Among all of the ways children can suffer in childhood, neglect is turning out to be equally as traumatic as physical and/or sexual abuse. To better understand how destructive neglect can be (and we are not talking only about lack of food, clothing, or shelter), here is some material from Bruce Perry, one of leaders in the study of how adversity challenges the developing brain in children.

The Neurodevelopmental Impact of Neglect in Childhood

Neglect is the absence of critical organizing experiences at key times during development. Despite its obvious importance in understanding child maltreatment, neglect has been understudied. Indeed, deprivation of critical experiences during development may be the most destructive yet the least understood area of child maltreatment. There are several reasons for this. The most obvious is that neglect is difficult to “see.” Unlike a broken bone, maldevelopment of neural systems mediating empathy, for example, resulting from emotional neglect during infancy is not readily observable.

***

[W]hat we do know about neglect during early childhood supports a neuroarcheological view of adverse childhood experience. The earlier and more pervasive the neglect is, the more devastating the developmental problems for the child. Indeed, chaotic, inattentive and ignorant caregiving can produce pervasive developmental delay (PDD; DSM IV-R) in a young child (Rutter et al., 1999). Yet the very same inattention for the same duration if the child is ten will have very different and less severe impact than inattention during the first years of life. (Perry, 2002, p. 88-89)

This new research suggests that neglected boys are more likely to display violence as adolescents, which makes perfect in that neglect can severely compromise affect regulation, allowing anger to escalate to violence very easily.

Here is a brief definition of affect regulation:

AFFECT is the behavioral expression of emotion and affect regulation is a set of processes individuals use to manage emotions and their expression to accomplish goals. However, structures involved in affect regulation are among the last to mature in the developing brain; therefore, many adolescents may not be adequately equipped to regulate their affect. Consequently, adolescents are at increased risk of adverse health outcomes associated with poor affect regulation. (Bell & McBride, 2010)

That should be enough foundation to contextualize this article (press release, actually).

Neglected boys may turn into violent adolescents

August 18, 2014
Written by Matt Swayne
Source: Penn State

Summary:
Parents who physically neglect their boys may increase the risk that they will raise violent adolescents, according to sociologists. Examples of physical neglect include not taking a sick or injured child to the doctor, improperly clothing a child and not feeding a child, according to the researchers. While physical abuse is a significant contributor to violent behavior, physical neglect alone is an even stronger predictor of male adolescent violence than physical abuse, they noted.

__________

Parents who physically neglect their boys may increase the risk that they will raise violent adolescents, according to Penn State sociologists.

In a study of currently incarcerated male adolescents, physical neglect during childhood arose as the strongest predictor of violent behavior, said William McGuigan, associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State Shenango. Researchers are just beginning to acknowledge the powerful role of neglect in influencing adolescent violence, he added.

"One of the problems with studying neglect is that it is an act of omission, rather than one of commission. In other words, it is characterized as the absence of an act, rather than an actual act of mistreatment," said McGuigan. "However, now we have better measures and larger databases to document neglect."

Examples of physical neglect include not taking a sick or injured child to the doctor, improperly clothing a child and not feeding a child, according to the researchers who will present their findings today (Aug. 18) at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco.

The study indicated that while physical abuse is a significant contributor to violent behavior, physical neglect alone is an even stronger predictor of male adolescent violence than physical abuse, or even physical abuse and neglect combined.

"It sounds somewhat contrarian, but the physical abuse might at least show that parents are paying some type of attention to the child," said McGuigan, who worked with Roxanne Atterholt, instructor, and Jack A. Luchette, an undergraduate student, both in in human development and family studies at Penn State Shenango.

McGuigan said that understanding how neglect can influence violent behavior in adolescent males may lead to better education for caregivers and better care for at-risk youths.

"We have to look more into neglect and become more aware of how it may cause some of these violent behaviors," said McGuigan. "From that, we can build early preventative care programs than can help avoid these negative outcomes."

The research could also create assessments that, for example, might help protect people who care for adolescents by identifying youths who are more prone to violence.

The researchers analyzed data taken from a survey of 85 subjects, who are residents of a Pennsylvania detention center for delinquent males. In the survey, 25 of the participants, or 29.4 percent of the group, said that they experienced at least one incidence of childhood neglect. Acts of violence included fighting with students or parents, hitting teachers or instructors and using a weapon to scare, rob or injure another person.

Sexual abuse was not included in the survey. Only two subjects responded that they were sexually abused in the survey, which was not enough to provide conclusive findings, McGuigan said.


Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Penn State. The original article was written by Matt Swayne. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Date and Acquaintance Rape - Presentation Version and Full Version

 

Here is the presentation (shorter version as presented and a longer version) I gave at the Tucson YWCA yesterday as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. These are hosted by SlideShare.

I posted this at Integral Options Cafe but, as I discuss in the presentation, we need to spend more time educating boys and men on treating women with respect, not on teaching women how not to get raped. Teaching women to be afraid of men is not the answer - and it's clearly not working.


Full presentation:


Presentation as given at the YWCA:

This Is What a Good Man Looks Like . . . Patrick Stewart

I have admired Patrick Stewart as an example of a good man for several years. He always has seemed humble and grateful, yet is one of the most talented actors of his generation or any other. When he began to speak out about the domestic violence he lived with as a child (see here and here), my respect for him increased substantially.

