Explore stories and strategies for healing after childhood sexual abuse. Find support, hope, and tools for coping with CPTSD and trauma.
Let’s just get this out of the way: being a man who was sexually abused as a child messes with your head in ways that are hard to explain, and harder to talk about. I’m no therapist. Or self-help guru. I’m just someone who’s lived it. And if you have, you know that this kind […]
Yesterday, I time-traveled. Not in the cool, H.G. Wells, steampunk kind of way, but the CPTSD way. The no warning, no mercy, full-body flashback kind of way. The time machine? A body spray. Specifically, the Old Spice Superman limited edition. Yeah. A superhero-branded deodorant did me in. But this wasn’t about smelling fresh. This was […]
For 40 years, I lived in constant survival mode, running on fear, stuck in fight-or-flight, exhausted but pushing forward anyway. I had no idea I was running myself into the ground. I thought I was just doing what I had to do to exist. Then, about a decade ago, I began therapy, and I started […]
Growing up with abuse and never being able to ask for help, the idea of speaking up felt completely foreign. I had nobody to turn to, and deep down, I didn’t think I’d be believed. For 40 years, I carried that secret. Looking back, desperation seemed to be the theme of my formative years. Desperate […]
There is no truth to people saying that trauma makes you stronger. The fact is, it doesn’t. Trauma breaks you. It eats you alive and spits you back out in tiny pieces that you no longer recognize, and what is left are complex problems that you spend the next how many years trying to work […]
Being a major fan of DC comics and, more specifically, Superman, I was thrilled to hear the term “Superman Complex” used in therapy; it had my inner child jumping for joy. It seemed to me like a compliment. To have this and to be perceived in this way was kind of cool. Who wouldn’t want […]
