Survival of the Bravest

Survivors UK is the only male-centric service offering help, counselling and therapeutic services to survivors of male rape and sexual abuse. Its funding has recently come under threat. Patrick Cash speaks to those who use the service to find out how vital the charity’s work is in helping all men deal with abuse.

 


Michael 

My father sexually abused me at around nine years old.

When I moved down to London I found some information about Survivors UK and their services. The fact that it’s an organisation focused only on male survivors is helpful to men looking for help; there’s still more social recognition of women and girls as victims of sexual abuse, and so men can sometimes think that they need to cope with abuse on their own.

I got some help with a Survivors UK counsellor – just the chance to talk to someone who you know is going to understand and appreciate that boys and men can be victims of sexual abuse, and the impact this can have, is very helpful, often after years of trying to cope on your own.

In one sense recovery never stops, but even a few months of counselling and support can make a massive difference to your life. You no longer feel like you’re the only man it’s happened to, and the way that abuse has impacted on you is quite common and shared by other survivors.

There’s still a view that men (or boys) can’t really be victims – why didn’t they fight it? – and it’s still difficult for many men to admit ‘weakness’, that they might be struggling to cope with earlier experiences, or that they might need help. Hopefully that’s changing though.

I would say to anybody else in my situation: you can get help and you can feel better.

 


Ben 

I was 36 when I was raped. I didn’t know my attacker, and I don’t know if they were straight, gay, or bi.

I was attacked just before Christmas 2007. That Christmas didn’t really happen for me, I was dealing with the immediate consequences of the rape, and I was on PEP, which made me quite ill. The following Christmases became really painful. Most of the time I’d just drink my way through to the New Year. In Christmas 2011, four years after the attack, it wasn’t getting any better.

One day I just walked out of work and carried on walking. I ended up half way across London, sat in Bishops Square watching everyone getting ready for Christmas, going drinking, with people they loved, laughing and enjoying life, and I sat there, crying. I’d never felt so alone in my life.

I wanted it all to end. I didn’t want to have to face another Christmas re-living what had happened, facing up to the guilt, shame, and solitude. I couldn’t face work, I couldn’t face people, and I couldn’t even face drinking it away because I knew it was just destructive and that made me hate myself even more. I didn’t go back to work that year, I plastered on the fake smile I carried everywhere with me, and made some excuse up as to why I needed time away.

I’d found SurvivorsUK’s website, and finally called them.

Immediately I felt that someone was listening to me, but more importantly that they understood what was going on for me. I knew that they provided both personal and group therapy. I originally wanted group therapy as I wanted to hear someone else tell a similar story, I wanted to know that I wasn’t the only person this had happened to.

I was asked to come in for an assessment, and because of my particular circumstances they thought I was more suited to personal therapy. I was in luck, as a therapist had an opening a couple of weeks later, and that’s where the eighteen months of therapy started. The weekly counselling I received helped me rationalise what had happened, the guilt I felt, the anger that had been boiling inside me, and work through it to a point where I felt self sufficient and was able to say I didn’t need to see my counsellor anymore.

 


Michael May, senior manager at Survivors UK 

Survivors UK was set up in 1986 by two men who worked on the Lesbian and Gay Switchboard and received a number of calls from men who had experienced rape or sexual abuse and had nowhere to turn. The service started as a telephone helpline run from the spare bedrooms of their flats. In 1999 they got some funding to start delivering group support and from that, the direct services of Survivors UK were born.

Since then the service has grown to include face-to-face counselling for up to 2 years (with up to 55 clients being seen at any time) and weekly group therapy. We recently transformed our telephone helpline to a digital one using web and text chat to ensure that the service could be free to anyone with an internet connection and to try to reach a younger service user group.

“We are the only male specialists counselling services for male victims of sexual abuse in London”

The new helpline services are being funded by the Ministry of Justice and are available for 72 hours per week, more than any other sexual violence support nationally. We get around 180 referrals for counselling and group work per year and take between 70 to 100 men into the service. We are the only male specialists counselling services for male victims of sexual abuse in London.

We are reluctant to talk about sexual abuse and men as a society because men hold a certain place in our thinking – we rely on them to do hard jobs and to anchor our thoughts about the masculine. Rape and sexual abuse are by definition acts in which a person is robbed of their power so to see men as powerless is a threat to our own security and safety.

 

• You can reach Survivors UK via their website or by calling 0203 598 3898. And if you would like to help Survivors UK and their valuable work in any way, then visit: www.survivorsuk.org

• The Home Office Crime Reports estimates there are 2 million adult male survivors of sexual violation in the UK. Survivors UK currently assesses more than 150 people per year for counselling services for counselling services and receives more than 2500 calls to their helplines. 

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