His History, Her Story: A Survival Guide for Spouses of Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Trauma, 2nd Edition

His History, Her Story

His History, Her Story

A Survival Guide for Spouses of Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Trauma

DEBRA WARNER, PSY.D.

American Ghost Media

His History, Her Story, 2nd Edition

Copyright 2018 Debra Warner

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, by photography or xerography or by any other means, by broadcast or transmission electronically or otherwise without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in critical articles or reviews.

American Ghost Media, LLC

1305 Pico Blvd

Santa Monica, CA 90405

ISBN 978-0-9831635-6-5

ISBN 978-0-6921351-7-4 (e-book)

Printed in the United States

1st Printing 2017

ATTENTION: ORGANIZATIONS & CORPORATIONS

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Cover Design: Dave Warner

Testimonials

His History, Her Story is a must-read for intimate partners of men who suffered sexual abuse as children. A leading forensic psychologist, Dr. Debra Warner explores the topic with clinical depth while also offering practical guidance on navigating relationships from her experience as a survivor’s wife. The result is a groundbreaking, comprehensive work.

Christina Hoag

co-author of Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence

***

A timely, indispensable treatise for the spouse, friend or supporter of an adult survivor of child abuse! Should be on every therapist's booklist, too!

Bill Murray

NAASCA.org – National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse

Dedication

To the two people who are my everything: Sonya and Lawrence.

So you can know and understand our love when we are gone.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Special Acknowledgements

Introduction

Foreword

Observing Her Journey

Chapter 1

Her Story

Chapter 2

His History

Chapter 3

My Husband’s Abuse

Chapter 4

Types of Abusers

Chapter 5

Manifestations of Trauma

Chapter 6

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Chapter 7

Should You Stay or Should You Go?

Chapter 8

Anger is the Engine

Chapter 9

SCRIPT – Summit on Community Resilience, Intervention, Prevention, and Training

Part One

Part Two

Conclusion

Chapter 10 Summary

The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study and Health Effects.

Chapter 10

The Adverse Childhood Experiences

Study and Health Effects

The ACE Questionnaire

Finding Your ACE Score

Chapter 11 Summary

A Cultural Aspect on Male Abuse

Chapter 11

A Cultural Aspect on Male Abuse

Chapter 12 Summary

Extended Family – They Won’t Get It

Chapter 12

Extended Family – They Won’t Get It

Chapter 13 Summary

Male Trauma Survivors in the LGBTQ Community

Chapter 13

Male Trauma Survivors in the LGBTQ Community

Chapter 14 Summary

Effects of Childhood Trauma through the Lifespan

Chapter 14

Effects of Childhood Trauma through the Lifespan

Chapter 15 Summary

Male Abuse Survivors and Relationships

Chapter 15

Male Abuse Survivors and Relationships

Chapter 16 Summary

Psychopharmacological Approaches to Trauma Treatment

Chapter 16

Psychopharmacological Approaches to Trauma Treatment

Chapter 17 Summary

Couples and Trauma: Challenges and Opportunities

Chapter 17

Couples and Trauma: Challenges and Opportunities

Chapter 18 Summary

Vampire Syndrome and Male Child Sexual Abuse

Chapter 18

Vampire Syndrome and Male Child Sexual Abuse

Chapter 19 Summary

Perspectives of The Battered Man: Psychology, Neurobiology, Male Conditioning, and Recommendations

Chapter 19

Perspectives of The Battered Man: Psychology, Neurobiology, Male Conditioning, and Recommendations

Chapter 20 Summary

Relational Effects of Male Trauma

Chapter 20

Relational Effects of Male Trauma

Chapter 21 Summary

Multicultural Issues Related to Male Abuse Survivors

Chapter 21

Multicultural Issues Related to Male Abuse Survivors

Chapter 22 Summary

Concerns about Parenting

Chapter 22

Concerns about Parenting

List of Contributors

Consolidated List of References

Acknowledgements

Countless times I have read book acknowledgements and wondered what people are thinking as they write the thank yous to those who have contributed to the book. I have thought, how do they choose who to thank? I have thought, how do they find the words? I have been avoiding this page, leaving it for last. Not out of fear, but out of the emotion that it is taking to write. I want to say all of those warm fuzzy sentiments, but I can’t. As I write this, I am filled with sadness, thankfulness, and clarity at the same time.

