112 - 🎥 Male Survivor Awareness Day - “Disclosure” (from the PLC/HM LIVE event 10/25/23 - #MSAD2026)

[00:00:04] Welcome to the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. This is a podcast for male survivors of sexual abuse and assault, whether as a child or as an adult. Know that you are not alone and the abuse was not your fault. My name is Mike Chapman. I'm a certified recovery life coach and also a survivor. Let's find hope and healing together.

[00:00:30] Welcome to the 2023 Male Survivor Awareness Day with Husband Material and the Husband Material community. I'm Mike Chapman, Husband Material coach and with me is Dr. Douglas Carpenter. Hello everyone. Also a Husband Material coach and a psychologist. Author of a few books. Yep. Which one is Secret Shame, which is all about male sexual abuse. Got that thing right here.

[00:01:00] There you go. There it is. There it is. And yes, this is our second annual Male Survivor Awareness Day. This year we are doing the theme of disclosure. That seems to be a hot topic. Well, why did you wait so long to tell someone? That seems to be a common question among people to survivors. And why did you wait so long? Doug, could you explain with your book? I know you have a whole section on disclosure.

[00:01:30] So tell me, why does it take so long for men to disclose their abuse? Throughout the research and throughout my own research and 20 plus years of working with victims, I was able to list over, well, actually about 40 reasons why I have uncovered that men don't tell. We know that so many men just carry this message or this abuse all the way to death and never,

[00:01:59] never disclose. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard in the therapy session a man disclose their abuse and then tell me that they've never ever told anybody I'm the first person they've ever disclosed to. One of the research articles that I cite in my book, and I just wanted to read this short quote from them, It's from a research study in 2017. And it says,

[00:02:24] Despite the increased attention to sexual abuse, males are significantly less likely to disclose sexual abuse victimization. They are less likely to seek help. They are less likely to be suspected of being a victim. They are less likely to be believed upon disclosure. And they're more likely to be blamed or blame themselves. And they are more likely to be perceived negatively when they do disclose their abuse.

[00:02:54] There's also another research study that shows the longer that you hold on to your disclosure, the higher your chance of mental distress, depression, anxiety, somatization, which is just a fancy word for converting emotional pain into bodily symptoms like headaches, stomach aches, gastrointestinal upset, body aches. And the longer we hold on to our disclosures, the higher the suicidality, the suicidal ideation that we have.

[00:03:23] One important study that I quote in the book was from a study in 2014, where it found that if your abuse was church related, like it was by a priest or a pastor or youth pastor or something like that, the average years that someone holds on to that is 25 years that most men don't disclose until they're in their 30s, 40s.

[00:03:49] And then there were a slew of research articles that talked about that men wait over 20 years to tell. Part of that, I think that the sexual abuse is so damaging to a man's brain is that it takes such a long time for the man to begin to heal and to come to grips with what happened with them.

[00:04:11] And finally, at some point later in their life, they start to recognize it as abuse and that it wasn't their fault. They stop imposing all this childlike thinking onto their abuse and they start seeing it like what the truth is for it. You know, I think another thing that happens in the 30s and the 40s is when you have your own children and your children get to the age that you were when you were abused,

[00:04:40] you realize that they are still small children and cannot, could not have consented to that kind of harm or activity or even pleasure. But they couldn't even consent to that. You might look at your nine-year-old son and think, oh my gosh, he's the age I was when I was abused. There's no way this was my fault. I could not have been responsible for this.

[00:05:05] And your abuse really starts to come to life to you instead of you believing all these myths that you have come to believe about it. There was another research study in 2005 that cited three big reasons why men don't disclose. Number one is men often fear that they will be viewed as a homosexual, that somehow this act was something of a homosexual act. I don't want to be viewed that way.

[00:05:35] I don't want to be perceived that way. They believe that something that the perpetrator did to them feminized them, damaged their masculinity. Another one is that men feel isolated due to the belief that boys rarely get victimized. And we are learning more and more and more that that's actually not the truth at all. In fact, there's a wonderful website, which I reference a lot, called 1in6.org.

[00:06:01] And that has tons and tons of research articles that show that currently the current statistics are that one in every six men have experienced some kind of unwanted sexual touch by the time of age 18. And for girls, it's one in three. So those are really staggering numbers.

[00:06:21] And then the third misconception about if I were to disclose is that men fear that if I was abused, that I'm going to then become an abuser. And you hear that a lot. But I want to tell you that the research shows that there's only a very small percentage of men who go on to abuse.

[00:06:46] And Freud psychoanalytic literature calls that identifying with the aggressor, that you gain back the power and control that you lost by actually then becoming the abuser. Again, let me stress that that only happens in a very small percentage of men, even though that's a huge misconception and misbelief and a myth that men come to believe when sometimes when they've been sexually abused. Right.

[00:07:11] So I definitely agree with that, what you were saying about, yeah, part of the fear of disclosure is if I tell someone they're going to think I'm not safe with children. And that's a common belief. And that does happen. I do see men who disclose and then people are like, oh, my gosh, he's probably a pedophile. I can't let him around the grandkids. I can't. And that is so not true. Those two things are so unrelated. Right.

[00:07:37] You know, like I said, only a small percentage of people have been abused go on to abuse someone else. Pedophilia has nothing to do with really sexual abuse, except in very rare, rare cases. Right. Now, you mentioned the when you have a child that reaches the age that you were around the same age that you were abused. I see so many stories, including in my own, where that was true, where your child, your firstborn gets to that age where you were first abused.

[00:08:07] And it's something about the smells, everything. It's in your face having this child at that age. And it just unlocks stuff. And especially even if memories were repressed. Yeah, I was just going to say it's oftentimes, too, when your child reaches the age that you were when you were abused, you can start being flooded with memories and intrusive thoughts.

[00:08:32] And there may be memories that were repressed or you had not thought of or were not even aware of that somehow come to your awareness, either through a dream, through intrusive thoughts, through, you know, watching a television show where there's some kind of abuse. And then all of a sudden you start dissociating. There are a lot of different indicators that can happen that start bringing back your memories of your own abuse. Right.

[00:08:59] Now, you mentioned the church abuse that almost seemed like with your stats that it would when it was a church related abuse that it took even longer than a non-church related abuse. Yeah, because I think in church abuse, you have as a child or an adolescent, you have the belief that this person represents God. Right. And so they would never do anything to purposefully harm you. So I must be confused.

[00:09:25] I must be confused about what happened or I could never disgrace myself or my family or the church or this priest or this pastor. You want to hold on to that belief and deny that that happened to you because this person represents deity to you. And and you can't imagine being harmed by somebody who represents deity. Right. It's harder to come to grips with the fact that that actually happened.

[00:09:53] And in fact, somebody just put in the chat that it took me almost 50 years. Yeah, I don't doubt that. You know, I know in my own abuse story that it took me and even being a psychologist, it took me almost 30 years before I could say that I was abused because I had falsely convinced myself because my perpetrator was my abuser was my own same age.

[00:10:15] He was just a boy that had more knowledge and manipulated sexual behaviors with me to be my friend. Actually, for me to be his friend, because I I struggled in elementary and junior high school and I didn't have male friends and he became my friend. And so I felt like the only way to keep this male friend was to continue to let him do these things with me. Right.

[00:10:41] You know, and so I convinced myself for, you know, 30 years that this was the experimentation, that it was two boys experimenting. And I wouldn't call it abuse until I would read books about childhood sexual abuse. I would work with other victims and I would sit and think, I have these symptoms. Why do I have these symptoms? It's like I was sexually abused, but I wasn't. But I have all these symptoms like I was. Right.

[00:11:09] And then finally, through the work with a therapist, I went to my own therapy. I came to terms with, hey, what happened here was sexual abuse. This kid had way more knowledge. He exposed me to tons of pornography. He manipulated that pornography to do things to me. And I felt trapped because he knew that I wanted a male friend because I didn't have one. And I think.

[00:11:34] Men also get confused about the term calling it abuse when physiologically there is a response to that abuse. They might get an erection or ejaculation through orgasm or just feel the pleasure. Plus that time, that special time. And part of the grooming process is to convince the victim that they're not a victim, that they're consenting. So there's lots of things to that.

