I started reading 'Victims No Longer' tonight.
I ordered a few books off of amazon.com via Male Survivor yesterday, and the books arrived much sooner than I expected. (Since when did standard delivery get so speedy?!?) I was hoping to get them this weekend (while my b/f will be visiting family in NJ) but I really am glad they arrived significantly earlier.
I started reading Mike Lew's book first because I figured it would help to understand the victim recovery process a bit, before I move on to how to be there for my b/f along in the recovery process (especially since he isn't ready yet). I have to say I am really impressed with the book so far. I loved (if you can even use the term love when talking about a book with such content) the Acknowledgments and Introduction. I thought both were really well-written, positive/encouraging, and gentle. I think overall it was a really smooth transition into the first chapter, and just a really good way to prepare?! for what follows.
I was both taken back by and inspired by the first chapter, titled "Sexual Child Abuse: Myths and Realities." What I found to be most thought provoking was Mike Lew's definition of incest. I guess I always saw incest as strictly being an invasion of a child by a parent. Lew's concept of what incest encompasses really put into perspective the magnitude of guilt and harm to a child by anyone who betrays that child's trust and love. However, I think it will be along while before I really feel comfortable with the use of the term incest, and I think that's another one of Lew's points. We so isolate ourselves (as a society) from these actions, in that we can never talk about them in real ways. He really brought my attention to this fact in one of his 'focuses,' in which a survivor wrote about our common use of the terms pedophile and molest. I guess I didn't think about how much I danced around the realties of these words and their true meanings, in an attempt to make it more...pleasant? to talk about. This chapter definitely is testing my comfort within my vocabulary, and is certainly causing me to reevaluate societies treatment of these realities.
Oh, and something that could potentially be positive came out of the books arriving early. My b/f showed up (unexpectedly) a few minutes after I found the amazon box in my door. When he came into my bedroom I was on the computer and he sat on my bed next to the box. Of course the subject of it's content came up, and because I don't think it would be appropriate to lie to him, I told him that I had ordered some books online about victim recovery. And his response was much more calm than I had expected. He said (and I quote), "You should show them to me when the semester is over and I get back from New Jersey." Of course, he then insisted that we not talk about it until then, which I am more than willing to do, especially in light of his openness to the idea of reading the books.
I'd like to extend my sympathies to anyone who actually took the time to read this. I am sure many of you have already read Mike Lew's book, and didn't need my play by play summary, but I did.
I started reading Mike Lew's book first because I figured it would help to understand the victim recovery process a bit, before I move on to how to be there for my b/f along in the recovery process (especially since he isn't ready yet). I have to say I am really impressed with the book so far. I loved (if you can even use the term love when talking about a book with such content) the Acknowledgments and Introduction. I thought both were really well-written, positive/encouraging, and gentle. I think overall it was a really smooth transition into the first chapter, and just a really good way to prepare?! for what follows.
I was both taken back by and inspired by the first chapter, titled "Sexual Child Abuse: Myths and Realities." What I found to be most thought provoking was Mike Lew's definition of incest. I guess I always saw incest as strictly being an invasion of a child by a parent. Lew's concept of what incest encompasses really put into perspective the magnitude of guilt and harm to a child by anyone who betrays that child's trust and love. However, I think it will be along while before I really feel comfortable with the use of the term incest, and I think that's another one of Lew's points. We so isolate ourselves (as a society) from these actions, in that we can never talk about them in real ways. He really brought my attention to this fact in one of his 'focuses,' in which a survivor wrote about our common use of the terms pedophile and molest. I guess I didn't think about how much I danced around the realties of these words and their true meanings, in an attempt to make it more...pleasant? to talk about. This chapter definitely is testing my comfort within my vocabulary, and is certainly causing me to reevaluate societies treatment of these realities.
Oh, and something that could potentially be positive came out of the books arriving early. My b/f showed up (unexpectedly) a few minutes after I found the amazon box in my door. When he came into my bedroom I was on the computer and he sat on my bed next to the box. Of course the subject of it's content came up, and because I don't think it would be appropriate to lie to him, I told him that I had ordered some books online about victim recovery. And his response was much more calm than I had expected. He said (and I quote), "You should show them to me when the semester is over and I get back from New Jersey." Of course, he then insisted that we not talk about it until then, which I am more than willing to do, especially in light of his openness to the idea of reading the books.
I'd like to extend my sympathies to anyone who actually took the time to read this. I am sure many of you have already read Mike Lew's book, and didn't need my play by play summary, but I did.
It's nice to be able to return just a little bit of what the people here have given me. Thanks