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Sexual abuse might have occurred when you were a child or a young adult.
People will say things like “I’m doing this because you want it”, which can be confusing when you are still working out who you are. When this has happened, we can feel shame and guilt even though it wasn’t our fault.
The impacts of child sexual abuse can be complex and severe. It is common that a man who has experienced child sexual abuse will experience a range of negative effects many years after the abuse.
Anyone who has lived through traumatic experiences in childhood has, often developed a range of creative, effective strategies that helped them survive and go on to live their life. Very often, however, the strategies that worked in childhood don’t work so well in the adult world. What we are working with is not only the effects of the abuse, but also the unwanted side-effects of the coping methods some men adopt to help them deal with the trauma.
This is what brings men to seek help, quite often it's not the original abuse, but a crisis involving the strategies the man has been using to manage the effects of the abuse. Men are sometimes surprised to find that what they think of as their current problem was originally developed as a strategy for dealing with their abuse. .
It is important to remember:
We have an instant booking form you can fill in right now. You'll find all of our services on the booking form. Just tick which service/s you need.
People will say things like “I’m doing this because you want it”, which can be confusing when you are still working out who you are. When this has happened, we can feel shame and guilt even though it wasn’t our fault.
The impacts of child sexual abuse can be complex and severe. It is common that a man who has experienced child sexual abuse will experience a range of negative effects many years after the abuse.
Anyone who has lived through traumatic experiences in childhood has, often developed a range of creative, effective strategies that helped them survive and go on to live their life. Very often, however, the strategies that worked in childhood don’t work so well in the adult world. What we are working with is not only the effects of the abuse, but also the unwanted side-effects of the coping methods some men adopt to help them deal with the trauma.
This is what brings men to seek help, quite often it's not the original abuse, but a crisis involving the strategies the man has been using to manage the effects of the abuse. Men are sometimes surprised to find that what they think of as their current problem was originally developed as a strategy for dealing with their abuse. .
It is important to remember:
- What happened isn’t your fault. It isn’t ‘because of you’ or anything that you did or didn’t do. It is only the fault of the person who abused you
- It is normal for your body to respond to sexual touching, even when you don’t want it. This can be confusing but what happened was still abuse, and was not your fault.
- Exploring our sexuality when we come from families and society where it is ‘forbidden’ or ‘stigmatised’ makes us vulnerable. Being forced/pushed to participate in sexual activity that you were not ready for is sexual abuse
- Your sexuality is not because of abuse. People of all sexualities have experienced abuse, and there are people of all sexualities who haven’t. You can trust your gut instincts about who you are
- Being trans is not because of abuse. Some people who are trans have experienced abuse and some have not, just like all genders
- Research shows that young people who don’t conform to traditional gender ideas are often more targeted for all kinds of abuse.
We have an instant booking form you can fill in right now. You'll find all of our services on the booking form. Just tick which service/s you need.
