Reunion Online

I found an old photograph recently. It’s a flimsy, bent Polaroid print of myself as a child.

I don’t normally associate hotels with great works of art. Yet there I was, standing quietly, intently staring at a tree in the makeshift gallery on the mezzanine of the Washington DC Hilton.

For the past ten years I have spoken openly and publically about my emotional, physical, spiritual, and sexual abuse, something I only did in the past in the way of justifying my behavior. I would tell my wife and friends, “If what happened to me happened to me happened to you, you’d be drinking or acting this way also.”

I was reminded recently of an important lesson about trauma recovery. The teacher was the son of a friend, a young man who spoke at his bar mitzvah about the competing motivations of fear and hope.

Too often, when we talk about abuse we talk about how hopeless we feel. I will ask the question that was posed to me, “Who’s telling you that story?”

I work on a college campus full of faculty and professional staff, most of whom actively want to do good for our survivors of sexual violence on campus. However, we live in a society that perpetuates ideas about who can and cannot be affected by interpersonal violence (IPV).

As the Creative Projects Manager at 1in6, I wear a lot of hats. I manage our 1BlueString and Bristlecone Project awareness campaigns, maintain our social media, and coordinate special projects. A couple of years ago, I also took over the task of reading and responding to the feedback sent through the feedback forms located at the bottom of each 1in6 webpage.

I am a marathoner. It takes more than just training. It takes commitment, mental preparation, and a well-arranged screen-to-couch set up. I could watch the same television show for hours on end. Marathons are a piece of cake. Usually they involve eating cake.

My job title is always changing to keep up with our growth in knowledge around male engagement. The job itself and the challenges remain consistent: engage men around conversations about sexual violence.

Understanding ways to support, as best as possible, different subgroups of men can help create more interesting and meaningful services.