[00:12:02] One is that unless there's anal penetration or some kind of really rough oral sex, most male victims are not physically hurt. Right. In their abuse. You know, like I said, unless there's penetration or something that was really rough. A lot of times it's the perpetrator doing something to the kid that feels really good and leaves them even more confused. You know, I spend a whole chapter in my book talking about body betrayal.

[00:12:30] Well, these boys, us, me included, feel like our bodies betrayed us because it responded. I mean, the first time I had an orgasm was at the hands of this kid. And I didn't. I was a pretty naive kid sexually. I did not know what was going to happen. I did not know about orgasm. I did not know that the male body did that. I was clueless. And it, you know, rather than it being pleasurable, it freaked me out and scared me half to death because I didn't understand what was going on.

[00:13:00] So you feel like your body betrays you in those moments because your body responds in positive ways to the to being touched. And it responds sexually. And you do have an erection and you do have orgasm. And so those things happen, leaving you very, very confused about why did my body react to this? So it can't be abused because I wasn't harmed. It can't be abused because my body responded. So we we tend to just lie to ourselves.

[00:13:27] When somebody stimulates the penis, whether you want them to or not, it's going to respond to touch. That's the way God designed you. Right. There's not you're not flawed because your body responded. That really showed that you have a healthy working penis because when somebody touched it, it became aroused. And that's what it's supposed to do. It doesn't know the difference between types of touch. It just recognizes touch. It's kind of stupid. Right. Yeah.

[00:13:58] Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. So it just realizes I'm being touched in a response. It doesn't it doesn't know the difference between love and affection and intimacy and abuse. Right. It just responds to touch. It's a stimulus response. Yep. There's a comment in the chat. It took me 57 years to disclose. Also not disclosing for me was to avoid the other males in my life labeling me as gay. And you mentioned that earlier.

[00:14:25] And I believe my exposure to male sexual abuse did mean that now I was gay. I must be gay. And that happens so much. They either feel like, well, I'm gay now because that happened to me. The guy used me like a female. So he feminized me. Right. He must have saw something gay in me to think that he could do that to me. You know, I don't feel like a boy anymore. I don't feel like a man anymore.

[00:14:55] It felt good. Just like Roger say. Now, I liked it. I must be gay. Right. Well, of course you liked it. That's the male body. And that's the confusing part is because our body does respond to the touch. Right. But you have to think our bodies at 13, 12, 13 years old can respond and even younger can respond to touch. But that doesn't mean your mind that you're cognitively ready for this kind of interaction.

[00:15:25] You don't know how to interpret it. You don't know how to resolve it. You don't know what's safe. When the abuse is done by somebody who you love, it is so confusing because you love this person. You trust this person. This person is special to you. You're special to them. And then they sexualize your touch.

[00:15:51] Now, your body's going to respond when somebody you love is touching you. And you may not even recognize it as abuse because they have couched it in. There's some specialness to what we're doing. Sexual abuse says nothing about your sexual orientation. Your body responding to another male says nothing about your sexual orientation.

[00:16:19] You know, I tell I this is really blunt, but I tell men in therapy all the time. If I blindfolded you right now and tied your hands behind your back and had somebody come in and perform oral sex on you, you would have no idea if it was a man or a woman. And your penis has no way of knowing if the person that is touching you is male or female. It's just a reflex. It gets touched. It responds.

[00:16:45] So that has nothing to do with sexual orientation. It's nothing to do with your true desire. It is all just the process of arousal. Right. Now, you shared a little bit about your story of disclosure, how I responded. See, for my own abuse, I had repressed all the memories until I was 30. And like you said before, that was around the time my daughter was the age that I was first abused.

[00:17:13] And that's when all the memories started coming forth. It was feelings. And then I got help. And then, yeah, it was it was abuse memories. The trafficking abuse that was repressed until 2019, just a few years ago. The fact that I was sexually trafficked by my father to other men. And in both cases, I told someone right away. But by then, yeah, it was, yeah, decades from the time of the abuse.

[00:17:41] So it may be unconscious, but I definitely think there's something to the idea of when your kids reach the age that you were abused, mentally, consciously or unconsciously, things start to move. Right. Yeah. Let me read this other disclosure. Sexually abused twice by my brother, three years older than me, around age seven to eight. And by a male schoolmate at age 13. He was a year younger than me.

[00:18:09] By a male member of my church who was in his 40s when I was 28. And possibly by my mother around ages three to four years. It took me 15 years to disclose the abuse from my brother. And I struggled with opening up about the other three because of shame. So shame is definitely a huge factor. You mentioned that before. Shame is definitely one of the things in the list of 40 that I had. Shame is huge. And it's not just shame. It actually becomes toxic shame.

[00:18:39] Right. Right. Because shame is I've done something bad that becomes I am someone bad. And then turns into toxic shame, which I'm so bad that I'm completely unlevel. And that if people knew the real me, they would just completely reject me. Somebody wrote here, shame is paralyzing. Shame is very paralyzing.

[00:19:02] Toxic shame is very paralyzing because you just have nothing good that you feel about yourself or say about yourself inside your own mind. You have become worthless, unlovable, a terrible person, not worthy. Right. So shame is huge. Right. I like this other comment in chat.

[00:19:28] What I did find was that although my attraction was not to men romantically or visually, I became ambiguously attracted to sex in any form. And I believe you mentioned in your book that survivors tend to either become very ultra-sexual, hyper-sexual, or the opposite, asexual or non-sexual.

[00:19:52] And I think that was my experience was avoiding sex, being afraid of sex, whereas others feel like they need to prove themselves or they become very addicted to sex. Right. Right. Well, anytime that sex or sex issues happen in what's called the latency period, which is between 6 and 12, like your mind's not ready to process that information.

[00:20:18] But it has the potential of awakening sexual desire and sexual arousal inside of you. And it turns, it's like a switch. It goes in and flips the sex switch on. You become intrigued. You become curious. You want to find out more. You start searching for it. You start sexualizing things and people and situations and seek out information, seek out pornography, and then try to initiate those acts with other kids.

[00:20:47] I mean, it just like flips on a switch for some people. You know, I had a guy tell me one time, the first time I tried cocaine, I was hooked. And I think that happens a lot in sexual abuse too sometimes when it can flip on that switch of curiosity way before you're ready to do that and you just start searching it out anywhere and everywhere you can. Right. Yeah.

[00:21:13] I know we have another video of someone responding to that. One moment. And I share the screen. Hi, this is Daniel Eichelberger. I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I didn't disclose the abuse that happened to me until I was in my late 30s. I had gone through a period of clinical depression.

[00:21:36] And in the process of coming up out of that depression, I finally understood that what happened to me was actual abuse. When you're groomed by others to think that sexual activity is a way of bonding with them and a way of being close to them, you don't understand what's happening to you. You feel like you're complicit.

[00:22:02] You feel like you wanted what they were wanting you to do with them. You come to expect it. You even come to initiate it sometimes because you were taught or groomed to think about it in a certain way and in the incorrect way, obviously, because abusers are adept at grooming. So I didn't understand what happened to me. I was very ashamed of my past. I was very ashamed of what happened to me or what that said about me. I didn't want to be gay.

[00:22:32] I was afraid that it said that I was gay. And so, of course, I didn't disclose, not even to my wife when we married because I didn't understand it. So in my late 30s, I finally was able to start understanding what happened to me was actually an abuse. And then I was able to gradually have the courage. I first disclosed it to some of my closest friends.

[00:22:58] And after I worked through it for a little bit, then I had the courage to actually tell my wife. And from there, I started blogging, first under a pseudonym and then under my own name as I got more courage. Many times, abuse survivors don't talk. They don't tell. They don't report to authorities because the people that abuse them are their friends or family, people they've come to love.

[00:23:26] And they do not understand the magnitude of sexual encounters or what that says about them. So what do you think about that? I think everything he said was very accurate. It was right on. Right. Right. Yeah. And I would say that there's probably many men here listening who have had similar thoughts or experiences.

