Topics of interest

Topics of interest
K

Ken Singer LCSW

Again, as many of you know, I am working on a book for survivors based on my experience with survivors and abusers. It intends to reduce the impact that abusers have on the survivor years after the abuse takes place by providing the survivor with information/knowledge which is empowering as opposed to the disempowering disinformation that the abuser puts in the survivor's head directly or by implication.

I'm listing the tentative chapters here to see if you find anything that may be missing. I've still got a long way to go with this project but I want to stay close to you to be sure that I'm covering the areas that you feel are possibly going to be helpful for you. Please take a look and see if there is something you'd like to see covered and I will try to address that area.

The topics I've been working on include:

1. Overview of the abuse dynamics/effects on the survivor.

2. Frequently asked questions from survivors and their significant others.

3. Why it is important to understand how perpetrators pick their victims.

4. Different typologies of abusers.

a. Adult abusers
I.) male vs. female
II.) relationship vs. strangers

b. Adolescent abusers

5. How can they do what they do? (Distorted thinking)

6. How they keep victims from telling

7. Why demonizing them gives them power.

8. Betrayal

a. Directly by the abuser
b. Indirectly by the protective parent who failed to protect
c. Issues of safety and trust

9. Angerwhere is that coming from?

10. For the parent of the boy or teen who was abused

11. Sexual issues and problems

a. Avoidance and discomfort
b. Confusion over sexual orientation
c. Sexual acting out
d. Thoughts of perpetrating

12. Self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors

13. Disclosure and confronting your abuser

I'm aware that there is little published about adult male on male abuse (and perhaps on adult male abuse perpertrated by females). If you were abused as an adult and want to talk about this, please pm me and I would be interested in your experience. (I can't do therapy over the internet but I can read what you have to say and hopefully provide some ideas for getting someone who can help you directly.)

Please let me know if there is something I have not identified that you think should be covered and if you have adult abuse issues, I would like to possibly address them in a separate chapter.

Thanks,
Ken
 
Trust issues
a) how it is destroyed
b) how it affects relationships
c) how to rebuild healthy trust

Boundaries
a) why they are lost
b) why they are needed
c) how to rebuild healthy boundaries

~Yves
 
Hmm, yes EGL.

Shame
a) Perpetrator-imposed
b) Self-imposed
c) Society-imposed
 
Ken, try transporting back to the beginning of when you started to deal with it all. What made you laugh? What made you cry? What made you want to keep going on the path of healing? What made you want to give up? What did you want someone to tell you back then -- that it's going to be alright, you're going to get through this. Take your sign off the wall for a little while, and be the survivor again -- you'll know what needs to be said and, more importantly, how to reach them. It's going to be alright, you're going to get through this.

~Yves
 
To Yves:
I've seen Ken's office many times, I don't believe theres a sign on the wall, I'll look for it the next time I'm there :D
(sorry in that kind of mood past few days)

To Ken:
Can't think of anything now, but I wanted to say that I think its great your seperating Adult Abusers vs Adolescent abusers. I don't believe many people have touched on the Adolescent abusers much in books about CSA.
 
Maybe something about ethnic issues, the stigmas and implications of different societal groups.
 
I think you will have to address the issue of misandry as a side-bar in order to bring about understanding of recovery issues facing males in our society.

Misandry, "contempt for males," is a core piece of our society's mythology and as such, influences all crime and recovery issues.

Furthermore, when discussing female offender assaults of any type, the justice system's preference for not convicting such women is going to be a component of a male survivor/victim's recovery.

Also, as males, we face a psychological / theraputic community who use concepts and mythology which include misandric core components such as "males are aggressive - females are not." These core concepts always influence the man's recovery process, often with significant trauma to the patient/victim. A good example of this is seen in what Claudia Black PhD calls "doubles," those people who have two (or more) factors in their recovery process: An example being a man with BiPolar disorder who is also an adult molested as a child. Since that man will face a feminist psychiatric system (anti-male) he will have (always) issues moved from the physical disease to the psycho-social or recovery process.

This problem with misandry has unforseen effects on all male survivors: Those side-effects need addressing.

jw
 
Bullying, not a small word but consider, that the kid will not be the same at home, always seen to be the problem kid, takes the blame for everything, because of the I don't give a shit syndrome brought on by emotions.

I see many kids taking their own lives, seemingly with "everything to live for", seen that one many times over, what think is, what is the root cause? One thing always springs to mind. I was bullied many times before I stood up to them, they didn't like what they were up against, so they left me alone.