First, sadness. I am filled with sadness because here I am writing this book and likely going to benefit in some way from someone else’s pain. I know that I may not get rich or famous, but there will be some professional kudos that come from being a published author. I will receive admiration from someone else that has been traumatized and abused. I was not the one who struggled, but the one that experienced the secondhand effects of the struggle, and now I am writing the book. It makes me sad to know that as a woman it is likely easier for the reader to hear my journey and story than if this was coming from a man. It breaks my heart that in our society men still cannot show that type of vulnerability.

However, that sadness is what also makes me thankful. As I sat with a client recently and listened to his story, I realized I was being told the story not only because I was assigned the case, but because I am the vessel intended to be doing this work. I was thankful. I was thankful that in this world, telling me his story was likely easier because I was a woman. I was thankful because I was chosen to hear the story. I was thankful that the experience of knowing my clients, my survivors, my champions makes me a better psychologist and by far a better person.

I am also thankful that as I go home, I get to grow even more with a man who lets me be me. Every day I am surrounded by men. Every day I am giving all my emotion to other men to help them heal and every day as I walk through the door I get a kiss and a How was your day? I never get a jealous inquiry. One day I asked my husband why he never seems bothered by my choice of professional career and his response shocked me. He said You have to be you. You love what you do. You understand the pain. You understand the journey men face. You saved me. They have no one else. Just be you. He then asked me, Do you know why these guys talk to you so much? and I said no with a dumbfounded look on my face. He said, It is because you are so not from their world. You are ‘The Brady Bunch.’ You represent the world they wanted to live in and they did not get to. Yet, there you are, right there no matter what, embracing them and all their past, listening and never judging. As he said this, I realized what a blessing I have as a husband. What a strong man he is. What an honor it is to be married to a man who understands me, and has the strength to share what he has found in a wife with my chosen professional career.

So in this sadness and thankfulness I have found clarity. I know no one else has the right to tell a survivor’s story but the survivors themselves. I understand now what my role is in life. I understand why I work in prisons. I understand why I work with cases no one wants. I understand I can tell the stories of survival they cannot. I understand I am the voice for the voiceless. I understand why I married the man I did. I thank God for the blessing he has given me by putting me in the position to know all the survivors that have been in my path, for making me who I am and continue to be. Therefore, this acknowledgement is for all those male survivors that have touched my heart and very soul. May I still continue to be your voice, and above all thank you for telling me your story.

Special Acknowledgements

To J. Roxann Wright: Without you this book would not have begun. Thank you for your ear and support. You are a talent.

To David Pisarra, Michael Oropollo, and American Ghost Media: Thank you for making this book happen. David Pisarra, this is why you are a Fabulous 6. Thank you for supporting and pushing me out of my comfort zone. Michael Oropollo, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. You have my voice and our bond is always.

Introduction

As a former law enforcement officer who specialized in the horrendous crime of child sexual abuse, I have more than a passing knowledge of the dynamics and long-term effects on the victims. My personal experience as a survivor of sexual abuse gives me an intimate understanding of the lifetime traumas that continue to be lived by the innocent.

The direct physical effects of abuse often disappear within weeks, but the emotional, psychological, and indirect physical harms often last for decades, echoing throughout a person’s life. I know that the pain, the self-loathing, the profound inability to create lasting intimacy that I faced were all results of the abuse I experienced at the hands of a man I looked up to as a mentor. When he took advantage of the situation and abused me, it set in motion relationship problems that took years of therapy and hard work to overcome.

My ultimate healing came about through the most unforeseeable of circumstances. After decades of living in fear that I would run into my mentor/abuser, I finally did. I was a prosecutor at the time and reached out to the FBI, which started an investigation that resulted in the conviction of that man and the closure of many painful chapters in my life.

I was lucky to be working in a field where therapists and experts were available for me to address my questions. The resources at my disposal were state of the art, yet they were still meager. That is why I am so happy to see that Dr. Debra Warner and her husband Dr. Robert Carey have found the courage, the dedication and the fearlessness to share their story in this book. Male survivors of child abuse, in any form, are usually told to suck it up or walk it off or, worst of all, you got lucky. That minimization and invalidation of the trauma only serves to reinforce the trauma, and sets the stage for greater harm to that young man in the future.

When a male survivor learns that his feelings are invalidated, he’ll stop expressing them. That’s what I did. When a person is told that the reality they are living is not real, they will question their own abilities to judge rightly. That happened to me, and resulted in low self-esteem and self-destructive behaviors. All of this was set up by the abuser’s grooming process to take advantage of the youth in the first place.