A blogger at the Comicpalooza in Texas, held on Memorial Day weekend, thanked him for a speech he gave on domestic violence at an Amnesty International event. She said she had been through a similar event in her life and thanked him for speaking out.

From there, things got personal . . . .

Patrick Stewart hugs domestic-abuse survivor, tells of violence in his childhood

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

TODAY

Patrick Stewart told the Comicpalooza audience that his mother was blamed for the abuse rained on her by his father.

On television, he was the almost unflappable Captain Jean-Luc Picard on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." But Patrick Stewart was raised in a poor household with an abusive father, and the experience gave him the fire to work for such causes once he had the fame to make himself heard.

Stewart appeared at Comicpalooza in Texas over the Memorial Day weekend, and while there, answered questions from audience members.

Heather Skye, who blogs at Lemon Sweetie, thanked Stewart for a speech he gave at an Amnesty International event about domestic violence, saying that she had come through a similar event and appreciated his speaking out, and asked him about what non-acting work he's the most proud of.

And then things got personal. Stewart, who has spoken about his father's abuse before, referenced his own childhood in 1940s England. "The work that I do in campaigns about violence towards women, particularly domestic violence, grew out of my own childhood experience," he said.

He discussed the specific groups he works with, and went on to say, "I do what I do in my mother's name, because I couldn't help her then. Now I can."

Stewart said his father, a World War II veteran, was then said to suffer from severe shellshock, but would today be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He works with both the veterans' mental-health charity Combat Stress as well as the domestic-violence shelter Refuge, saying he does so because of both of his parents.

"As a child, I heard in my home doctors and ambulance men say, 'Mrs. Stewart, you must have done something to provoke him,'" Stewart said to Skye and the crowd. "'Mrs. Stewart, it takes two to make an argument.' Wrong! WRONG! My mother did nothing to provoke that, and even if she had, violence is never ever a choice that a man should make. Ever!"

The crowd gave Stewart a standing ovation, and shortly after, he walked into the crowd and hugged Skye. She wrote on her blog, "He told me 'You never have to go through that again, you’re safe now.' I couldn’t stop thanking him. His embrace was so warm and genuine. It was two people, two strangers, supporting and giving love. And when we pulled away he looked (straight) in my eyes, like he was promising that. He told me to take care. And I will."

School Principal Discouraged Teen Girl from Reporting Sexual Assault Because It Would Ruin Attacker's Basketball Career

This principle, Terry Urguhart (as well as the Superintendent, Daniel Behm, and Assistant Superintendent and Title IX Coordinator, Anne Edsenga) all should be fired from their jobs. Fortunately, they are being sued by the National Women’s Law Center on behalf of the victim (who was a 15-yr old sophomore at the time of the assault in 2010).

Not only did the principle fail to investigate, he left the perpetrator in the same class as the victim for two weeks. It gets worse.

As word of the sexual assault spread among the student body, the female victim became the target of an intensive cyber-bullying and harassment campaign—both at school and online—that depicted her as a liar and a “whore” who was trying to bring down an innocent athlete. These cyber-attacks were only reinforced by the fact that the school continued to take no action to reprimand the male student. Not only did fellow students harass the victim, the attacker and his friends verbally and physically harassed the girl as well. They followed her around as she moved in and out of classrooms, through hallways, and around the school campus. The attacker sometimes pushed her into other students as she walked down the hallway, causing her to slam into lockers. Despite repeated efforts by the victim’s parents and other students to alert the principal and the school’s Title IX Coordinator about the viciousness of the harassment by the attacker and other students, school administrators took no action.

The perpetrator had already been convicted in the juvenile system of Aggravated Assault and been through the Kent County Adolescent Sex Offender Treatment Program. Apparently, the treatment did not work for him. In the time between his assault of the first victim and his being charged by the Kent County Prosecutor’s office (two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct), he attacked and assaulted another female student (thus the two felony counts) at the school.

The attacker later pled guilty to a single count of misdemeanor assault and battery. He was sentenced to attend Kent County’s Adolescent Sexual Offender Treatment Program for a second time. The only sanction the school imposed upon the student assailant was to temporarily bench him on the basketball court.

He still has not served time for his actions - and he may still have a shot at a college basketball career, where there a lot more women to sexually assault.

If the principle could sit in my office for a week and see how these assaults, and worse, the discounting of the victim's suffering, affects their lives, their self-esteem, their ability to get through the day, he would hopefully not been so willing to dismiss the girl's experience and let the athlete get away with it.

We need to do better at educating school officials, law enforcement, and other groups that this shit is real, and it can be debilitating, and to consider how they might feel if their daughter was ever sexualy assaulted.

I originally found this story at AlterNet, and the text below comes from Jessica Pieklo at RH Reality Check.

Michigan High School Protects Student Athlete at Expense of Alleged Sexual Assault Victim

by Jessica Mason Pieklo, Senior Legal Analyst, RH Reality Check
April 21, 2013 

A lawsuit filed last week by the National Women's Law Center suggests high school administrators have a long way to go in protecting students from sexual assaults.

