Men are victims too; break the silence.

When we hear of someone being abused, we are accustomed to assuming that the victims are children, women, and the elderly; we never think of men who are abuse victims. Men who experience abuse are more common than we know.

Some men expressed that they knew of someone who had been abused as men, using their stories in the third person; it was later discovered that they were the victims.

Some of our male counterparts show their emotions under their tough exterior. Some men tend to feel less of who they are and feel shamed if they share their experience of abuse with others. In this climate we are now in, we are learning ways, in some cases, for men to feel safe to speak out about their victimization without judging them.

Many men have also been victims of child abuse and suffered for years in their adult lives from the pain they underwent in their childhood. Very rarely does a man share his pain from victimization, and when they finally find the fortitude, they can share what they feel comfortable being transparent about.

The condition included mental anguish, anxiety, depression, and PTSD, and the abuse is often behind the forcible confinement of the victim’s home. Emotionally abusive, degrading, and emasculating are some of the ways that men suffer from their perpetrators.

How many men can attest to being abused? How has your experience with abuse changed your life?

As we observe many other men victimized by their abusers, we cannot continue to overlook or ignore that men have silent tears too. This gender paradigm is debunked because some men have finally broken their silence to share with others who may be going through what they have had to go through in abuse. Contrary to popular belief, men don’t come out often and tend to mask their pain behind walls they build up to shield them from others finding out. The stigma is that if a man is being abused, he is considered weak. The struggle with masculinity and the feeling that you should be able to handle abuse as a man is fictional, and this stigma has filtrated many others’ minds in the culture today.

Many men of abuse still do not receive proper help to heal and break the silence. Abuse is abuse across gender roles, and anyone who becomes prey to the predatorial behaviors of an abuser is subject to becoming a target of other abusive crises.

Historically victims are assumed to be a gender reversal role; a woman is a victim, and the man is the predator. However, not all men are the contributors and aggressors of abuse; they are often the victims. Let’s look at some ways some men may experience abuse — sexual coercion, meaning withholding sex from a partner. Psychological abuse, verbal abuse, and emotional abuse. How has society made it a safe place for men to feel confident to come out with their stories and experiences of abuse? I encourage any man out there that if you’ve been a victim of abuse or are currently experiencing abuse in any capacity, please seek professional help.

We have made it less critical to uphold women predators to the same standards as their male counterparts when they have committed the same offense as a man who is a predator. This stereotype that women are the weaker vessel and cannot abuse men has kept many men hidden and still suffering. Men who are victims of childhood abuse have also been ignored. When they become older, they have learned survival behaviors, such as anger, disordered delusional episodes, functioning addictive behaviors, and become abusers themselves; serial daters with multiple partners, such as sex addiction, and many other learned behaviors are practiced coping mechanisms. If you need help, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-SAFE (800-799-7233).