Shared Links (weekly) Sept. 1, 2024
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Sharing – Supporting disclosure for adult male survivors of child sexual abuse
The reality is that men who were sexually abused at a young age don’t often see themselves as sexual abuse victims, and often it’s because what happened to us doesn’t fit the descriptions we see on TV. In his example, what his older brother and his friends did to him was “just sex”, because he is gay anyway, even though he was 7 at the time it started. For many other male survivors, sexual abuse is what happens to girls, not boys, or if it does happen to boys it’s when a priest, or boy scout leader does it, not older kids, family members, women, or close family friends. That’s not sexual abuse, that’s something else.
It’s the lack of communication around these kinds of experiences, on top of all the other reasons men are less likely to come forward for decades, that makes it almost impossible to truly know the rates of male sexual abuse. We simply have no way of knowing how many survivors there are who don’t even think of their experiences as abuse.
Sharing – Having your pain invalidated is associated with increased shame and, in turn, an increased risk of depression
There’s more at the link, but again I’m going to ask, given the positive impacts of validating someone’s pain and emotions, and the negative impacts of invalidating those same things, why would we do anything else?
I Need You To Go Read This Collection of Research about Teens and Social Media
More importantly, for those of us trying to advocate for mental health, we need to realize that there is no simple answer. Turning off all of social media is not going to cure the mental health crisis. It won’t change everything that is going on in all of our lives and across the world. Pretending that we’d all have much better mental health if we just killed off Instagram or TikTik isn’t going to make the county’s mental health problems go away.
So why aren’t we discussing the harder problems that have some proven research to show the negative effects on children’s lives? School shootings, violence, racism, oppression of LGTBQ and minorities, poverty, lack of access to mental health care, etc.
Why Suicide Prevention Week Is Important for Child Abuse Survivors
I’ve survived both childhood abuse, and a suicide attempt. I know what it feels like to believe that it will never get better, just as much as I know that it can get better because it has.
Truthfully, you are a survivor, and the world needs you and your story. How else will the other survivors around you know what is possible?
Sharing – Male Survivors Of Sexual Abuse Struggle To Find Treatment
When I was undergoing treatment with a therapist, she actually tried to get me involved in group sessions. The sexual abuse survivor group I attended a few times was not for male survivors, it was for any survivor, and I just happened to be the only male in the group. It didn’t last long. To get any help for me, as a male survivor, I had to kind of be wedged into programs and tools that were designed for female survivors. It still helped me, but it could have been better, and might not have helped a lot of men. I do believe it’s gotten slightly better over the years, but only slightly. It’s still a huge problem. We still don’t have any real idea of how many male survivors there are, or how to make resources available to them. Partly because we don’t talk about it enough, and partly because when men do talk about it, they aren’t listened to.
We pay the price for that. Those survivors grow up, and struggle, on their own, with mental health and other issues. They don’t feel safe coming forward, and they are often made to feel weak if they even consider asking for help.
That’s no way for anyone to go through life.