(Basketball on court via Shutterstock)

Last week the National Women’s Law Center, along with a local law firm in Michigan, filed a complaint in federal district court on behalf of a high school student who was allegedly sexually assaulted at school by a fellow student and star basketball player. In many ways the story echoes the tragic high school rape story from Steubenville, Ohio, which should lead all of us to ask just what kind of culture are we raising our children in, and what kind of culture is being cultivated at our high schools?

According to the complaint, in 2010 the victim was sexually assaulted by a star player on the school’s basketball team. The assault took place on campus in a sound proof band room at Forest Hills Central High School. The victim notified a teacher who in turn reported the assault to the principal. But rather than open an investigation into the allegations, the principal discouraged the student and her parents from filing charges, telling them that doing so could ruin the assailant’s prospects at being recruited to play basketball for a Division 1 school.

The victim and her parents ignored the principal’s request not to file charges because they were concerned that this student might attack other girls. Instead, the student and her parents filed a police report, and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department began a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, the school did nothing.

As alleged in the complaint, two weeks later another female student was sexually assaulted by the same attacker. Despite a legal obligation under Title IX to investigate the assault and protect the student, the high school officials never interviewed the girl or her parents again, failed to conduct an investigation, and for two and a half weeks left the attacker in one of her classes.

It gets worse. As word of the sexual assault spread among the student body, the female victim became the target of an intensive cyber-bullying and harassment campaign—both at school and online—that depicted her as a liar and a “whore” who was trying to bring down an innocent athlete. These cyber-attacks were only reinforced by the fact that the school continued to take no action to reprimand the male student. Not only did fellow students harass the victim, the attacker and his friends verbally and physically harassed the girl as well. They followed her around as she moved in and out of classrooms, through hallways, and around the school campus. The attacker sometimes pushed her into other students as she walked down the hallway, causing her to slam into lockers. Despite repeated efforts by the victim’s parents and other students to alert the principal and the school’s Title IX Coordinator about the viciousness of the harassment by the attacker and other students, school administrators took no action.

Thankfully law enforcement did. Five weeks after the sexual assault, the Kent County Prosecutor’s office authorized two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct against the attacker for his assaults on NWLC’s client and the second female victim at the school. The attacker later pled guilty to a single count of misdemeanor assault and battery. He was sentenced to attend Kent County’s Adolescent Sexual Offender Treatment Program for a second time. The only sanction the school imposed upon the student assailant was to temporarily bench him on the basketball court.

“Title IX requires schools to ensure that the educational environment is free from sex-based discrimination,” said NWLC Vice-President of Education and Employment Fatima Goss Graves said in a statement.

“This school completely ignored its legal responsibility to address student-on-student sexual harassment and failed to take reasonable steps to protect the victim. The school’s failure to address the harassment sends a chilling message to students that they should remain silent in the face of sexual assault and cannot count on their school to provide a safe learning environment.”

Because of the school district’s inaction, the victim’s grades suffered, she quit the soccer team and cheerleading squad, became isolated from her classmates, and ended up transferring to a new school. And while the lawsuit may vindicate her rights, it does little to undo the message the school district sent to other students, which is that if a student dares to speak out against sexual violence they will be ridiculed and left unprotected. Students not only deserve to feel safe in their school environments, according to Title IX they have a right to be safe in them as well. Unfortunately for students at Forest Hills Central High School, their administration doesn’t seem to understand that duty trumps potential college athletic recruitment.


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Follow Jessica Mason Pieklo on twitter: @hegemommy

Review - The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows by Brian Castner

Brian Castner's The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows is his memoir of three tours of duty in Iraq, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit, and his life after coming home, dealing with "the Crazy."

Here are the first few paragraphs of the book:

THE FIRST THING you should know about me is that I’m Crazy.

I haven’t always been. Until that one day, the day I went Crazy, I was fine. Or I thought I was. Not anymore.

My Crazy is a feeling. It’s the worst, most intolerable feeling I’ve ever had. And it never goes away.

When you’re Crazy, you make a list of people you have told, the people you have come out to. My list is small. One best friend but not another. Jimbo and John and Greg, but not the other guys on the team. Your wife but not your mother. Those that you think will get it, will understand.

And now I’m telling you. That I’m Crazy, and I don’t know why.

The second thing you should know about me is that I don’t know how to fix it. Or control it. Or endure from one moment to the next. The Crazy is winning.

So I run.

I run every day, twice a day sometimes, out the front door of my peaceful suburban home, past sticky blast scenes of sewage, and motor oil, and bloody swamps of trash and debris, ankle deep, filling the road, sidewalks, shop and house doorsteps. I run through dust clouds, blown in off the desert or kicked up by the helo rotor wash. I run past the screaming women that never shut up, don’t shut up now. I should have made them stop when I had a chance. I run as fast as I can, as long as I can, my feet hitting the pavement in a furious rhythm, along the river near my home.

I run in the hottest part of the day, the full afternoon blaze, the heat of the black asphalt, baking in the summer sun, rising through my shoes and into my feet. I speed up, but the Crazy feeling is still winning. It overwhelms. Sweat pours down my flushed face, in my eyes. Albietz is chalk white skin and brown dried blood from head to toe.

