himself in a clinic and cannot remember where or what had happened the previous evening. Shame and guilt engulf him as he tries to suppress his secret but at the NCAA Qualifying Diving meet David blacks out. Without time to put the pieces together he steps away from school and diving and returns to the farm in Aulden Ohio to recuperate. While regaining his strength in Aulden Davids decides to take a year off and attend Wright State Universitys Theatre Department to develop his acting and dancing talents reinvent himself and explore his spirituality before returning to Hollywood. Cracked Surface demonstrates the struggles and challenges sexually abused people endure as they try to live a normal life. My story of being a sixteen-year-old elite athlete passed around was only the beginning of a lifelong struggle with PTSD depression anxiety and suicidal thoughts. One-in-six males are sexually abused before the age of eighteen. The recent allegations brought against the US Gymnastic and other sporting entities have shed some light on this growing epidemic but male athletes have been sexually abused for many years and are still in hiding because of societal beliefs that it is just hazing initiation the rite of passage or they myth males cant be sexually abused. Sexual abuse is only the springboard; the effects may not become evident or recognized until much later in life. By sharing my story I hope to shed some light on how a sexually abused person attempts to reinvent adapt and assimilate to fit into society-but are never able to escape the deep seeded pain without facing the past and finding their true self.