When you watch The Curse, you are watching two children who were abused and exploited daily during production. No adults protected us.

This was originally published on my blog in August, 2022.

I had a wonderful time at Steel City Comicon this weekend. It was my first time at this particular con, so I didn’t know there was such a huge contingent of horror fans, creators, and vendors who attend.

I love horror, and I was pretty psyched to be in the same place as John Carpenter and Tom Savini, across the street from the Dawn of the Dead mall. Pittsburgh feels like one of the places horror was invented, at least to me.

A number of these horror fans came to see me, and asked me to sign posters and other things from a movie my parents forced me to do when I was 13, called The Curse. I had to tell each of these people that I would not sign anything associated with that movie, because I was abused and exploited during production. The time I spent on that film remains the most traumatizing time of my life, and though I am a 50 year-old man, just typing this now makes my hands shake with remembered fear of a 13 year-old boy who nobody protected, and the absolute fury the 50 year-old man feels toward the people who hurt him.

I told this story in Still Just A Geek, and I’ve talked about it in some podcasts I did on the promo tour, but I’ve never put it out in public like this, in its entirety.

I suspect someone at the publisher would prefer I tease this and hope it drives book sales from people who want to read all of it, but I honestly don’t want to have another weekend like this one where everything is awesome, except the few times people who have no idea (and why should they) put that fucking poster in front of me, and all the fear, abandonment, and trauma come flooding back as I tell them that I won’t sign it, and why.

To their credit, each person was as horrified as they should have been, told me they had no idea (if they didn’t read my book why would they), and quickly put the poster away. They were all understanding. I am grateful for that.

But I really don’t need to tell this story over and over again, so here it is, with a child abuse and exploitation content warning, so I can just tell people to Google it.

My mother forced me to become an actor when I was seven, and then refused to let me quit, even though I literally begged her to stop making me work. She used and exploited me to get things she wanted for herself.

I sincerely believed acting was something I wanted to do, because my mother manipulated and gaslighted me my entire childhood. I was completely brainwashed. By the time I was old enough to realize that not only was it not my idea, but that I didn't have to be an actor any more if I didn't want to, I was terrified I would be the huge failure my abusive father always made me believe I was, so I kept trying to be an actor well into my 30s.

In my 40s, I decided to retire from acting on-camera, and use what I'd learned over the years to work as a voice actor, audiobook narrator, and writer. I'm a New York Times bestselling author! And number on audiobook narrator!

I just turned 50 in July. I'm still doing the performing and entertaining work I'm pretty good at, but I'm only doing it on my terms. My favorite thing I'm doing right now is hosting The Ready Room, the official online destination for all things Star Trek universe.

I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. I'm truly thriving. I've been married for almost 24 years, I have two wonderful children and a daughter-in-law I love like my own. It's a really good life, but I'm not going to lie: I had to crawl through a LOT of shit to get here.

It's complicated. The shortest version is that I sincerely like the experience of having a cocktail. I like brewing and drinking beer. In moderation, it's not a bad thing. My problem was I couldn't -- I can't -- drink in moderation.

I'm a child abuse and exploitation survivor with narcissistic parents who hurt me so much, I had to end contact with them for my own mental health and quality of life.

For around a decade, starting in my early 30s, I spent most of my time and my energy trying to communicate to them how much pain and trauma I had experienced, hoping that they would accept their role in it, and we could heal together. And for ten years, they refused to acknowledge a single thing that happened to me. My father continued to be my bully, and my mother continued to support him, blaming me for everything he did to me.

I didn't understand why they were so cruel to me. I didn't understand why they treated me like a thing, while they clearly and obviously adored and loved my brother and sister. It hurt so much, at some point made the connection that drinking in excess made the pain disappear for a little bit, with the added benefit of being an act of self harm. I started drinking more and more and more until I was a functioning alcoholic, numbing my pain and pouring the evenings away in search of the bottom of a bottle I could never find, hoping that maybe I'd just fall asleep in it and never wake up.

That wasn't healthy, and it was having a terrible impact on my family. With my wife's help and the support of a couple friends who have many years of sobriety, I was able to make the choice to stop drinking alcohol, and to start intensive therapy to heal the wounds I was hoping to numb. Every day, I make the choice to continue not drinking or hurting myself. As of today, it's been a little over 2300 or so days, taken one day at a time. Today is another one of those days.

Alcoholism isn't a solution to anything, unless you're looking for a guaranteed way to have a shitty, terrible, painful life that ends before it otherwise would.

Last thing: I knew for at least a year that I needed to quit drinking. I didn't know how to do it, because I thought that AA was the only way, and I didn't want to be involved with a group, or have to pretend I believed in some kind of higher power. But a friend of mine, who has like 15 years, told me they didn't do AA. They worked with a therapist and a support network. So that's what I did and it is how I've stayed sober.

I know that AA works for some people, but it isn't the only way, and I wonder if I'm not the only person who didn't know that.