Aside from Johnny Got His Gun, Catch-22, and Slaughterhouse-Five (all novels, although Vonnegut based his novel on his experience as a POW), I am not a huge fan of the war genre in literature, fiction or non-fiction.

Fortunately I am open to new things. A friend of mine highly recommended Castner's memoir last Friday, I bought it that same day, and finished it this morning. It is without doubt one of the most engrossing memoirs I have ever read, and with no ghost writer it is exceptionally well-written and constructed.

The sentences are often short, almost staccato, and Castner uses an image ("the foot in the box") as a hook throughout the text that seems at first part of his PTSD and then is revealed - in an unexpected way - that sheds light on the theme of the memoir.

There are a lot of action scenes set in Iraq, in the field, doing their jobs - all of which are riveting because of the imminent threat of death, and made even more so through the writing style. But there is also humor, brief glimpses of joy, yoga, and the daily battle with "the Crazy."

This is a book, in many ways, about men working with men in a predominantly male world. Yet I think the women who love men who have served in Iraq might better understand their men through this book.

Highly recommended - this was an Amazon Best Book for 2012.

For those who want more of a review, here are some links.

New York Times – August 19, 2012
Dallas Morning News – July 27, 2012
The Boston Globe - July 20, 2012
The New Yorker – July 12, 2012
USAToday - July 12, 2012
The Daily Beast – July 2, 2012

Here is a segment from NPR's Fresh Air that aired last summer.

'The Life That Follows' Disarming IEDs In Iraq

July 08, 2012

Listen to the Story

Fresh Air from WHYY
44 min 17 sec

Download
Transcript
Read an excerpt of The Long Walk

The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows

by Brian Castner

Brian Castner arguably had one of the most nerve-wracking jobs in the U.S. military. He commanded two Explosive Ordnance Disposal units in Iraq, where his team disabled roadside IEDs, investigated the aftermath of roadside car bombings and searched door to door to uncover bomb-makers at their homes.

"We would disassemble the IEDs when somebody else found them; we would go on route-clearance patrols with the engineers to trip the ambushes before they would hit our convoys; and we would do the post-blast investigations," Castner tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "Hopefully we would find weapons caches and dispose of a lot of this bulk ordnance before it would be used as an IED. ... But there was no getting rid of all of the bombs."

Sometimes those bombs would go off and Castner's team would be responsible for investigating the gruesome aftermath.

"You would show up and the loved ones would already be picking up bodies or pieces of bodies and they're already loading the destroyed car onto a flatbed, and it's bad enough that you're out there doing this but they're getting in the way of you doing your job," he says. "We could be there for 10 minutes. Because the longer you're there, the more chance you have to get shot at or have a mortar dropped on your head. So you get out as quickly as you can."

In his memoir, The Long Walk, Castner chronicles his three tours in Iraq and the life that followed when he returned home as a different man, unable to forget what he saw or experienced in Iraq. He describes his experiences as "Crazy" — a term that is often repeated in the book.

"You don't want to be a caricature of yourself but that's what it felt like I was turning into," he says. "And I needed a word [for it]. And if you're nauseous, you know you're about to throw up and if you have a headache, that's called pain. But I had a physical symptom that I didn't have a name for. ... So 'Crazy' was the best way to describe it."

Castner also had physical symptoms in addition to the problems in his mind. He began experiencing cognitive side effects related to his close exposure to blast attacks. In recent years, he was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. Long-term-memory problems, hearing issues and sleep apnea have plagued his body.

"The one that really bothered me, by and far, is the long-term-memory loss," he says. "I've got some sections of when my kids are younger and when my wife and I met and really the first three-quarters of my marriage that I simply don't remember. ... That was part of what I was working through [when I wrote the book]. Why can I remember the day of six [car bombs] so well but I can't remember my kids being born?"

Brian Castner served as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1999 to 2007, deploying to Iraq to command bomb disposal units in Balad and Kirkuk in 2005 and 2006. Joey Campagna/Courtesy of the author

Interview Highlights

On transitioning to home life

"The stakes were all too low suddenly. Whether I did the dishes or not didn't seem to rise to the challenge of what I had done before. When nothing is important anymore, everything is important. Little things start to become too important and you start to become obsessive over the details. And that obsessive part of my brain that kept me alive in Iraq went into overdrive and it became the hindrance. It got in the way."

On why soldiers tie their ID and blood type around their feet instead of their hands

"It turns out that you put your blood type and your NKA (no known allergies) on my foot and you stick a dog tag in your laces because it's the part of you that's most likely to survive if you get blown up. We found feet a lot. If you're going to find a part of the bomber or victim, you might find their head. It's a better chance that you're going to find their hands and feet."

On arriving at the scene of an IED after it went off

"You become numb to it eventually. But I would never call it business as usual. And in fact, the post-blast mission is one that only really developed as the war went on. When I initially went through EOD school, there was no section of the training that was called post-blast investigation. On my first trip to Iraq in 2005, the first time I did one, I had to ask, 'Well, what does that even mean? What do you want me to look for?' "

On the long, lonely walk that was also portrayed in the 2008 film The Hurt Locker

"I put guys in suits all the time and I gave them the approval to put on the suit and go down nearly every day. And it is certainly the longest, loneliest walk that you will ever take. For an EOD guy who is used to being in control and accomplishing the mission, it is certainly more terrifying to be the one in the suit. But not having the sense of control to be the one used to just drive me nuts — to watch them walk down. Neither I nor anybody else can help them in that moment."

