Before you read this: if this topic hits close to home, I’m running a FREE masterclass on Trauma Recovery + Performance Mindset.
Register here now: https://rise.phoenixcollective.app/event-page
(And yes—bookmark it, then come back and start reading.)
I was embarrassed as a man that at the age of four I couldn’t stand up for myself.
And then at ten, eleven, twelve, I still didn’t have the wherewithal to fight back.
That sentence alone explains why so many men never talk about sexual abuse. Not because it didn’t happen. Not because it didn’t wreck them. But because it collides with something deep in male identity: the belief that you should have been able to protect yourself.
So the pain becomes a private courtroom.
You replay it.
You prosecute yourself.
You convict yourself.
And you carry the sentence into adulthood.
And then society adds a second layer of shame.
We can talk, at least more openly, about the abuse of women and girls. We should. That matters.
But the moment a man brings up his own experience, I’ve watched conversations shut down. I’ve watched friendships go cold. Not because people are evil, but because they’re uncomfortable. Embarrassed. They do not know what to do with it, so they avoid it. They disappear.
I’ve had people excited to read my book, and then I never hear from them again.
Not because they hate me.
Because my story embarrasses them.
Because it makes them feel something they don’t want to feel.
Because it forces a reality they’d rather pretend isn’t real.
That’s how silence gets enforced.
And here’s the brutal part. Silence isn’t just emotional. It’s structural.
When I started my recovery 20 years ago, there wasn’t a single book on male sexual abuse that I could find. There were no support groups. No clear pathways. No map.
So you go looking for help, and you keep hearing “no.”
You keep getting told, directly or indirectly, that “those sorts of things don’t happen to men.”
Except they do.
And when a man has to heal in isolation, he often does it the only ways he knows how: numb it, outrun it, bury it, or turn it into anger. Then he wonders why his sleep is wrecked, why he’s hypervigilant, why his relationships keep snapping under pressure, why success still feels hollow.
This is one of the reasons I built what I built.
Because recovery should not be reserved for the lucky few who find the right therapist, the right book, the right mentor, the right moment, after losing a decade to “trying to cope.”
Free Masterclass: Trauma Recovery + Performance Mindset
If you’re a man carrying shame that was never yours to carry, I want you in this.
Not for pity. Not for confession. For traction.
We’re going to talk about what actually helps men move from:
- silent shame
to grounded strength - coping
to recovery - surviving
to training your mind and nervous system on purpose
Sign up here: https://rise.phoenixcollective.app/event-page
If you need to think about it, fine. But don’t disappear on yourself.
Register here: https://rise.phoenixcollective.app/event-page
And if you know a man who won’t say it out loud but you can see it on him, send this to him.
Follow me on Substack and social: @drjohnaking