Reunion Online

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.

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.”

The revelation this week about decades of unaddressed sexual abuse and assault at a New England school offers some important reminders about the power of community.

Many of us adults who have experienced childhood sexual abuse and other traumas find ourselves with confused feelings as we’re confronted with holiday promises of joy, connection and good will, which may run contrary to our memories of our own childhoods.

"What helped you the most in your healing?" a radio host asked me. "Two people listened when I told them," I said without hesitating. "They didn't condemn or belittle me."

We’ve heard it takes a village to raise a child. In a way, these men, by connecting with each other, are recreating the network of support and nurturance idealized in the image of that protective village, which for so many men was unavailable in their own childhoods

The piece that I am having trouble with is that my safe space is a place in my mind where no one can reach me, and I am alone there.

I realize now I’d been unknowingly recovering for years before I acknowledged to myself that the unwanted sexual interactions I’d had with my parish priest were abusive.

I was fighting for my life once again, and this time I would not be defeated.

It should come as no surprise, I suppose, that we who work to create a safe space for men who have experienced sexual abuse and assault feel a great debt of gratitude to the many courageous men who have stepped forward to tell their stories. Each day, by their example, they challenge harmful social norms that tell men that showing vulnerability will be met with shame and sometimes even doubt.