On giving the command to shoot a man who he thought might be triggering an IED

"It does not weigh on me because we made a mistake because mistakes happen in wartime. Everybody's just doing the best they can to survive every day. And so I don't regret it from that perspective. I felt like I wanted to give Trey [who was in my unit] the cover to do what he needed to do [which was disarm a potential bomb in a car] because I felt like that was my responsibility. If something bad happened, I wanted to have whatever was going to happen land on me instead of him. If there was an investigation or if there was some sort of wrongful death inquiry, I wanted them to come talk to me.

"But what really bothered me about that situation was [that] I had told myself that what we were doing in Iraq was keeping everyone alive. We kept U.S. soldiers alive, we kept Iraqis alive, we took apart every single bomb and it didn't matter who the target was — it didn't matter if it was going to blow up an Iraqi school or a U.S. convoy. You take them all apart. And in this situation, we were going to use our explosives to kill somebody instead of making Iraq just a little bit safer."

Web Resources

• Brian Castner: Fever Dreams (his blog and website)

‘Today Show’ to Air Interview with Convicted Pedophile Jerry Sandusky

This is repulsive and irresponsible in more ways than I can count. NBC’s desire to air sensationalist material - obviously to get higher ratings - is seriously repulsive. If Sandusky wanted to give his side of the story he should have done it in court.

Giving a convicted pedophile a national platform to deny the sexual abuse he inflicted on so many young men is simply re-victimizing them and adding further trauma to what they have already experienced. I work with survivors of sexual trauma, both male and female, so I know how deeply wounded these young men are, and will continue to be for many years. For a national tv show to intentionally re-traumatize them is unconscionable.

I would love to see an organized boycott of NBC, or at least of “The Today Show” – this is simply unacceptable.

Kenny Bodanis blogs at MenGetPregnantToo.com, one of Canada's top parenting blogs (and the only one written by a dad to make the top ten list). I agree with everything he says in this post.

‘Today Show’ Promotes Nauseating Interview With Jerry Sandusky

MARCH 24, 2013 

BY KENNY BODANIS

Kenny Bodanis questions why Jerry Sandusky should be given a platform to tell “his side of the story?” 

The following blurb appeared in the Montreal Gazette’s sports section this morning. It was, no doubt, picked up from an American wire service:

◊♦◊

Sandusky to Tell His Story on NBC 

State College, PA. 

NBC says it will air an interview with former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky Monday on the Today Show. NBC says the convicted sex offender will give his account of the encounters that landed him in prison and discuss former boss Joe Paterno. Sandusky is serving a 30 to 60 year prison term for 45 counts of child sexual abuse.

◊♦◊

Who is the target audience for this interview? Who just can’t wait to hear this pedophile give “his account of the encounters” he had with children?

What do people expect to hear? Details? Excuses? Apologies? Blame?

What has this creep done to deserve a national platform through which he can give his side of the story?

If he cries on air, I might throw up.

This seems to be mass media’s new modus operandi – crowding around felons, deceivers, and deviants hoping for that shocking morsel which will become a viral clip on YouTube, carrying their ratings through sweeps week.

It is sickening to imagine the celebration and congratulations which probably took place during the production meeting when the Today Show learned they scored this interview: “Good job, everyone!”

Whatever “explanation” Sandusky may give for his actions, will come from the mouth of a liar who was able to scare dozens of abused students into silence year after year.

Sandusky deserves nothing more than that same isolation, in a cell, for the next 60 years.

Photo: AP/Matt Rourke

About Kenny Bodanis
Kenny Bodanis is the author of MenGetPregnantToo.com - named by Reader's Digest Canada as one of that country's top parenting bloggers - the only dad on the list. He is currently editing his first parenting book, and is a monthly parenting columnist on Montreal radio. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +

Alva Noë - Poetry In Motion: Why I'll Be Watching The Super Bowl

The other day I posted a lengthy article from Esquire on the crisis mentality that has emerged in the NFL around head injuries and the violence of the game. There have been similar articles over the last week or two as everyone gears up for today's Super Bowl game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, the first time ever that brothers have faced each other in the Big Game as opposing head coaches.

I have to admit a long-time love affair with football - I loved to play it when I was a wee lad (before soccer became my year-around sport) and I have loved watching it for as long as I can remember, all the way back to the first Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl win.

But I am also concerned about the increasing recognition of brain damage in these men, the public awareness of which grew substantially following the autopsy on Junior Seau that revealed repeated brain traumas that most likely led to his suicide. These men are bigger, stronger, and faster than ever, and the level violence created when bodies like theirs collide can be catastrophic both in the short term (concussions) and the long-term (brain damage).

Philosopher Alva Noë recognizes the dangers inherent in a sport that revolves around hitting the opposing player has hard and as fast as possible, often with the goal of dislodging the ball if at all possible. Still, he is watching the Big Game and he recommends you watch, as well.

For an opposing view, see Stop Ignoring Head Trauma: Turn Off The Super Bowl by Barbara J. King.