Humiliation, being attacked by someone of the same sex/so much older/opposite sex
Grief, at not being able to be like the other kids.
Losing boundaries leads, to other perps going for you, yes they can spot you a mile off.
Shame, not being able to seek help, because of the nature of the thing.

there are many more

ste
 
FAMILY CONFRONTATION and SECONDARY WOUNDING
AKA Surviving the Revictimization

There needs to be no little amount of strategies once a Confrontation produces Bad results. Maybe what I getting into is something like *Ramifications of Non-Forgiveness*.

This seems to be not-emphasized in the handful of books I:ve read. One book *I can:t get over it*, A handbook for Trauma Survivors, by Matsakis (specialist in PTSD), addresses it somewhat generally. Since her book is for PTSD generally, this makes some sense. However, no books touch in depth on losing Family ties thru Confrontation (I:ve just posted my situation under Male Survivors>>Confrontation: Insensitive Family Responses).

The first book I had was difficult to impossible for me to initally read cos I was so in need of SSRI/Paxil that reading a page was too painful. Ghosts in the Bedroom (part of MS:s bookstore) was xlnt when I did eventually read it and helped me define the one big part of the puzzle I couldn:t figure out: Shame based identity. Even Lew:s landmark book (I only have the 1st ed.) did not much cover the fallout of a family perpetually in much denial. Yes, his following chapter About Forgiving and Forgetting touched on this somewhat with #2/Protect Yourself and #6/It isn:t all or nothing, but these (1st ed) comments are but a few sentences where clearly some examples should be given. Since I am clearly stuck at this stage in my own progress, I sadly cannot give you strategies and I seem to have painted myself into a corner of a family Demanding my forgiveness, but not venturing into what it is I am forgiving them for.
 
Ken

My issue that I am strugling with is memory. I can't remember the entire incidents. I have PTSD but I cannot remember the actual event. I just have pieces of memory. My T says that I may not remember everything but other parts you will, when your psyche is ready. My conern is how to recover lost memories about CSA? What are the factors that prevent remembering these SA?
 
Ken
I realise that what I'm going to suggest is difficult to write about about in a general manner, but like Yves, I think something that covers all aspects of disclosure would be good.

These days many men might pick up a book ( of visit a web site )prior to disclosing, and some guidance might ease the fear we all felt.

Also the later disclosures many of go through, telling our partners the details of what we went through, and what we are going through now. Subject ssuch as acting-out, using prostitutes, porn, sex addiction and all the other 'anti-social' things we do can be "left until later" and all to easily get left because we then think that it's too late to tell.

But we're all different, we're not all in relationships ( straight or gay ) and our partners aren't all as supportive and understanding as we'd like them to be.

Dave
 
The issues for me, have had to do with "not being good enough", "not belonging to any group (I was told I was not normal)". I was a kid in pretty good shape, but was always told I would never excel at sports, therefore did not play. Add to that situation the fact that I was terrified to go into a shower for fear of what my happen, I became the "nerd bookworm" and never did anything athletic until I was in my late 30's. Didn't even want to discuss sports with the guys. Does that make any sense? Worth addressing? I suppose one might call it the sense of alienation one feels after the abuse and the abuser fills our mind with un-truths and steals our dreams.
 
First Ken, thanks for your working with people who are so involved in this tragedy--and thanks for working on a book about it. I'll buy two as soon as it is out!

One thing that made a great diffeerence for me was to have a group of therapists help me to make the connections between my abuse and the multiple effects of abuse that I so detested but seemed so powerless over. Once that connection was made for me a lot of stuff became clear to me and I felt I had a direction to go in recovery.

Bob
 
Yes, Ken, thank you for your ongoing work. It is sure to be helpful to lots of people. I look forward to reading the book.

As for topics to be covered, I feel that specifically talking about how generalized homophobia acts to prevent disclosure in male on male abuse would be extremely useful.

I realize that this may be a part of what you were planning to include in your Sexual Identification/Sexual Orientation section.

However, I feel it important enough to merit its own chapter. It affects all men, both those who identify as straight and those who may be gay. The straight man for fear of being labelled homosexual; and the gay man for fear of having to admit/disclose his homosexuality.

As for adult/adult male sexual abuse, I have had that experience. It now seems apparent that my reaction to being raped as an adult by a man was directly related to my earlier conditioning as a victim of sexual abuse as an adolescent.

I'd be glad to answer any questions or tell you more if you think it would be of any help.

Once again, Ken, thank you for your dedication to your healing profession and to this group of male survivors.
 
Ken
Orodo ( good to see you again :) ) makes an interesing point.

"not being good enough",
Click to expand...
How many of us suffered this? and more importantly what behaviours did we display as yound men that made others tell us this repeatedly.

I went through this until very recently, the change is simplty astonishing. For over thirty years I listened to people putting me down, and I must have displayed something to make them say this?

Dave
 
Ken the guys have offered a great deal here for you to digest. Please also consider what we pmed about. Thanks.
 
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