[00:23:48] Or I quote Tyler Perry in my book that he made a statement about his perpetrator, something to the effect of, I didn't know what to do with what this man had given me to carry. Yeah. Someone in chat would totally resonate with what Daniel said. Yes. For sure. But yes, you carry that. Even when it's repressed by many of us. I say the memories are locked in a vault, but it's a leaky vault. So all kinds of stuff comes out and still informs.

[00:24:18] Well, and I use the word lens a lot. Even if something is unconscious, it still is a lens that you are seeing the world through. You may not be aware. Like sometimes I'm not aware that my glass, these turn into sunglasses outside. You know, but the transition is so small that sometimes I don't even realize it's transitioned. And I think our abuse is somewhat the same way. It begins to cloud our vision, whether it's conscious or unconscious.

[00:24:47] And we begin to see the world in a very different light and see ourselves in a very different light. You know, when you look in the mirror at that person who's been abused, you see them through that lens in your mind's eye. Right. Of your own abuse. Right. And so many of the feelings of worthlessness that we have no value. That's extremely common because that mostly subconsciously, that's what we were told.

[00:25:15] Because that's how we were used as just this dirty rag to be used and then thrown away. And so much of that gets internalized for sure. Yeah. Well, and I like what Roger is saying here. A child or even a teenager cannot process what has happened because they have no mature life experiences in which to view it. It throws you off the rails of healthy maturity regarding sex.

[00:25:41] Yeah, because how can you understand and have a grasp of what healthy, mature sex is when you've been sexually abused and it's been introduced to you at a very young age? There's nothing healthy about that. It's not just a violation of your body. It's a raping of your mind. Right. I'm going to switch gears a little bit. So I have a question from the community. How has the abuse affected your everyday life?

[00:26:12] Let's see. For me, it has affected, especially like we said, I had that leaky vault. I had those repressed memories and it affected who I was. I was afraid of men. I was afraid of friendship. I was afraid of sex. I felt worthless. I had a hard time making friends. I was afraid of men. Didn't know why. It had such a profound impact on me. And then when I uncovered the abuse, then it started making sense.

[00:26:41] Then I uncovered the trafficking. Then even more made sense of why I respond the way I do. So many things like hypervigilance, all the things that go with PTSD that I experienced. Yeah. It informed how I am, who I am as a person. And as I get healed, the whole of my identity has changed and been uncovered.

[00:27:06] So now I'm this life coach who is sharing this message to other people and helping other men heal. And it's just been this amazing journey of who healed Mike looks like versus wounded Mike. So how has that journey been for you, Doug? And then we'll go to the comments and chat. I feel like in some ways it kind of made me further hate men. I didn't trust men. I didn't like men.

[00:27:34] I didn't really want to have male friendships because I felt so taken advantage of by the male friendship that I had. I also then often sexualized men and turned them into sex objects in my head. I thought that's all they wanted or that I would have to do something or be something sexual or entertain them somehow sexually, even if it was just with constant dirty jokes or crude comments.

[00:28:03] And that I just kind of avoided them because I didn't think I could ever truly have a real friendship with men. And it wasn't until I started my own healing journey several years ago that I have opened myself up and allowed myself to have true male friendships because I just kind of grew to hate men, actually. Right. Interesting. Yeah. Let's see. Lewis responds.

[00:28:30] It created pockets of fear, shame, and self-loathing. People became objects sexually. It was hard to connect on a healthy level. I ruined relationships thinking I needed to sexualize them to cement the relationship. I think I thought that in my head so that I just avoided male friendships. Right. Right. That makes sense. And then Dan responds.

[00:28:57] I've always felt wrong and also insatiably curious about sex and look for it under every rock. Yep. Reminds me of the book Bent on Men, which doesn't really cover abuse, but it talks about same-sex attraction and that so many of us experience. And it was a great firsthand story about what that is like. Yeah.

[00:29:25] Lewis's comment here, I totally resonate with that. It never made me feel like a normal. It also never made me feel like a normal boy or man. I mean, I totally felt that way because, like I said, my first orgasm was at the hands of another boy. How do you sit around and tell that when boys are telling jerk-off stories with one another, you know, and laugh at it? Like, that wasn't funny to me. And I knew people wouldn't think it was funny if I brought it up. So I felt a ton of shame. I never felt normal.

[00:29:53] I was teased for being feminine and too much like a girl. And then when that happened to me, I felt even more distant from my masculinity and that I wasn't truly a boy because now this had happened to me also on top of people already thinking those kinds of homosexual thoughts about me. Right. Let me go to another poem. This is from Chris. And let me get that going. Hi, Husband Material Men.

[00:30:21] My name is Chris, and I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. And I wanted to share with you today a poem that I wrote back in 2022, back in a period of time where I was really digging deep into my recovery and dealing with the issues that my sexual abuse as a child had caused. So I wrote a poem about my disclosure, and I wanted to share it with you today and then also talk a little bit about some of the images and where they come from and what they've meant as I've wrestled with what disclosure means.

[00:30:51] The poem is called After Silence. Silence. No need to seek out shame. Shame arrives uninvited, unbidden, muffling my voice like a winter sodden blanket. Darkness falls as twilight rises, a crepuscule of memory fogging mute. A boy, how small and frail he looks to me, stands frozen, mouth open wide, but with no words.

[00:31:19] He must maintain the silence. He must guard the silence. At all costs. At all costs. For a whisper may cost him everything. Bury the wordless in the dirt like a poison seed. Deep, deeper. Pretend it doesn't grow with snaking roots and lure it shoots. Pushing up. Up above the surface. Invading. Invading. Invading. Piercing.

[00:31:49] Reaching. Only to speak one strangled word. What noise will break the heart.

[00:31:57] What noise will break the heart after silence.

[00:32:24] The problem was is that when those things got buried deep inside, they began to grow. And the things that began to grow weren't good. So a couple of years ago I had a weird dream. And actually the dream informed some of the language of this poem. I dreamed I was in a house and I was young and I was in the kitchen. It wasn't a kitchen I recognized, but I knew it was in the house where my abuse had happened.

[00:32:50] And I began to notice a strange smell and it was coming from under the sink. And so I opened the cabinets under the sink and I saw that underneath there was just like black rot. But it was more than just black rot. It was like some horrible, evil plant that was sending out shoots everywhere. And I knew that it was causing not only the stench, but the evil presence that I felt.

[00:33:18] And I knew that it had to be cleaned up, but I didn't know how. So in my dream, my mom actually came into the kitchen and she looked at the thing that was growing, the evil plant, the evil seed. And she said, oh, I know what that is. I know what that is. And then I woke up. I later found out that my mom too had been a victim of childhood sexual abuse. So she did indeed know what that was. And her silence has lasted decades. So a disclosure, it's never easy.

[00:33:46] But what I've realized is that when you open up that kitchen cabinet and you begin to clean out some of those lurid shoots, the poison seed, that the fresh air comes in, that when you do disclose to people who care about you, that things can get cleaned up and healing can happen. So that's my poem. It's about disclosure. It's about silence. And it's about breaking silence and what can happen. Thank you.

[00:34:13] That last line of his poem just grabbed me. What's the thing that's going to break the heart that breaks the silence? Yeah. Wow. How powerful. Right. And it's so difficult to disclose when you... I know that I believed as a child that if...

[00:34:39] And actually, I'm just now having the insight to this in this very moment. So this is interesting. That there was a part of me that believed that I could not tell my mother because she would have blamed me. She would have shamed me. Because she was very much caught up in purity culture. And that would have been somehow me being dirty, doing something wrong that I shouldn't have done. Hmm. Wow. Yeah.

[00:35:07] For me, I did not disclose to my mother because my father was the abuser. Right. And I would kind of hint at it because there was a history of him abusing other extended family members when he was way, way, much younger before he was an adult abusing other extended family members. And my mother knew about those things. Situations are so horrible because you...

[00:35:36] That child constantly worries if they're going to be believed by the other parent. This is your spouse. And mom and dad are united. Yeah. Now, my situation, I didn't remember until I was an adult for my abuse. But then talking, hinting at it with my mother, I don't think she was ever ready to hear it. But then also, I was worried if I did tell her, would she be angry enough where she would, like, go grab a gun, kill him, end up in jail?