Poetry In Motion: Why I'll Be Watching The Super Bowl

by ALVA NOË
February 01, 2013

Randy Moss of the 49ers glides down the field, under an arcing football, on his way to a touchdown against the Patriots on December 16, 2012.Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

I don't blame professional footballers for suing the NFL for supposedly having failed adequately to protect them from head injury.

That's the way we do things in our society. We see a problem and start suing; it's our way of trying to figure out what changes need to be made and whose insurance companies are going to pay for them.

What I don't buy, not for a second, is that we didn't all already know that playing football, the way they play it in the NFL, is very dangerous. (Although we have surely learned a good deal about the far-reaching consequences of head injury! See this technical article; it was cited in Barbara King's provocative discussion here at 13.7 on Thursday.)

A great many sports are dangerous, to one degree or another.

Athletes get hurt. Badly. They're like gladiators. They get beat up, knocked around, and they live with pain. Surgery, to repair damage done and to extend a career, is normal.

They say taking steroids and other performance enhancing drugs is bad for your health. One reason to ban PEDs, it is said, is to protect athletes from these dangers.

That reasoning reminds me of a joke: a man stands before the firing squad; he is offered a last cigarette. "No thank you," he says. "I'm trying to quit."

If you want safety and good health, steroids are not the problem. It's sports themselves.

But my aim today is to praise sport, though, not to bury it.

I will be watching the Super Bowl this weekend. And I recommend it to you.

Forget the dangers. Forget the use of banned drugs. Forget the commercialism.

The value of sports — the value of spectator sports — outstrips all that.

Sports is a field of love.

We love sports. We love these athletes.

And we value being spectators because it gives us an opportunity to love and adore them.

We admire them, in the original sense of this word: we feel wonder in the face of all that these athletes accomplish. We are awed by their strength and speed, extraordinary skill, drive and determination, their fight.

But above all, we value the physical courage that enables these players to play to win. We applaud them for their willingness to leap and jump and twist and slam and take the hit.

I won't allow my boys to play tackle football in high school. That's not the life I want for them.

But I will be watching the Super Bowl this weekend to celebrate and adore these most unusually accomplished and beautiful people!

We may forget that poetry in Europe begins with the celebration of athletic achievment in theOdes of Pindar. The spectacle of sports carries on and it remains a fitting subject for celebration.

~ You can keep up with more of what Alva Noë is thinking on Facebook and on Twitter:@alvanoe

Conquering the Past and Creating the Future - The Secret Lives of Men Podcast

This episode of the Secret Lives of Men podcast features Dr. Chris Blazina talking to his guest, Michele Rosenthal about her new book, Before the World Intruded: Conquering the Past and Creating the Future, A Memoir, which details the author's struggles to overcome the trauma of having nearly died as a thirteen-year old.

You may ask yourself what this has to do with men, but all of us experience trauma in our lives, whether it's a near-fatal illness, an auto accident, the death of a loved one, or any number of other wounds we can experience. How we recover from these traumas has been a learning experience for many of us. In this discussion (and in her book), Ms. Rosenthal offers some insights that can aid all of us in our healing.

Conquering the Past and Creating the Future - The Secret Lives of Men Podcast

Listen to internet radio with Secret Lives of Men on Blog Talk Radio

Before the World Intruded: Conquering the Past and Creating the Future, A Memoir, is one woman’s quest to triumph over trauma — and the very unexpected way she did it. At the age of thirteen Michele Rosenthal survived such a rare, life-threatening illness none of her doctors had actually seen a case. Out of the hospital and making a full recovery, she believed if she only looked toward the future she could escape the trauma in her past. Twenty-five years later, however, the young girl had become a woman imprisoned by memories, fear, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In a bid to reclaim her life and heal her soul Michele boldly left the world she knew in search of a self she could barely imagine. In her transformation lie the seeds for anyone who wants to conquer the past and create the future. This transcendent book shows what can happen when you discover who you are and then choose who you most deeply want to be. 

~ Michele Rosenthal is an award winning blogger, speaker, poet, post-trauma coach, and radio talk show host. A trauma survivor who struggled with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for over twenty-five years, today Michele joyfully lives 100% free of PTSD symptoms. She is the founder of www.healmyptsd.com and sits on the board of Hope4PTSDvets.org and St. Clair Butterfly Foundation. For more information visit, HealMyPTSD.com. To receive over $1,900 in free trauma recovery support resources, take your Amazon sales receipt number and visit: http://yourlifeaftertrauma.com/trauma-project-give-back/free-gifts/

"Our Hearts Are Broken Today" - President Obama on Connecticut School Shooting

By now, most everyone knows that a young man went into an elementary school in Newton, CT, and opened fire with a pair of semi-automatic pistols, after first shooting his mother at their home. At the school, 26 people were killed it total - 20 of them were children, as well as the principal and a school psychologist.

Preliminary reports suggest the young man had a personality disorder - he also died in the massacre.

Christian Science Monitor offered the video of President Obama's statement - in which he cried. This is without question the most real and human presidential statement I have EVER seen in my 45 years. Fuck the political issues, this is a man who cares deeply and passionately about the nation he serves.

