Oprah - 200 Men, Part 2

On Friday, Nov 12, 2010, the second of a two part series on Male Survivors will be airing on the Oprah Show. Part 1 of this series aired on Nov 5, 2010. Below are the following posts about my experiences on Oprah.

From Oprah.com - Oprah, Tyler Perry and 200 courageous men continue the conversation about male sexual abuse. They're breaking down the wall of shame and opening the doors for healing.

If you know of someone that might benefit from this, make sure you pass this along. It is ground breaking and so important for as many to see as possible. The issue of child sexual abuse of boys is often swept under the rug and we need to stand up as a society and say, "NO MORE!" The more that we all know about this as a society, the more we can prevent this horrific evil from taking place around us.


There are many men who need to know that they aren't responsible for what happened to them and that they have support in coming forward to confront their own abuse. All too often, boys are taught that you cannot cry and that if they are abused, they must have done something wrong or been weak. We need to stand together with all abuse victims.

It is estimated that 1 in 6 boys have been abused by the age of 16. Think about that. Then, stop and think of those you know and you'll soon realize that someone you know has been abused.

If you have been abused and you're hiding this deep dark secret, please know that there are resources for you to go and get help. You cannot deal with this on your own as it is too big of an issue without help, support and guidance. It is okay to ask for help and it is okay to be scared to ask for help. Many of us are out there and we know just how difficult that is. Reach out to us and take that first step of telling someone. Do not let yourself continue to live in life under the secrecy and shame of what someone did to you. To many times, society or our abusers make it out that we had sex with them and so it is our fault. Abuse is not about sex. Abuse is about control and manipulation. They end up placing the shame of what happened upon the victim and it is not their shame.

I am here if anyone wants to talk. You can email me privately if you want. You can also go to malesurvivor.org or any of the other online resources. On November 12 (Friday), I will be posting a list of resources for survivors so make sure you come back and check those out. Remember, you do not have to suffer alone!

Further Reading

1. Oprah, Tyler Perry and 200 Male Survivors Speak Out
   
   
2. Oprah, 200 Men Who Were Molested Come Forward, Part 1

(c) 11/9/10 by Don Shetterly - use by permission only

Forgiveness For Survivors of Sexual Abuse

Growing up in the house that I did, forgiveness meant something very different than what I am now learning that it means. The concept I was taught in church was to basically forgive and forget. It was a way of thinking that nothing ever happened and like the person you were forgiving basically never did anything wrong. For it was taught that this was between you and the other person and that to remember any part of the transgression meant you had not let go of it or forgiven the person.

I remember in one church I was going to, they had me come to the front of the church towards the end of the service. Most likely they had great intentions but their actions were very traumatic to me and little did I recognize it at the time. They had me kneel down and they laid their hands on my head (might have even anointed me with some type of oil) and then prayed that I would forgive and forget what these abusers has done to me. I went through the actions but you know what - nothing changed in my life. In all reality, I was in the grief and anger period of my recovery and to stop that process is in itself traumatizing.

What I am now realizing about forgiveness is that it really has nothing to do with the relationship you have to the person that has caused you wrong. It has nothing to do with forgetting what happened to you. It is not something that you need to beat yourself up if you are able to forgive at this moment or just hearing these words makes you feel angry. It is not about letting the abuser off the hook or remotely saying that what they did is okay. Forgiving is not about saying you cannot be angry at what the person did to you.

Forgiveness is a process and one that takes time to happen. It is not a one time event of prayer or repetition of some stated thought that brings you to the state of forgiveness. In fact, it is most likely not an exact moment in time although it may build up to that. If you're at a point where this entire concept angers you and you find yourself saying, there is no way I can ever forgive my abuser for what they did to me, you are fine just where you are at. I have walked in those same shoes and cursed those that proclaimed I had to forgive my abusers because I was not ready to even go down that part of my healing.

To me, forgiveness is about letting go and learning to let go of the effects of what happened to me. God knows I have the right to be angry at what they did to me. The sexual abuse I suffered through was horrific. However, I am now learning that this process of forgiveness is about me learning to let go of all the energy that I hold within my body relating to the abuse. It has nothing to do with the people that did these things because it is more about me finding deeper healing within myself.

The more I hold on to these events and allow them to control my life, the more I am hurting myself. The more I allow these people in my past to inflict their shame upon me and influence every part of my life, the more I am giving up of myself. By allowing myself to begin the process of reclaiming my life and taking back my power, I am in fact, letting go of the harmful effects of what these abusers did to me. I am offering myself up to forgiveness because I am allowing my life to connect with who I truly am. I am discovering myself and embracing all parts of myself. That is what forgiveness means to me.

