Why Men Shame Themselves for Being Sexually Abused

Shame is one of the most prevalent emotions you can undergo when dealing with sexual abuse. You may have the thought that you did something to deserve the abuse and therefore cannot have what you truly want as an adult. This can be an unconscious or conscious motivator in your life. The habits, survival skills and addictions that do not serve you seem inescapable, that you cannot live without them.

The Paradox of Shame

Many times when you indulge in an activity that is unhealthy, it is coming from a deep sense of shame. When you continually act from a place of trauma you draw more situations into your life to play out that trauma. There is always a possibility of healing, of making a different decision.

However, if you do not have the skill set of how to maneuver through the same situations differently, you will continually try to solve the puzzle in the same way. You react from a habitual sense of survival even if you intuitively know that it doesnt work so well. The abuse that was once inflicted upon us becomes self-induced.

Questions to Ask Yourself About How You Deal With Shame.

" Do you isolate yourself continually from others for fear of being a downer or fear that others will see your true self? " Do you use compulsive behavior in order to numb yourself or get a quick fix only to feel reverberations of intense loneliness and guilt afterwards? " Do you avoid intimate interactions and conversations because you do not want to reveal aspects of your past that are painful?

The Good News

The good news is that the power to change is in your control. You can learn what is necessary to shift towards healthy choices. The manner in which you respond to different life situations will be in your own hands. The reason that we dont understand how to take the first step is based in the pressure that shame has on our psychology.

Boys Dont Cry

For example, it is very common for boys past a certain age to be shamed for crying no matter the situation. It is viewed as a sign of weakness and vulnerability, which can be seen as inherently bad. So anytime as an adult male you undergo a painful situation, even one that is purely physical such as getting hurt during a contact sport, you may hold back the need to emote so as not to be seen as weak by your team mates. Many times the layers are not only about the shame of not being able to control your own emotions but also how to deal with the reactions of others to your pain. Even during the death of a loved one males will hold it together comforting the women who grieve at will.

Building Up Armor to Guard Against Feeling

In many cases men build armor around them so that feeling comes second to thinking and problem solving. This does not erase the feeling of shame but merely buries it. In order to access and release these deep underlying parts of yourself you may indulge in activities such as drinking and drugs in order to have an excuse to tell your story. Although these truth serums act as a portal to buried frustrations they also lower your tolerance for actual healing by creating an escape route for intensified self-abuse.

For example, an addiction to pornography may lead to temporary relief but it can leave you feeling isolated and broken. So the cycle continues without resolution unless you to recognize it as a problem.

The Fear of Others Judgment

Many times if men show their emotions without the context of being inebriated or high they can then have to endure the stigma of being gay (whether that is true or not). To endure being ridiculed out loud or silently judged by peers, who are actually reacting from their own sense of shame around their sexuality, only worsens the inner turmoil. Since being emotional is usually seen as a purely feminine trait most of the primary emotion will be expressed as rage and anger. Although anger has its own place in the healing process it can also become a mask for deep unrelenting sadness and grief.

Around the age of 15 some of my friends found ways to get alcohol for weekend parties. I remember numerous times watching my friends get completely wasted and go into fits of rage about their hearts getting broken, the desperation around their family dynamics. The image that stays with me the most is watching my best friend sitting in the middle of a street and punching the concrete ground screaming up at the sky. His pain, his hurt was so overbearing. His feelings were not taken in or recognized by his family. His grief was a twisted root, shame coiling around it unable to ground down and sink, to be held and understood.

Many times when we are shamed by others, the feeling (that sink in your stomach, craving to disappear immediately) goes inward and manifests as self-hatred. I could have&, Why didnt I&, If only she knew& All of these fill-in-the-blank scenarios can be traced back to an experience that is shame-based.

Steps to Working with Shame

1. Give yourself permission to feel shame. This may seem strange. Why would I want to feel shame? Probably because it was, and still is, not ok to do so. You need to be the one that normalizes it, to let it be there. Find a safe space where you can be alone for a few minutes. Identify whether the feeling state is shame. Get a sense of where it is in your body. Say to yourself, Its ok to feel this emotion.

2. Dont get caught up in the story. Its not important why you are feeling this at this moment. Focus on the sensation of the shame, where it is. Does it burn? Is it heavy? Does it make you want to hide? Focus on the sensation and let it become bigger by breathing into it, even if for 30 seconds.

3. This wont kill you. Know that by doing this simple process you are creating a new way of relating with shame. Many times you may have avoided feeling shame like this because you thought you would die. You wont. What you will do is build up more courage and strength.

Fortunately by allowing yourself to feel shame, by letting it rise up and get big, you make room in your psychology to stay with something that seems unbearable. You reach a tipping point, a crescendo of emotion and in this find yourself able to make a sane step towards resolution. It is not easy by any means but it is more than possible, and even more necessary for a healthy relationship to true masculinity.

Whats Next?

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My name is Seth Lepore and I am an Intuitve Counselor who works with Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse. You can sign up for my free newsletter at Healing the Survivor. You can reach me directly at seth(at)healingthesurvivor.com .