In a very real way, Obama's tears offered some Americans (if not many) a validation and a mirror of their own horrific feelings, as well as their fears. Some days, as he mentions, he is a father first, and a human being, and then he is President of the United States. This is what leadership looks like on the worst possible day in the lives of those who survive their murdered family members.

Video - Obama on Conn. shooting: 'Our hearts are broken today'

Obama on Conn. shooting, speaking at the White House, called for 'meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.' At this point, he didn't offer specifics.

By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer / December 14, 2012


His full statement:

This afternoon, I spoke with Governor Malloy and FBI Director Mueller. I offered Governor Malloy my condolences on behalf of the nation and made it clear he will have every single resource he needs to investigate this heinous crime, care for the victims, counsel their families.

We've endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years and each time I hear the news, I react not as a president but as anybody else would as a parent. And that was especially true today. I know there's not a parent in America who doesn't feel the same overwhelming grief that I do.

The majority of those who died today were children. Beautiful little kids between the ages of five and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them: birthdays, graduations, weddings [wipes away tears], kids of their own.

Among the fallen were also teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams. So our hearts are broken today. For the parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children. And for the families of the adults who were lost.

Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well. For as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children's innocence has been torn away from them too early, and there are no words that will ease their pain.

As a country, we have been through this too many times. Whether it's an elementary school in Newtown or a shopping mall in Oregon or a temple in Wisconsin or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago, these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children. And we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.

This evening, Michelle and I will do what I know every parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter, and we'll tell them that we love them, and we'll remind each other how deeply we love one another. But there are families in Connecticut who cannot do that tonight, and they need all of us, right now. In the hard days to come, that community needs us to be at our best as Americans, and I will do everything in my power as President to help.

Because while nothing can fill the space of a lost child or loved one, all of us can extend a hand to those in need, to remind them that we are there for them, that we are praying for them, that the love they felt for those they lost endures not just in their memories, but also in ours.

May God bless the memory of the victims. And in the words of scripture, "Heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds."

Romeo Vitelli, Ph.D. - When Men Are Raped

Contrary to what the author of this study reports, I am proud to say that SACASA (Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault), where I work as a trauma therapist, has been seeing male survivors or rape, assault, molestation, and incest for most of its existence, beginning with the Tucson Rape Crisis Center in the late 1970s.

The numbers reported here a bit low, from what I have seen - around 11-15% of all rapes are of males, with 85-89% female victims. [If male rapes in prison and/or the military were accurately reported, I suspect these numbers would be much different.] From what I have seen personally, there is definitely a higher percentage of gay and bisexual (and possibly MTF transgender) survivors, with most being under 25 when they first seek services with our agency.

We work hard to include information on male victims, especially young boys and teens, in our community outreach and education, but I suspect there are still a lot of myths about men and rape, as this article suggests and tries to remedy.

When Men Are Raped

Being sexually assaulted is not something that only happens to women

Published on October 7, 2012 by Romeo Vitelli, Ph.D. in Media Spotlight

 

The trauma that women who have been sexually victimized is well-known, both in terms of the emotional consequences of the assault itself as well as the pain associated with trying to obtain justice afterward. While men are usually the perpetrators of sexual violence and women are usually the victims, that is not always the case however.  

Actual incidence of sexual assault involving adult male victims has always been difficult to estimate. Victim surveys of British and American males have shown that 3 to 8 per cent of males reported at least one adulthood incidence of sexual assault in their lifetimes with at least 5 to 10 per cent of all rape victims being male (Pino & Meier, 1990;   Coxell & King, 1999). These numbers can be substantially higher for non-heterosexual males though.  One 2005 study reported that 13.2 per cent of bisexual males and 11.2 per cent of gay men reported at least one instance of sexual assault as adults. Still, those numbers are almost certainly underestimate the reality considering most male victims are reluctant to report their sexual assault to the police. While the majority of these crimes are committed by male offenders, an estimated 6 to 15 per cent of these sexual assaults can involve female perpetrators (either working independently or in association with male co-offenders). 

But why has male sexual assault been so often marginalized in many societies?   According to a provocative new literature review recently published in Psychology of Men and Masculinity,  the problem may stem from various “myths” surrounding male rape. The review authors, Jessica A. Turchik of Stanford Medical School and Katie M. Edwards of Ohio University,  focus on a series of common rape myths that often prevent male victim from reporting their assault and can even make police officers refuse to take their complaint seriously. The myths include:

• Men cannot be raped
• “Real” men can defend themselves against rape
• Only gay men are victims and/or perpetrators of rape
• Men are not affected by rape (or not as much as women)
• A woman cannot sexually assault a man
• Male rape only happens in prisons
• Sexual assault by someone of the same sex causes homosexuality
• Homosexual and bisexual men deserve to be sexually assaulted because they are immoral and deviant
• If a victim physically responds to a sexual assault, he must have wanted it.

Many of these myths are frequently reported in social psychological reviews of male and female rape. Found across different cultures, they often reflect common attitudes about male sexuality. Since most media coverage on rape focuses on female victims with any reporting of male rape tending to be lurid (and often sarcastic), it is probably not surprising that male rape myths persist over time.   