[00:36:05] That's the worst case scenario that my mind goes to. Well, one of the reasons that I listed in the 40 that are in the book is one is called obligatory violence. In some Hispanic cultures, there's a belief that if someone harms your child, such as in the area of sexual abuse, it is the father's responsibility to go pay that debt, to have revenge on that person.

[00:36:33] And there have been men disclosed many years later from Hispanic populations that said, I would not disclose my abuse because I knew my dad would have to go after that person. And I didn't want something to happen to my dad. I protected my father from the obligatory violence that would have to occur if I disclosed. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a common fear.

[00:37:02] And that goes with disclosure as well. That if I tell not what's going to happen to me, but what is going to happen to that person. So you feel that ex-responsibility for that truth being shared. And then. Often use that. Yes. Especially like if your, if your mother is a single mother. Well, if you disclose this, what's going to happen?

[00:37:25] You know, because I'll have to go to jail and then who's going to watch you because your mom has to work two jobs to survive. So the perpetrators will guilt trip people in their abuse to believing that something bad will happen to either them or their parent. If this is disclosed, or sometimes we'll even threaten if you disclose, I'll kill your mom. Right. Exactly. Let me go back to the disclosure statements. This is from CR.

[00:37:54] He says, my CSA experience, childhood sexual abuse experience occurred when I was around 12 to 13. It involved an older male cousin, three to five years older. I was in my early fifties before I ever disclosed this experience to anyone. I guess there were two main reasons for my delay in disclosure.

[00:38:14] For decades, I didn't identify my experience as abuse because my abuser didn't violate me physically, but he did invade and violate my childhood mind. He did things in my presence and in the presence of other boys. I think we call this non-contact abuse. Yes. Under the guise of teaching and showing us things.

[00:38:36] For years, I didn't realize or accept that this was for his own sexual gratification, nor did I understand the extent to which this experience impacted me and my life. And then he continues, I carried great shame and embarrassment for being part of this experience. I was young, very sexually naive, and deeply conditioned to believe that my participation in this event was sinful, dirty, and wrong.

[00:39:05] I was ashamed that it captured my curiosity at the same time and injected my young mind with confusion, fear, and doubt about my adequacy as a boy or man physically and in many other ways during that time and throughout my life. And continues, I was deeply impacted to hear in a recent documentary about the Boy Scouts abuse scandal. I believe that's on Netflix.

[00:39:32] That many men never disclose their abuse, and many of the ones who do wait until they're in their 40s or 50s to do so. They also stated that most of the men who disclose only disclose to a spouse or someone who is extremely close to them. So my only problem with everything you said there was this person used my participation in this. And it really wasn't participation. It was not participation.

[00:40:02] That implies consent and a willingness. That's right. It implies consent. And you were too young to give consent when your abuser was probably over the age of consent. You were being groomed and used for someone else's sexual gratification. That is not participation. Yes. That is abuse. Yes. Thank you for catching that. Yes.

[00:40:31] Yeah, that word just jumped out at me, like grabbed me. This is not, it was not participation. Even when Daniel made this point of sometimes that he even went back and instigated the abuse. And again, that's not even participation. You are not of the age of consent. You cannot consent to sexual acts.

[00:40:53] If you initiated, it is that person's responsibility to act as an adult and to not carry out that act with you. Right. And if this is somebody that you love and trusted, you were being manipulated. This was not you going back to participate. That was all part of a very manipulative, keen, you know, modus operandi of the person. Yes.

[00:41:22] It was their method of operation to groom you, to keep you trapped and keep you coming back for more. Yes, very much so. Yes. Let me do one more. I was seven years of age when I was first sexually abused by my next door neighbor. A few months after that, I was abused again by the same man at the corner gas station, for I found out accidentally that he worked there.

[00:41:47] The corner gas station became the primary spot where I was abused throughout my school years. There was another time when I was 15 years old, about three in the morning, an intruder broke into our house. It was that same next door neighbor. He raped me in my own bed while everyone was asleep. I always blamed myself. It was always my fault. A lot of it might be because of all the threats I received from that abuser throughout the years. Because of the abuse, I also struggled immensely with same-sex attraction.

[00:42:17] I absolutely couldn't stand the fact that I thought I was gay. I lived in fear. Absolutely no one could find out the real me. I was filled with extreme amounts of shame, guilt, and self-condemnation. I was petrified. No one could find out. It wasn't until I was 25 when I first came to the realization that I was a victim of sexual abuse.

[00:42:40] I still dealt with huge amounts of shame, guilt, and condemnation, even after I realized I was abused. The fear of anyone finding out the things I've done horrified me. And again, willing participant versus groomed to do those things. And I'm very proud of Chuck for writing that and allowing that to be shared. Yeah. He was standing in front of me. I'd give him a big hug. He continues.

[00:43:09] When I was 28, I fell in love with an absolutely beautiful lady. Before I proposed to her, I did tell her that I was abused. But that's all the further it went. I could not fathom the thought of saying anymore. The look of horror on her face scared me. Throughout our marriage, there were times that I told her. Little bits and pieces, but very, very little. Just lightly skimmed the surface. The shame, guilt, and condemnation filled my heart.

[00:43:36] A little over a year ago, at 58 years of age, I hit absolute rock bottom. I could not face my life anymore. It was there that the Lord led me to husband material. Yay. The love, support, and encouragement that I have received from everyone just melted my heart. Little by little, I was able for the first time to share my stories. It was extremely scary, but every time it gets a little easier.

[00:44:03] Throughout my involvement in recovery, I became stronger and filled with hope. About six months ago, I sat down with my wife and my family and told them absolutely everything. I want everyone to know the extreme amounts of shame, guilt, and self-condemnation devastated my life. That is the reason why it took me so long to tell anyone about my past. Thank you, and God bless.

[00:44:31] What a touching, touching story. And I'm so glad that you found your voice. Yes. And just finally let that out. Yes. And let the world see your beauty of who you really are. We're going to see a video from Roger sharing one of three poems. The first one is Daddy. And then we'll discuss it. Hold on. Daddy, did you love me? Daddy, did you like me? You were so big.

[00:45:00] I was so small. What did you see when you looked at me? Did I frighten you? Make you angry? Loose your demons? Did you feel better when you hit me? Were you ashamed? Sorry? Did you hold me? Help me stop crying? When you saw me naked, what did you feel? Pride? Shame? Lust? I was your kid. You were my daddy. I thought I loved you.

[00:45:31] I thought you loved me. When I helped you, were you happy with me? Ashamed of me? Angry at me? What did I do wrong? Was I not good enough? Did it not help? So many questions. But now you're dead. One last question. If I had been sleeping in the house that night, would you have killed me too? Roger has shared a story before.

[00:45:58] That as an adult, it came out that his father was abusing someone. And I believe he ended up killing himself and I believe he ended up killing himself and his wife and leave a grandchild who was a victim. So it was a murder-to-wilder. That's part of his story. And yet the poem reflects that. Devastating. Right. That's so confusing for a child.

[00:46:27] That's so confusing for a child with those memories wondering, okay, what happened? And then as you age out, you're just discarded. Right. Whenever you reach whatever that age is that they have that preference for, once you age out, then you're left as worthless. And then that continues the confusion and the hurt.

[00:46:48] That whole aging out thing, I think, is really prominent in the Neverland, Finding Neverland documentary. If you've not watched that, it's definitely worth watching, although it could very possibly be very triggering for some people. But at least two men intricately tell their story about their abuse with Michael Jackson.

[00:47:12] And you can see in their story, Michael Jackson's constant cycle, that he needed a boy between a certain age range. And once they would reach a certain age, he would discard them and be done with them, and he would be on to the next boy. So that cycle is so evident in Finding Neverland, if that's something you're, you know. Right. Leaving Neverland. Leaving Neverland. Leaving Neverland. Okay. It is on Macs still.

