As a male survivor of childhood sexual abuse and unwanted sexual contact as a young child because of my abuse, I know first hand the effects it can have. I also know it can take quite a while for those consequences to kick in, my biggest issues popping up 15-20 years later capped with delayed onset PTSD. It ROCKED my world. The world that I always knew was no longer that innocent and trustworthy, although I had trust issues my whole life, but domestic violence and foster care, topped with abuse will do that to a person. But my post is supposed to be about the battles we have as male survivors, well first off, society says men “can’t” or “shouldn’t” be victims, or that REAL men can’t be taken advantage of, which is furthest from the truth but it takes a toll on our self esteem and us speaking out because we feel we should’ve been able to stop it or make better choices, or in my case it happened when I was 3 with a much older babysitter, and growing up I always felt like it was an early initiation to sex and if only I were older…not realizing yet how much it messed me up. It gave me bad anger issues as a child, keep me from wearing jeans, to this day, I was in jeans the night it happened. It’s crazy how your body can remember and connect things.
Also society seems to believe anyone who is sexually abused will be an abuser, which is also a very false statement. Anyone can do something that extreme and tragic, its all about choice making, not whether you have been abused or not. So it scares us as men survivors because we think people will be afraid to have us around their kids, or that they will think different of us, when we were the victims, not the perpetrator, so don’t convict us with something that we aren’t.
My sexual abuse happened at a very young age, and I was never gotten any help, which in turned caused me to act out sexually as a child, with both girls and boys. Kids don’t have the knowledge to know guys go with girls, or even what sex is and what they are doing, they are either replaying what happened to them, either by doing it or having others do it. Sex feels good, whether we are 3 or 43, its how our bodies are made, so we don’t know what we are doing is wrong, but if we aren’t helped and taught about what happened, it can cause problems later, because the amount of shame and guilt eats away at us from the inside out, it tears us apart. From us “allowing” us to be abused, to the acting out, we feel we should have known better, should have stopped our abuse which would in turn keep the acting out from occurring which is impossible. We wonder and question ourselves in how the acting out, even if it wasn’t forced, how it could have affected those other kids and their lives. Kids aren’t equipped like that and its unfortunate because then we beat ourselves up for being victimized and look at it from an adult viewpoint than from a small child’s. But guilt and shame knows no difference and will eat away no matter how old you are.
Masculinity-
1.
pertaining to or characteristic of a man or men: masculine attire.
2.
having qualities traditionally ascribed to men, as strength and boldness.
That definition alone, can hurt a man who has survived abuse, because society takes it and runs with it. So it isn’t viewed as boys victimized, its viewed as a man who was taken advantage of or who was too weak to stop the perpetrator. So we once we realize the damage done by the abuse, there is secondary wounding because then we start to question our “manliness” and our ability to fight people off.
Why did they pick me?
Did that person see me as weak or vulnerable, more so than others?
Am I a real man because I was abused and couldn’t protect myself?
Will others think I’m a fake because I was abused?
What will they think if they knew I acted out with other kids when I was younger, I didn’t know what I was doing, it wasn’t my fault, but will they think I’m an abuser, or possibly gay because it happened with boys and girls?
As an adult do people view me as weak?
Do people see me as less of a man or a fake?
Even if people don’t know that we have been through we feel sometimes like people can tell our story just by looking at us. They might know nothing more than our names, but we feel like they can see our soul and know our whole story, abuse and all. Will they be able to tell by being around me? Can they tell by how I carry myself? They have to be able to tell…
And on it goes. Which adds more to the inner turmoil because we are essentially making a bigger deal than need be. But we can’t help it we don’t do it on purpose. And then it adds more to the effect of how we feel when being compassionate and friendly, will people take that as weakness? Or being less manly? Real men aren’t soft. But in reality they are, but society says no. Real men can be soft and it not be a problem, but when we have been abused it changes how comfortable we are in our skin. Causes us to judge ourselves and our actions, even innocent ones, and we find a way to make ourselves feel uncomfortable, even when there is no real reason. But we are afraid of what people think of us, and how they must know about our abuse and past, even when there is no way they can. We don’t trust our ability to keep ourselves safe, unless we are extremely rigid, due to being victimized before, even though we were children and are adults now, it doesn’t make a difference to us. We don’t want to take chancing the same thing or something similar happening again.
We don’t even feel comfortable talking to those closest to us, because its traumatic and then we wonder what people will think of us, and we fear the worst, which keeps us from talking. Most men go years before talking about their abuse and realizing how much it hurt us and took a toll. It took me 20 years from my abuse and 15+ since the acting out for me to really realize what happened and why and then to begin talking about it, partially because I began having flashbacks and stuff and was diagnosed with Delayed Onset PTSD. Before that I didn’t realize the affects the abuse had on me as a child. I had signs because of past anger problems and things like that, but I never connected it. PTSD has been difficult to live with, its like your brain gets locked on what happened, on keeping it from happening again, and noticing any possible signs of danger whether perceived or real. Mostly perceived, we don’t want to get caught in that same helpless state as before.
The damage that is done by abuse is REAL. Whether male or female. Men can be abused, whether as kids, or teenagers. And those are some of the fears, issues, and myths of males sexual abuse, I will attach a link to 1in6 which provides more info.
Male Survivor links:
Another link with Singer Chris Brown mentioned:
Our Past Remains, Unless It's Faced 