It is a process and not just a single moment that sometimes takes years to comprehend. The more you allow yourself to go down into this part of healing, the more life becomes something worth living for and you begin to realize your true potential. As you begin to learn how to forgive yourself, you start to reclaim your power, your energy and the essence of who you are. In these moments, you become more human and rightfully take your place in the universe. You may find that forgiveness is a process that unfolds and then rests for awhile but picks up again in the future and allows you to go deeper into forgiveness.

Never let anyone tell you that forgiveness means you must forget what happened to you or indicate that you somehow have to contact the abuser in order to do this. This process is about your own healing journey and you accepting yourself completely and becoming more aware of yourself. It is a process and sometimes it takes a considerable length of time. Sometimes you may not even realize it is happening until you look back a few miles and see that you have actually moved into forgiveness of your own life. We all have our journey to walk and each journey is different. The important point is to remember that we need to keep walking on our journey no matter how difficult it may get.

(c) 11/9/10 by Don Shetterly - Use by permission only.

Conversion (Somatoform) Disorder

If you read my book or some of the blog entries I have posted about, you will quickly see that I personally suffered from a conversion disorder. There are many names for it which include hysterical paralysis or a more common term of somatoform disorder. For me, the situation turned into complete paralysis with loss of speech, feeling, sensitivity and brain function including seizures.

At the time, I did not think there was any way through this and it seemed hopeless. I experienced the seizures and a feeling of being so tired that I could barely stay awake for any length of time. Test after test was done and at first they diagnosed it as MS (Multiple Sclerosis). Imagine being 26 years old and told you have MS. I was not prepared to hear that and I'm sure no one is every prepared to deal with the trauma that a diagnosis such as Multiple Sclerosis. In those days, there was no internet and so even though I knew very little about MS, I knew it was not good.

As with most episodes of a conversion disorder (somatoform disorder), there is usually some underlying trauma and then when a certain trigger or switch is thrown, the two events collide to bring about conditions which are not easily diagnosed. I often explain it to people that it is like an electrical circuit in a house. If you start putting to many items on a circuit and then turn start turning them on, at some point they will flip the breaker. The same thing happens to our body where we continue to put one stress and trauma on after another. It builds up and something in the body ends up breaking or giving way to a shut down. The nervous system if not properly tuned up can only handle so much before it says - that's it - I'm outta here!

Unfortunately, all too often somatoform disorders are misdiagnosed by well intentioned specialists. I think back to the days when I was going through this and each doctor would run test after test to trying to explain what was going on. Early tests indicated Multiple Sclerosis but after I was started on a drug treatment (which was some type of steroid medication), my body had a severe reaction to it and started in with seizures and violent trembling and shaking throughout my body. After weeks of MRI's, blood work, a trip to the Hospital Emergency Room by ambulance, most of the doctors were giving up. Each time, I would be sent home with no explanation of why things were happening. Each time, friends would have to help lift me in and out of a car and carry me into my apartment as I could do none of this for myself. I could not care for myself during this time, yet no doctor or emergency room would admit me to the hospital.

Fortunately, some doctor got me in touch with a neurologist. It did not take long for the neurologist to begin questioning the tests that had already been done on me. She was the wise one that began to ask the questions and put things together that there was something behind all of this and it was not physical. Once she had me meet with a psychiatrist and as I began talking to the psychiatrist, I took my first steps that day. That was the beginning of my recovery. It was not an easy road and it took great will power and determination to keep going when all seemed hopeless for me physically.

Back then, I was not aware of the work that Dr. Paul Canali, D.C. was doing with trauma healing. In fact, I didn't even truly understand what a conversion disorder was at the time and it took some time before the doctors even told me this was what happened. It is a very rare condition but I know there are more out there that go through this. I have found there is healing from this and from the trauma that I suffered. I also learned that to heal the trauma in my life, I needed to go in and touch the depths of it which were located within my body and my mind. It was through that connection that I really found my way through deep healing and started to reclaim my life.

There really is hope for someone if they are experiencing this situation in their life. No one needs to go through what I went through because tests and medications are not going to heal it in the end. When I first met Dr. Canali and began listening to what he was talking about, the concepts were foreign to me. You don't hear these things talked about in our every day world. However, my body knew without a doubt that what he was saying was exactly what had taken place in my life. My body also realized that he had discovered some of the answers that I had longed to find in my life. Through his work, I have changed completely from what I used to be and I have begun to discover just who I am and what I am made of. My physical ailments from depression, anxiety, migraine headaches, stomach ulcers, stiff necks, muscle tension, anger, despair, and the list goes on - these things are no longer in power over me. I have found freedom from them by finding the necessary tools within myself to move through all that comes up in my life.

Further Reading

1. Autonomic Nervous System by Dr. Paul Canali
   
   
2. Hope And Possibility Through Trauma by Don Shetterly
   

(Copyright 11/08/10 - Use by permission only)