To The Survivors

Most of the time I try to keep my blog posts light and happy...but in all reality, I think about social issues a lot. Unfortunately, most of those aren't usually what you would consider "light and happy" at all.

Since it is my blog, and I can write what ever I want to, that is exactly what I am going to do right now. And just a warning, this is not a topic for young children.

Over the last two Fridays I have been able to watch two very disturbing, but very important, episodes of Oprah regarding men who were sexually abused as children. The whole audience was made of 200 grown men of all ages (probably mid 20's to 80's) who were survivors.  1 in 6 boys is sexually abused in America.

The pain that these men showed during the show was incredible. As some of the men told of how their childhoods were destroyed by adults, other men in the room wept, because each of them had a different yet similar story.

During the shows they showed a few statistics: 81% of those men had at some point in their lives contemplated suicide. 81% of 200 men, that means 160 of those men who could have represented anybody you know. A staggering 33% percentage of those had attempted it. The pain that one must feel to think about ending their own lives cannot be described in words. I won't attempt to write like I  know what it may feel like, because I don't, but I know that it is great. Most of these men were married, had children, perhaps grandchildren, and had careers etc...in a few words they didn't stop living their lives. Yet, this pain has always been present and has affected everything they are.

In between their testimonials, they showed a clip of a perpetrator speaking about what he thought he had caused to his victim. This perpetrator said, "I killed who she could have been." That is exactly what abuse does, it destroys people. It limits people's ability to allow themselves to be.

I don't really know why I felt compelled to write about this, but I guess I just want to raise my voice for those who feel that they cannot.

Being abused, especially when you are a man, is something that cannot be spoken about. It is a taboo topic. It takes your manhood away (as described by the victims). There are so many myths about what kind of people victims were when they were being abused or the people they will become. The myths make it so that men are even more afraid than women to report it or tell anybody.

First of all, anybody that has been a victim should not be ashamed. No matter what the details, a victim is a victim (period). Second, victims don't become abusers themselves. In my work I have spoken with many men and women who were victims of abuse as children. Most of them have grown up to be good people who hate abuse so much they cannot even think about causing hurt to anyone else. A true statement that Oprah made is that it is very possible that our jails are full of men who were abused as children, not because they have learned to hurt others, but because when you carry such hurt and feelings of betrayal, if you do not allow yourself to face them and work through them, they will be manifested as anger and dangerous behaviors.

My thoughts about this are: any kind of abuse needs to stop. I get tired when at work I see women and children who are abused. I get tired of mother's choosing their partners who are abusing their children, over their children. I get tired of men being abused by men. People's lives are being destroyed this very moment.

I can't do much other than do my job and make sure that people around me are safe, but it has to be a collaborative effort. We hear of things like this taking place in other far away places such as African countries ravaged by civil wars. Yet this stuff is happening to the kids that your children go to school with, to kids next door, and to your own children, and you may not even know it.

It is time to stop ignoring the facts. It is time to pay more attention to a serious crime that happens even to the "best families," even in the homes of religious people, even to the straight A student who always has a smile on his face.

How grateful I am that those 200 men had the courage to SURVIVE.