This book will help both survivors and their spouses understand and confront the myriad issues that a survivor must navigate to establish and maintain a loving relationship with themselves and with a partner. . Spouses are often confused and begin to doubt their own sanity before the full picture of abuse comes into focus. Survivors often lack both the emotional vocabulary necessary to explain the pain they feel and the tools they need to build a healthy relationship.

There is an enormous demand for this book, and I am excited to know that there is now this resource for both survivors and their spouses to begin the healing process and hopefully keep their relationship intact.

I hope that this book helps you and your spouse recover and rebuild the life that was rightfully due both of you; the life that was stolen years ago by an abuser. I know it can be done because I did it, and you can as well with the help of concerned and capable mental health professionals and resources like this book.

God bless,

James Clemente, Esq.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent (Ret.)

Foreword

Observing Her Journey

Writing a book is a complicated and lengthy endeavor. The author often goes through a deep emotional process until they cross the finish line. The final product is an amalgamation of rewrites and edits that only those who are inside the process get to witness. It is rare for an outsider to be part of this deeply internal process. But as a graduate student, I witnessed Dr. Debra Warner’s journey with this book as she mentored me through my academic program. I write this foreword to let people know that this book is a true statement of someone who not only believes in her words, but actively practices them. She tells her story through the lens of love, describing her tireless efforts to champion the removal of stigma from male survivors of abuse as a testament of love for her husband.

When Dr. Warner started on this journey, she told me her goal was to write a book that would elucidate the issues that accompany marriage to a male survivor of abuse. Finding the writer’s voice is difficult, and it took Dr. Warner a while to find hers. The words didn’t come easily at first. She had so many things that she wanted to say, and so much passion and information for the subject that she wanted to give.

I could also see that talking about these issues from a personal perspective was harder for her than talking about them from a clinical perspective. She always wanted the love to shine through. She accomplished that by making her emotional journey with her husband the core of each topic in the book. Slowly, she found her voice with the help and guidance of a team of contributors and supportive friends and family. Her writing took form, and the book was on its way. Writing the book was also an emotional journey for her. She increased her vulnerability in talking publicly about her own experiences and her personal growth as a partner rather than as an expert clinician. Her self-awareness truly blossomed as a consequence.

This book is a testament to Dr. Warner’s diligence towards the challenging goal she has set herself: removing the stigma and invisibility of the suffering of male survivors. By creating a book that is both an ally and an aide, she has provided a work for those who need help and guidance when engaging in relationships with those who have suffered. This book is an important step to bring light to this dark and taboo subject.

J. Roxann Wright, M.S.

Chapter 1

Her Story

As a psychologist working extensively in the field of male trauma and male survivors, the question I am most often asked is Why are you so interested in male survivors and men’s issues? The short answer is that I am a male brain trapped in a pink dress. As part of my daily job, I am paid to go into prisons and other institutions and analyze the most critical, most difficult cases. I am the person who is called to solve the toughest riddles and provide treatment to the untreatable. Often I can spot the issues these men have dealt with long before they tell me.

Usually I only have one chance to get it right. It may sound strange, but once a man discloses his history of abuse to me, my goal is to get him to cry at some point in treatment. I may be the only person he has ever told this secret to, and this may be the first and last time this secret ever passes his lips. It is imperative that I provide a safe space for him to express this secret, and if he cries, I know I have succeeded. When all of those emotions that have been dammed up behind walls and mirrors begin to flood out of him, his recovery process begins.

I can always tell when a man has never disclosed his trauma to anyone, and in the case of an initial disclosure, it’s important to not interrupt his flow and just listen. My process of receiving a disclosure, which has worked hundreds of times with cases all over the spectrum of severity, can be broken down into: Believe, Be Present, Acknowledge. I believe them by giving them my undivided attention. I have a ritual to help me because listening is not an innate skill of mine. I love to talk so I carry gum, nuts, or soda with me into sessions to keep my mouth occupied. As soon as they start talking, I cross my legs and become still. I do not want to distract from the flow of the disclosure. While they are in the process of disclosing to me, I am completely present with them. They have my absolute, undivided attention. I keep myself completely available and remain captive until they stop talking. Finally, I acknowledge what they have shared with me. I will say something like, that had to be really hard for you, or I try to educate them by saying something like, that must have been difficult for you to share; society doesn’t allow men to have feelings like that. This might be the only thing I say during the entire encounter. I never try to push them along or draw out information. I mostly remain silent; they know I am waiting.

