Reunion Online

When I began to cope with my childhood molestation, the word trigger was a new concept for me.

Intervention or prevention—it’s complicated.

What if I told you I believe I have the key to true happiness and freedom from resentments and anger towards the person who abused you? Then what if I told you that you held the key to that freedom and happiness within YOURSELF? Would you be willing to take a look at the path I discovered to those feelings?

When I think about men who have had those experiences, I’m often reminded how the expectation of invulnerability that most cultures demand of males leaves many men feeling like they mustn’t ever reveal their victimization.

Resilience is a remarkable characteristic we humans possess.

Never in my wildest hopes would I have imagined sitting in a rental car, at the intersection of 45th and Broadway, watching an electronic billboard on the Viacom building announcing “NO MORE that doesn’t happen to guys,” “NO MORE he just needs to get over it,” “NO MORE we don’t talk about that,” and so on…

Both Trav and I can say that while child sex abuse will always color our shared life, it will never exclusively define either of us.

I already knew the story of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team’s investigation of the Archdiocese of Boston’s cover-up of sexual abuse by scores of its priests. I knew most of the characters. I even caught a glimpse of the name of the priest who sexually abused me back in the mid-1960s. But what moved me most was two boys sitting near me in the theater of the Spotlight film recently.

On Monday November 2, 2015 I completed my book Healing the Man Within. A friend of mine asked me how long it took me to write the book. “Forty-six-years,” I told him. “It has been forty-six-years in the making.”

It has been a remarkable to play a part in the rapidly expanded understanding of the importance of responding to the needs of men and boys who’ve experienced abuse and assault. And it’s been humbling realizing that the distance we've traveled has been in many ways in the shadow and on the shoulders of others who have gone before us.