[00:47:42] It's still available. And there's an Oprah special that followed. I believe it's in the special features on there. So it's like five hours of content. And that was actually the thing that got me into, back into recovery in 2019, was that documentary. Oh, wow. That was the catalyst, watching that. And it's like, oh, I need to work on my stuff. And then Oprah mentioned the male survivor website. And I went there. And that got me to men healing.

[00:48:10] And then continued my healing. And then found Husband Material and so forth. So, but that was the main catalyst for sure. And let's see. We've got another. Let me do one more poem. And then we'll move on. This is from Rocky Pizer. Also a Husband Material coach. And this is his story. Hi, my name is Rocky Pizer.

[00:48:37] I've been asked to share for Male Survivor's Awareness Day. My backstory is that there was sexual abuse that took place between ages of eight and a half and almost 11 years old on a regular basis. And the biggest thing that I needed was when I finally chose to talk about it. I needed somebody who could just sit with my story. It took decades for me to come out with what happened when I was a little boy.

[00:49:07] It led to a lot of unwanted types of behaviors in me. So a part of the recovery I had from those unwanted behaviors was to eventually come out with my story of childhood sexual abuse. It was really difficult. It was hard to sit there and just start. And when I did start, it became a narrative that I didn't think I could stop. And it was highly emotional.

[00:49:36] And for decades, I didn't know that Little Rocky needed his story told. He needed somebody with empathy and compassion to not fix him, but to hear the story and hear the experience and the devastation and the hopelessness. Because in someone hearing my story and having empathy for it, I believe I began to see that it wasn't all that hopeless.

[00:50:06] And yes, even though it was devastating that there's a way to crawl out of that. And even though I carried it for decades, there was a way to release it and to begin to work through a healing process. So what I really needed was someone who wouldn't shy away from it, who would sit with me and who would ask me, what do you need? What can I be for you right now? And I also needed some support.

[00:50:34] Support is so critical to have community around me who gets it and guys around me who've been a little bit further down the path and could help me understand what was going on. That was all vital for me. When you first come out with a story, you're wondering how much is true and how much was made up. And maybe all of it was made up. Is this so difficult?

[00:51:00] It feels like a nightmare or feels like it couldn't have really happened. But when the narrative begins, your body is saying, see, it really happened. Because the body knows. My body knew it for all those years. And so for someone to see me and know me and still love me and see me as an adult instead of a little boy was huge. I'm grateful for those in my life who sat with me.

[00:51:27] I'm grateful for those in my life who lent a hand, for those who understood, and for those who had the patience for me to work through it over years and years and years. And for me to start living on the other side of it. I'm very grateful.

[00:51:45] And now my life looks like doing the same for others, being able to give back to other little boys that are trapped in men's bodies and have a story that their adult selves are so afraid to tell. I'll sit with them. And it is amazing. Well, thank you for hearing this. I hope this is helpful and bless you on this day. Thank you.

[00:52:07] I often think that a victim of male sexual abuse, they don't know how to have empathy for that inner child who's hurting and wounded until they see that modeled from another person. Right. Who then has empathy for that wounded self, that wounded inner child inside of you, that it then dawns on you that maybe I should have some empathy on my own inner child.

[00:52:37] That I didn't, I'm not to blame. I didn't bring this on. I didn't participate. I was truly abused. And then you learn to have some empathy. Right. I can't remember. Somebody, somebody before made reference to this and I was going to point it out. Oh, I think it was Chuck's story that he told little bit, little bit, little bit throughout the years. That's called incremental disclosure.

[00:53:04] A person is so concerned about how they will be perceived, if they will be believed, what others will think of them. The shame holds them back. That they feed you the cake one morsel at a time. Right. They hold this and they give you one piece at a time and see how you respond to that. Right. You can swallow that little morsel later when I feel safe.

[00:53:33] I'll give you just one little morsel until Chuck reached the stage where he was 58 or whatever he said when he finally sat down and disclosed to his wife and family the full extent of his abuse. Right. You know, that's called incremental disclosure. Right. I think. That happens a lot. And kids will do that, too.

[00:54:00] In fact, the research shows that the kids who have the most healthy outcome are those that disclose like immediately. But often, if kids even disclose, they will do this incrementally and they may say something like, and I use this example in my book, like they may just drop the hint like, I don't really like Uncle Johnny. Right. You know, I don't like it when he's around or I don't feel comfortable around him.

[00:54:25] And if a child says something like that, you know, the other people around them need to inquire about that. That needs to be a discussion. Tell me more about that. Right. You know, because they're incrementally trying to disclose something to you. And it probably there's probably a big cake back here. Right. Yeah. And I believe I started that with my mother and I put that one little morsel out. Remember when we found out that my father did all that stuff?

[00:54:55] What did you ever think about that? And her response was obviously she was not going to wanting to talk about anything remotely to that. And it was like, okay, not safe. Okay. Well, I'm just going to take this cake and put it away. Right. And so we test people. And if you want to tell bad enough, you test enough people that you can finally find somebody who will really listen. Right. Exactly. You can give enough of those morsels to that they can handle hearing the story.

[00:55:25] Right. Yes. Okay. Switching gears again. This is back to the questions from the husband material community at large. First from DB, I've often heard that CSA survivors are SSA prone, same sex attracted because of the abuse. I've seen CSA male survivors abused by other men turn out not having SSA, but OSA. I'm curious how that happens and evolves.

[00:55:55] So two parts of the same question. I know we mentioned earlier that the abuse often leads to acting out sexually. And then there's two prongs to that. Acting OSA, vetting as many women as you can just to prove your masculinity. Or you go the SSA route where you're going to just reenact the abuse.

[00:56:19] Even though it's more men having sex with men, then they might not even label themselves as homosexual per se, but still have sex with other men. Versus the other extreme of that. Those are the two sides of the same extreme. You become completely non-sexual, asexual. Well, and it can happen both ways. And I can't tell you who's going to end up like, I believe it was Dan said that he, you know, it flipped that switch and it turned on sexual curiosity.

[00:56:50] And he was kind of both. Yeah. And there are men that it can turn on the same sex attraction. For me, it turned on same sex attraction. Right. Likewise.

[00:57:02] I think the reason for that for me was once I realized what my abuser had done to me and that he caused me to have an orgasm, that I then, once I figured out that that was an orgasm, it took me a few days. And I thought, I wonder if I can make myself do that. So then I started doing it to myself.

[00:57:26] Well, but I was raised in a very strict, strict, strict Christian home where the thought of lusting after a girl or having a sexual thought about a girl was a very, very big sin. And so when I first started masturbating, I would do it to fantasies of what my abuser had done to me. Right. And so I think that began to solidify sexual thoughts and feelings associated with males.

[00:57:56] Right. I know when I shared my story with Drew, I mentioned that was very common with survivors, that you eroticize the abuse, you sexualize the abuse, and try to reenact it, sometimes subconsciously. Especially if it's repressed and then it's that leaky vault again, that dirty lens. You're seeing things through that's informing how you respond, how you act. Larry says, it took me around 42 years to disclose to a pastor.

[00:58:26] Still on the 14-year journey of learning who I am because of the abuse and how it has affected me. I was 5 to 6, ages 5 to 6 when it happened, plus stuff after, but I blocked it as much as I could, but the damage was done. Yeah. Yeah. Blocking it, denying it, pushing it away like it doesn't exist. None of that works. Right. Yeah. Let me go to another video.

[00:58:56] This is another poem from Roger called I Believed. And I believed. You said I was too small, and I believed. You said I looked funny, and I believed. You said I was too clumsy, and I believed. You said I was too dumb, and I believed. You said I talked nonsense, and I believed. You said I was worthless, and I believed.

[00:59:24] You said my body was yours, and I believed. You said it was right, and I believed. You said you were the dad, and I believed. You said wrong was right, and I believed. I grew up believing lies. The trouble with lies is truth, and truth is not ruined by scrutiny. You fathered me, but I had no dad. Very sad.

[00:59:54] Right. Very true. Yes. Let me do one more. This is something from Jim Farrington. Hey there. My name is Jim Farrington. And for Male Survivor Awareness Day, I was asked to share my story. What it means for me as a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of men is that I've had to work through my identity.