I never, under any circumstance, say, I know how you feel. First, I don’t know how they feel. I am not a man, and I have not experienced the world through their lens. A statement like that is a dismissive one and could potentially cause further trauma if they feel like I’ve dismissed their story or cast pity on them.

Finally, after hearing an initial disclosure, I always thank the man for telling me. If you are the person they have chosen to disclose this secret to for the first time, it is a gift. Their honesty and voluntary vulnerability is to be honored and acknowledged.

One case of an initial disclosure stands out among the many I have heard over the years. He was a young student at a nearby university. He bought a house and was working on it with the intention of flipping it for a profit. The next-door neighbor and he had been butting heads ever since the young man bought the house, for reasons that weren’t exactly clear. Eventually, this escalated into a verbal altercation. The neighbor accused him of trespassing on the property. The police had a documented history of disputes between the two neighbors, and had been called to the scene several times over the last few months. Knowing this history, the young man called the police in an effort to preempt any further escalation. The police showed up, but because of the young man’s mental health and substance abuse record, decided that he was the aggressor and began interrogating him, which led to a fight between him and the officers.

What was thought to be a good idea of calling the police before the situation escalated turned into the young man being charged with assaulting an officer. He was sentenced to two years in prison. As fate would have it, this was the same prison in which I was evaluating the psychiatric conditions of the male prisoners.

I was sitting in my office when his case came across my desk. I have worked in a number of prisons, and the psychiatric offices are generic. There are three walls of solid concrete with one wall made of glass which allows the guards to see into the room. There are two blue Rubber Maid chairs in the middle of the room with my chair positioned near the door. There is a desk with a radio on it that serves as a buzzer; if the radio is knocked over, the alarm sounds and guards rush in.

I can’t work in this depressing and dehumanizing environment so I brought in pink leopard print pillows and Hello Kitty accessories – staplers, prints for the wall, stickers, door sign, pens – everything was bright pink. I brought in board games and stacked them in a corner.

The faces of the prisoners when they entered my office were priceless; it was like they were walking into another dimension. They were used to seeing nothing but institutional grey concrete walls, sometimes for years or decades. The guys told me my office had a comfort to it. It made me a real person – not a generic, sterile psychologist. It made them feel as if they were human, as well. It brought an element of personality and humanity into the environment that they rarely received elsewhere in prison.

The young man came into my office and when the initial shock at the décor wore off, he sat across from me and began telling his story. I could tell something wasn’t right, but I knew he wasn’t lying. I knew by the soft, indirect way in which he spoke to me and the heaviness of his eyes, which burdened us both, that there was deep pain there.

My intuition told me to ask. Have you ever been physically or sexually abused? I received the answer in a deafening absence of sound.

OK, so what happened?

Nothing happened.

Something obviously bothers you. I put my pen down softly on the table to show him that he had my full attention. So, what is it?

He got quiet, looked down, and started shaking. I knew the response he gave me next would shape him for the rest of his life, but I couldn’t push him to the answer. I just remained present with him – silent. He had my attention; my silence told him that I was available for him, waiting for whatever he was going to say next. We sat like that for a while, our quiet presence filling the room. I could see a sense of urgency come over the young man, and then he came out with it: I have a neighbor who used to pay me in drugs to do stuff with him. I paused, waiting to see if he was finished. When I knew he was done, I said, Whether it was for drugs or not, or if you did or didn’t do it, it doesn’t matter. He was an adult and you were a child, and that is messed up.

He backtracked quickly. But nothing ever happened! he yelled.

Most men don’t want to admit that another man touched them sexually. Male survivors often fear that women will never look at them as men again, or they feel inferior to other men because of what happened. Even if they are gay, men rarely want to admit that they were forced. This construct shouldn’t be ignored. Their reluctance has to be validated.

I said to him, I know as a guy, you can’t say anything. Basically, you can just be pissed off about it, I get that.

After a man discloses to me, there are a lot of things going on in the room. He is uncomfortable and at his most vulnerable. He is a raw nerve. That is when I validate his story with a comment like, That’s not your fault, or You were just a kid, that’s not OK. It sounds simple, but the point is that I’ve acknowledged and validated rather than dismissed his story.

When I go into prisons, I walk in with no fear – I have to; prisoners can smell fear. I treat them like human beings and equals. They have to call me Dr. Warner so I address them as Mr. along with their last name. I make sure we are on an even playing field at all times – I am no more and no less than they are. This allows me to get much farther with them than others.

As our relationship develops, my guys often call me their protective spirit or the protective mother they never had. Many