[01:00:21] And the Lord's really helped me to discover my true identity.

[01:00:26] What makes it hard for me, in my estimation, is when you have men that are opposite sex attracted, that don't come from the same kind of background, that the reception of who we are as individuals that Jesus has liberated, that Jesus has healed, or is healing, is a really powerful one.

[01:00:51] But one of the things that I worked through as a survivor of child sexual abuse is my sense of worth and my sense of identity and my sense of belonging, even belonging to the world of men.

[01:01:05] And one of the most powerful experiences for me, which underscored my need for men to build healthy same-sex friendships based on the good of who we are as sons of God. And I had a, early on in my journey, I met a man who, it was a family and they worked for Teen Challenge.

[01:01:30] And I was really about a year out of my journey into the reality that I had been created heterosexual and that my, I struggled only with homosexual sin. And I helped them one Thanksgiving to serve the men that were there for Teen Challenge. And after we served them, then we, we ourselves, the volunteers ate. And I was sitting next to him and we're just relating and talking and fellowshipping.

[01:01:58] And his wife was up there sitting across from me or sitting next to him, but he did something that was powerful. In relating to me, he was simply interacting with me and he put his hand on my leg as he's interacting with me. And it was the first time that a man had touched me because I had value as a human being. There was no erotic response to it. There, there was no connection to my past in it.

[01:02:28] And I recognized it for the first time that I could be touched because I'm human. And that was a very powerful lesson for me to learn. And I think that one of the challenges of men who are opposite sex attracted is that they're intimidated. They're intimidated by someone that's come out of homosexuality. And so they're afraid to engage with them. There's, there's underlying fears. Are they attracted to me? Are they going to want to be with me?

[01:02:55] You see them interacting with their, their buddies in a, in a way that's connecting and fellowshipy and, and, and close. And yet they're standoffish with you or they give you fist bumps. I really hate that. I really hate the fist bump. It's like, I can't engage with you on the premise that you have value because you were created in the image of God.

[01:03:18] But I can fist bump you and, and I would love for, for people to actually understand where I've come from and who I am rather, rather than make any inward judgments about what I'm thinking or what I'm feeling. And, and the fact that, you know, that even if I am struggling with, with any kind of attraction, which most of the time I'm not, God's really healed me in that area.

[01:03:48] That's still something I have to work through. And that, and it's not something that everyone has to be concerned about, right? If we've laid it all at the cross, then that should be where, where we engage one another at the foot of the cross. And so that's, that was what I wanted to share. I think it's important. And I've always felt that that was a necessary thing for same-sex strugglers to be able to build relationships with men who don't come from the same background. Yeah. A lot of good points that he made. He did.

[01:04:17] Dan says here, men need to show acceptance and affection to one another. And the fear of both SSA and CSA in men is like a prison where I think he means locked in. Yes. That we're all locked in. Yeah. Because you can have healthy male touch is appropriate and it's good and it's healing. And it doesn't have anything to do with CSA or SSA.

[01:04:44] I wanted to throw this out there that several of you went to the healing from sexual abuse webinar that Drew and I did back in 2021. Yep. Year and a half ago. Mike was a, one of the great facilitators of that. And you can go watch the clip. It's called arousal versus desire. Drew made it the 15 minute clip into its own podcast. And it's been the second most watched podcast that he's ever created.

[01:05:10] But it gives a great example of something that my next book, which I'm almost done with, is called arousal versus desire. And it's an explanation of what is the difference between arousal and desire. Desire, I define as something that was God given to you. That was your sexuality. It was your craving for love and intimacy and connection and sex. And it's wholesome. It's good. It's beautiful.

[01:05:38] But what happens is sexual arousal gets pulled out of desire. And that happens with experience. And we form a sexual template. And so if you're a male and you're exposed to male sexual abuse, and that's your first experience, that is the material that's written on your sexual template and becomes your sexual arousal pattern.

[01:05:59] Arousal is about your body automatically responding or becoming conditioned to respond to a specific act that then your mind goes back to trying to recreate. Just like you mentioned a little bit earlier about same-sex attraction, that that's often a recreation of the sexual abuse experience that they once had.

[01:06:23] So your arousal pattern and what you've been conditioned to, again, can say nothing about your sexuality and your sexual orientation. You may be aroused by men. You may be attracted to men. But you may have been conditioned to do that through abuse.

[01:06:42] And that is inconsistent and incongruent with your sexual desire, which your desire is to be in a loving, God-ordained, heterosexual relationship and move on in your life and have children. And all the things that we as men, God designed us to be and do. But that's your sexual arousal has been pulled awry to become something totally different.

[01:07:06] And that's where it's been taken off track from what God really designed for you and what experience has brought you and taught you. And those are two very different things.

[01:07:19] And a lot of my work with men who have same-sex attraction, when we begin to explore that attraction, it's really about something that they became conditioned to at a young age and really wasn't part of their sexual story that was their natural story or what God designed for them. Right. Going back to disclosure statements, Darren says, It took me 26 years to disclose the sexual abuse. I was afraid of what others might think.

[01:07:48] I blamed myself a bit because I didn't fight it for the three years that it occurred. I was ashamed of how my body responded to the abuse. I didn't fully understand how much the abuse impacted my arousal template and the way I related to others. Perfect timing. That was meant to be there. There you go. Yeah. Like we mentioned before, that the male body physiologically will respond to the abuse.

[01:08:17] And abusers will use that against us as well. Plus our own shame for how that experienced. Let me do another one. Here is from Chad. I told my parents about my eldest cousin's abuse towards me. I was between the ages of 5 and 15 when I was 20. My dad didn't have a great reaction. I only realized it was called abuse at around age 18 or 19.

[01:08:45] So this is three to four years after the abuse occurred. It was bad news on top of more bad news for him. It was a self-focused reaction and not the empathetic reaction that I needed. My mom already knew. My wider family included the parents of my abusers that I didn't tell directly to confirm until about five years ago. It was awful and not what I pictured.

[01:09:12] My aunt ignored my mom for a couple years for bringing it up. I don't really call her aunt so-and-so anymore. She denied that it happened. There's stories of really bad reactions when you do disclose. That's quite common. What do you think the best way for a loved one to respond to abuse allegations when we hear a story that the family member had been abused?

[01:09:40] Especially when it was by another family member or someone close within the family circle. Well, definitely by listening, accepting what they're saying, comforting them, believing them, listening and believing them, not blaming them. Not implying that they were a participant in it, but to let a person tell their story in a safe, loving environment.

[01:10:09] Right. It's so difficult to disclose. Right. And I did share with my sister and that was her response. She believed me right away. She was sorry for that happened. That was the best possible response from her. I was so pleased, I guess would be the right word, that she responded that way. It was very encouraging to me and helpful.

[01:10:38] Unfortunately, yeah, let me bring that in here. Something about institutional disclosure. When I was 20, I was abused by a Methodist pastor. He sexually assaulted me, started back rub and then led to him touching places he wasn't supposed to be touching. Not much happened in the way of punishment for this man.

[01:10:59] Fast forward 2019, when I reopened everything, like I mentioned earlier, several of my friends in Male Survivor and elsewhere, they were disclosing church groups of their abuse as children. And that encouraged me to do the same thing. So I got a hold of United Methodist Church leadership nationally, and they got a hold of someone from that local jurisdiction.

[01:11:26] They found the files, then they tried to offer some compensation for therapy. And when I talked to the person in their group who was responsible for talking to me about all of this, it was uncovered that I was abused by my father as a child as well. I just mentioned that to them in passing. Didn't mention the trafficking stuff. I kept that to myself.

[01:11:52] But that little instance of disclosure, they then used that against me to say, oh, well, yes, we want to offer you money for your therapy. However, you also have this other stuff happen. So anything that we give for this is also going to help that. And we don't want to have to pay for that. So we're going to pay you less now. So as if I was damaged goods, that because I was already damaged, that the damage that their guy caused me was somehow lessened. And that was a church group.

[01:12:22] That was a church group doing that, that they are protecting their own. Even though they're supposed to be looking out for the flock or whatever, they often look out for their own. And same thing with Catholic Church, with Boy Scouts, with athletic groups, where all of these things happen.

[01:12:42] When disclosure happens to an institution, the institution will protect its own and not look out for your benefit. And that's why so many people, they hear these horror stories. And it's so difficult and they don't want to disclose. What's the point? Because you're going to be treated so poorly and you become re-traumatized from the disclosure. And that was my experience.

[01:13:12] I was so livid about the experience. And yeah, feeling, yeah, okay, I'm damaged goods. So my value is less. My reimbursement value is less because I was already damaged. And those kind of things are used when you disclose to institutions. We were talking earlier about how that statistic about how men wait 25 years, especially if it's been religiously related. That could be another factor in that.

[01:13:40] You're not just going up against a person who abused you. You're going up against an institution. Yes, exactly. So that's a great point, Mike. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like Dan's comment. Yeah, they have attorneys who take these cases and they have no compassion whatsoever. And it's very sad. Let me load up this last poem from Roger called Waiting. Waiting for something. His presence offered something.

[01:14:10] Something I needed, but had no name for. Not sure I even do now, but there it was. Counterfeit, but close enough for a boy who didn't know the difference. When I was gone, it left a hole I have spent decades trying to fill. Looking for the counterfeit. I'm looking for the counterfeit. Hoarding fool's gold because I cannot recognize the real thing.

[01:14:35] Dismayed at its lack of value and ability to fill that hole. Trying many variations, but fool's gold will never be gold. Gold has no substitute. Something may attract the eye. Something may be offered or forced. And still, the hole is there waiting for something. Yeah, like the fool's gold that you're looking for that love and affection.

[01:15:05] And you want more of it, but in unhealthy ways. But it's valid needs that we have for that connection. Valid, very valid. Yeah, but then when we do get it in these very unhealthy ways, it's imprinted like you mentioned. And that's where we seek it out. I also think it's so neat how so many of these guys can write poetry and work out some of their issues.

[01:15:33] Because using that creative part of your brain and writing about your trauma is really so helpful and can help you so much resolve the angst and some of the feelings that you have. And it can bring, it can pair words and language to feeling. Right. And what you're feeling. And sometimes when you don't even know what to say, but you find a way through creativity to say what you need to say. Exactly.

[01:16:01] Through symbolism and poetry or even just journaling or, you know, I know for me writing my own books was very therapeutic and healing to my own journey. Right. I think I mentioned last year's event. I had gone to a workshop and they mentioned that any kind of creativity and art, that's all right brain. And I believe trauma is stored in the right brain.

[01:16:25] And so you can often access through the arts, parts of your brain, parts of your memory and processing that trauma through the arts that you might not be able to access otherwise. And I know I've written poems as well. In fact, two of my poems are featured in that same book, Secret Shame of yours. Thank you. And that's why I think art therapy can be so powerful. Yes.

[01:16:50] Because it's, it's that creativity and, and putting an externalization of those feelings, but turning them into something creative to where your soul can speak, even if it's not words. Right. Right. Yes. I believe I also mentioned last year, I attended a workshop a few years back, a weekend event for survivors.

[01:17:12] And during break time, one survivor mentioned he was very big on visual arts and loved painting and was a B, it was all these abstracts. And he brought out his phone and he showed it. And it's like, and I mentioned, wow, it's so nice that you used your art as a medium for getting out your abuse stories. Cause all the, and he's like, no, I don't. I'm going, yeah, you do this painting right here.

[01:17:37] This is just like that story you told an hour ago and about here's the lake and here's the river and here's what you walking across. And no, it's not. And then somebody else who heard the story too. Yeah. Yeah. I totally see that too. It's right there. And then he showed us another one. Oh yeah. This is that other part of this story that you shared.

[01:17:53] And it's like that inner part of him, that little boy inside of him was sharing the story of the abuse through the art subconsciously and informing the decisions that he made on these abstracts, but it was telling his truth. And he didn't even know to look for it. And then we all pointed out. It's like, wow. And he was kind of blown away by that, that it was so easy for us as outsiders to see that.

[01:18:20] But yeah, that, that, that part of the brain that held the trauma could be accessed through the arts. Absolutely. Yeah. So I would encourage men to, to find a creative outlet.

[01:18:34] Also, if you are somebody who doesn't feel safe from your abuse, getting into martial arts can be so healing for bringing, you know, Bessel van der Kolk talks about bringing, bringing it back online. You know, using your body to learn how to defend yourself and fight for yourself can really unfreeze the trauma that your body has stored and frozen.

[01:19:04] And so creativity outlets, martial arts, putting movement to that. All of those things can be such healing steps in a person's, a person's healing journey. Let me read this one first. Alan says, it took me a few months to tell my wife after remembering what happened and reliving it every day till it broke me. She's the only person I've told in person, but I have shared online here and meaning in husband material and a few other places.

[01:19:34] Last year, I did an interview for a podcast for survivors. I thought it went great, but after a while they pulled it off their site. First time they've done that. They're good people and I'm sure they had their reasons, but hard to avoid the takeaway that your story is not worth listening to. Disclosure can be a minefield props to all the guys here who show grace in listening.

[01:19:56] Speaking of which, I do have my own podcast now and it is Healing for Male Survivors with Mike Chapman on all podcast platforms. And it was so healing when I shared my story on a podcast. And like Alan, I started online and like other person mentioned earlier, yeah, you start anonymously. I think Daniel mentioned that you start anonymously then. Okay, I can start using my real name. Then you use a real name and then you share it online.

[01:20:23] You share it on podcast and it's like, oh, okay. And it emboldens you. Yeah, it's okay to share your truth. Right. And yes, so I have that platform for that very reason. And anyone who would like to come on and you can be as anonymous as you would like, want to share your story. I would love to have you. And with that, let me go. Thanks for having me. Yes. And you have a poem you would like to share, correct? Yeah.

[01:20:52] And I just wanted to briefly say before I read it that my story started out with not sexual abuse, but severe mental and emotional and physical abuse from my father. Which, by the accounts that I've heard started as young as 11 months old, which was the first time I got beat to where I needed first aid.

[01:21:13] As I began processing this finally at the age of 57 with a trauma therapist, it was the first time that I could actually hear and process the idea that it wasn't my fault. And I could say that, I could have a conversation with you about it, but I never believed it until then.

[01:21:37] But at that time, I think even as young as 11 months old, I believed that my sort of my psyche or whatever you want to call it was fragmented into at least three distinct parts. It's a soul-sucking need for my father's affection and approval, terror of my father, and rebellion against the injustice of it.

[01:21:59] And so when I began to be abused at age five by older men, it felt from that point on like I had a neon sign over my head that said, broken little boy, come use me. And that went on into my 20s from that point forward, and I was also fascinated and drawn to it. So I always felt responsible.

[01:22:23] But when I finally was able to start disclosing at the ripe old age of 57, it took almost another three years before I came to a place where I realized that my Savior was with me through the whole experience.

[01:22:38] And it preserved me through such a time as this, where I could see other men and empathize with them and speak for them and speak for myself and be a witness of God's redeeming love and redemption and healing and restoration.

[01:23:02] And I was sitting in a, I don't know, some kind of panel that we had about a year ago with HM. And men were telling about horrific abuse that included harm, beating, I think Mike, you were talking about it, and sexual abuse all wrapped up into one. And I was sitting by myself watching this and listening. And I was screaming in the building I was in.

[01:23:31] Fortunately, I was alone, but I was screaming with the agony of it. When we got done talking that night, I wrote this poem. Sitting Shiva for our lost innocence. I come before you, brothers. I pour out all my pain. I'm on my face before you. I'm mourning and ashamed. I see all of us here. I see all our lost youth. I see all of us here that we've become. Uncouth.

[01:23:58] The lost child in each of us is far beyond our reach. Our tiny hearts and minds locked in the chains of time. Our hearts cry out in anguish. Our souls wail and mourn with grief. Our sweet young selves were captured, stolen by a thief. All that is left of us feels helpless, unredeemed. We sit among the ashes. We pound our fists and scream. Will no one come to help us?

[01:24:27] Will no one set us free? All we have left to us is all this filth you see. We sift through all these ashes. We pick at our bleeding sores. Will no one bring us justice? Is no one keeping score? Should we give up our struggles? Should we curse God and die? Should we lose hope in having our rightful piece of pie? We're all here sitting Shiva, our young selves locked in pain.

[01:24:54] Will no one come redeem us and set them free again? Our Savior sits among us with sackcloth on his head. He mourns with us as brothers. He gives us of his bread. Christ washes us with living water and binds our wounds with care. And he gives our lives their meaning. And he showers us with love. Our mighty friend arises and takes each of our hands.

[01:25:20] And with each one apprises our purpose in this land. Our faithful friend and Savior says the time for Shiva is done. Our mighty Lord, he saves us and leads us, God's own son. He will not leave us mourning. We've no more time to weep. He shows us the new mourning. He takes us to the street. There's no more time for Shiva. There's no more time to cry.

[01:25:50] Our champion released us and taught our youth to fly. We praise our mighty Savior. We sing what he has done. We dance and shout our praises. Our champion, God's own son. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. Yes. It's a great reminder that God is with us and was with us through all of it. Even when we didn't feel it, we didn't know it, we didn't recognize it, we didn't see him there.

[01:26:19] We were caught up in our own pain. Right. For those in the audience sitting Shiva, it's a Jewish custom, time of mourning. When someone dies, the family gets together and talks, mourns. And this is for days, days long ritual of mourning where the family comes together and just stays and talks about the loss. And it's that time of healing together of mourning.

[01:26:47] So that's the context where that title comes. Yeah, very appropriate. And I encourage this to the clients I work with as well, that taking time to mourn the loss is very important. Mourn the loss of childhood. Mourn the loss of innocence. Mourn the abuse. And that's part of the healing journey is allowing yourself to mourn. Let's see. I've got another disclosure. This is from Mike, a different Mike.

[01:27:16] I was not even aware that I was sexually abused until I was 49 years old, about two and a half years ago. It took a lot of hard work of peeling back layers of trauma from other events before my body was ready to remember. I was about seven years old when the event occurred. While I was in the process of recovery, I needed to get an ultrasound done.

[01:27:38] And the ultrasound tech placed the wand in a particular spot on my body and it triggered the memory of the sexual abuse. Once I realized what it was and what had happened to me and some of the details from these flashbacks, I immediately told my then wife and my life coach.

[01:27:58] It didn't take long for me to disclose once I realized that this was because I was already in the process of healing other stuff. And I've had a lot of people say things like that, like his story. There's actually a really cool book called Unchained Memories. It's an older book at this point, but it's a psychiatrist, Lenore Terre.

[01:28:22] And she has several stories in that book where people like what was just recounted here by Mike, that somebody touched them or looked them in a certain way in their body or a certain look at them. And all of a sudden their memories popped into their head. So, you know, his story there reminds me again of Bessel van der Kock's book. The title of it is The Body Keeps the Score. Right.

[01:28:50] Your body registers and recognizes and keeps that trauma. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And like Mike's version, that's similar to mine. At 30, I remember the abuse by my father. And then it wasn't until, yeah, my mid-50s. So another 20 years after that, closer to 25 years when I remembered being trafficked and all of that has come out. But yeah, that it was peeling back layers.

[01:29:17] And then it's like, I'm ready to deal with this other stuff now. I have heard stories of men, you know, in their 40s, 50s going to see a urologist or some kind of medical doctor and having testicular exam. And that doctor is the first man who's touched them since their abuser.

[01:29:39] And they automatically like dissociate or get flooded with memories or have a bodily reaction to being touched again. Right. You know, it was interesting when I brought this up with my own urologist. I just brought this to his attention and said, are you conscious of this as a clinician? And he's like, I've never really stopped to think about that. And so I took him a copy of my book.

[01:30:05] And somewhere in my book, I talk about how people can react to medical exams. And I said, you need to read this. Because this is a very sensitive topic for people who've been abused. And the ways that you touch them, you might want to inquire about that before you examine someone. Because it can trigger people into dissociation. It can trigger people into intrusive thoughts and memories. And, you know, Mike's story there is powerful.

[01:30:35] And I think it's very true for a lot of people. Right. Yeah. Though it doesn't necessarily have to be sexual touch. And he said, he didn't even say where it was, specific spot on his body. For me, I got triggered. I think I was having a colonoscopy done. And I got triggered when the guy was just putting the little nasal cannular on because of how my father abused me.

[01:31:04] And now I'm at a point, okay, I've learned I need to disclose stuff. And I've disclosed to my dentist as well that certain procedures, yes, I will have flashbacks or I will have a trauma response to. And letting them know, okay, and this is how you communicate with me when I'm having those. Because, yeah, you can't just say, you know, okay. Sure, yeah, okay, okay, okay.

[01:31:30] Because compliance is part of the abuse. So, no, you want me to say okay? Yeah, I'll say okay. Yeah, everything's good, good, good, good, good, good. But it's not. So, yeah, for sure that all kinds of medical procedures can be traumatic. And triggering for sure. And we've got a few more on disclosure. This is from Roger, our St. Roger, who did all three poems. I was born in 49.

[01:31:57] I didn't disclose until 1995. In January of that year, he killed himself. This is related to that first poem he read. He killed himself and my mother. After he was caught in a situation he could no longer talk his way out of. I was free. Up until that time, I felt I was bound to honor my father by keeping the secret.

[01:32:23] I guess I was hoping by doing that, he would accept me and love me for real. I know that sounds pathetic, but it was such a strong pull to seek his approval and acceptance. And I could find no replacement for that. At that point, I almost wanted to die myself. The next few years were a horror. I was lost and pretty much gave up on almost everything in my life.

[01:32:49] Sorry to say it still hurts to this day and at times can affect much of my life. I guess it just went on too long. Eventually, I got into serious recovery and things were changing. But most of my life was wasted due to some stupid father wound. Yeah, those wounds run deep. And I think so many of us have father wounds.

[01:33:13] And it can affect us spiritually as well and our relationship with the Heavenly Father. I've got two more. This is from Peter L. It took me over 23 years to tell a single soul. It just all exploded back in 99 and I began to seek help. Some was okay. Some was crap. But now, hopefully, husband material will be my saving grace. And we hope so too. And through Jesus, of course. Yay. So, yeah.

[01:33:41] And there's bad therapists and good therapists. And, yeah, it takes a while to find a good match for sure. A last one. Dylan K. 20-something years. My wife began asking me questions like, Why do you hate yourself? And what was your first exposure to pornography? These questions triggered memories I'd thought buried or forgotten. Not because I even thought of them of abuse. But because I carried so much shame surrounding them.

[01:34:09] And I subconsciously made a promise never to tell a soul for fear of what they think of me. Because I believe myself complicit and wrong inside. It can relate to so many of these stories. I think a lot of people can resonate with that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that is all for this evening. Thank you so much for joining us. And Doug, how can we find you online? Well, you can go to my own website at douglascarpenter.com.

[01:34:38] That's probably the easiest way. And then just on the platform, anybody can feel free to DM me. Right. And that's within the Husband Material community. Which if you are not part of the community, husbandmaterial.co gives you a chance to sign up. And for me, I am at polarlifeconsulting.com. And that's also where you can get information about my podcast. And other ways I work with male survivors.

[01:35:07] And I'm also, like Doug, part of Husband Material. We're both certified Husband Material coaches. And thank you so much for joining us. And like they said earlier, something that I like to end with, that the abuse was not your fault.

[01:35:27] If you would like to learn more about my coaching with Polar Life Consulting, where I provide one-on-one coaching and group coaching, both with a focus on healing for male survivors, reach out to me at polarlifeconsulting.com. That is polar spelled P-O-L-A-R. I would love to hear from you. I want to hear your story. If you would like your story featured on this podcast, contact me via my website.

[01:35:54] If you like this podcast, please rate and review because that's how other people can find me. And I really want to spread this message of healing and hope to others. And remember, you are not alone. Healing is possible. And the abuse was not your fault. Let me repeat that. The abuse was not your fault. See you next time on the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. Healing is possible.