Media representations of male rape (such as in movies like “Deliverance” and graphic scenes of rape in prison) certainly reinforce these attitudes. Even laws relating to sexual assault have shown a clear gender bias at times with rape being defined as female-only in many jurisdictions (such as in Canada before the Criminal Code was revised during the 1980s).    

Considering how common male rape myths are, it is probably not surprising that studies of law enforcement officers, medical students, and even rape crisis workers have shown these same attitudes towards sexual assault involving male victims. While homophobia can often account for gay rape victims being more likely to be blamed than heterosexual victims of sexual assault,  there is also a strong correlation between believing rape myths involving both male and female victims. In other words, people who believe common myths about male rape are likely to believe myths about female rape as well.

Whatever the cause, persistent attitudes about male rape are found in large segments of the general population and can have devastating consequences for men who have been victimized. Not only are victims far less likely to report the crime but those victims courageous enough to come forward can face a horrendous lack of support from the criminal justice system and even from those agencies that provide assistance for female victims of sexual assault.   

Although crisis center and hospital records have consistently shown that 3 to 12 per cent of reported sexual assault involve male victims,  one study from the 1990s indicate that as many as 37 per cent of rape crisis centres restrict services to females only. I am not aware of any more recent studies to suggest that this has changed substantially over time.

As Turchik and Edwards point out in their review, the negative attitudes spurred on by myths surrounding male rape are well-established among medical professionals, the courts, police officers, the military, and even the prison system and spring from the same patriarchal systems that reinforce negative attitudes about female rape. While more sensitive reporting has helped change attitudes towards female rape, whether these same changes will encourage male victims to come forward is another question.

Though prison rape and sexual assault of underage males have been forced into the open as more high-profile cases are reported, the prevalence of male rape myths in our society and the attitudes about male sexuality that they reflect are much slower to change. That these changes need to happen and resources need to be put in place to help both men and women who experience sexual assault is something that we must face, both as a society and as individuals.

For simple justice, if nothing else.

Important . . . from The Good Men Project. A lot of boys and men are afraid to tell anyone about the abuse they have suffered for some or all of the reasons mentioned below. That should NEVER be the case. We need to educate people that boys and men are also survivors of abuse . . . and it makes them no less manly, no less straight, and not in any way deserving of shame or judgment.

If a Guy Tells You He Was Sexually Abused…

August 12, 2012 By The Good Feed Blog Editors  

A great new viral infographic from Just Tell for Facebook is spreading the word about the ways in which male survivors of sexual abuse are often regarded. It also offers the information tat 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused by the age of 18 – a startling statistic.

The mission of JustTell is to empower youth to disclose sexual abuse to a trusted adult.

Please visit Just Tell’s Facebook page, and to learn more about the ways in which Just Tell helps teenagers cope with abuse and figure out who to talk to, visit their website, JustTell.org

Justice is served . . . .

Sandusky Convicted of Sexually Abusing Boys

Jerry Sandusky walked with his wife, Dottie, into the Center County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Penn., on Friday.

By JOE DRAPE
Published: June 22, 2012

BELLEFONTE, Penn. — Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach, was convicted Friday of sexually abusing nine young boys, completing the downfall of a onetime local hero in a pedophilia scandal that seized national attention. 

The jury in Centre County Court returned its verdict on its second day of deliberation. He was convicted of 45 of the 48 counts against him. 

The charges against Sandusky, 68, shook Penn State to its roots last year, ending the careers of Joe Paterno, the university’s famed head coach, and its longtime president Graham B. Spanier, and prompting debate and soul-searching over the role of big-time college sports and of trusted men in children’s lives.

Sandusky, who had been Paterno’s longtime defensive coordinator, founded a charity, the Second Mile, to work with troubled youths, which prosecutors said he used as his private hunting ground, scouting for potential victims. What no one disputed was that he was continually in the company of one or more of those boys, taking them to workouts and football games, giving them gifts, having them sleep at his home and even showering with them.

Eight men who said they had been victimized by Sandusky as boys testified during the trial, offering graphic and disturbing accounts of repeated assaults by Sandusky — on the Penn State campus or in the basement of Sandusky’s home.

NPR - Many Who Are Sexually Abused Keep Quiet

The tendency to stay quiet is especially true of men, although I am pleased to see this changing in only the last ten years. But there is still a lot of stigma for men, as though they, often as boys, should have been able to fight off an adult abuser. Part of the reason men remain quiet is the shame they feel, and the fear of "losing" their masculinity in the eyes of others. The Sandusky case highlights some of these issues - how many of the survivors stayed quiet until someone else came forward?

Then there is the whole issue of sexual identity that comes up for boys who are molested by men or older boys - because our culture still stigmatizes homosexuality, boys fear that being sexually molested by a male might mean they are somehow gay.

The layers of reasons that men stay quiet are deep and profound, but I have seen real healing come simply in being able to talk about it in a safe environment with other men who have been through it as well.

Many Who Are Sexually Abused Keep Quiet

Listen to the Story

Talk of the Nation

[30 min 18 sec]

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 June 19, 2012

Psychologists say many people who are sexually abused as kids carry the secret for decades. Many never reveal what happened at all, and few file charges. Sarah Pleydell, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and clinical psychologist David Lisak talk about the challenges of carrying those secrets.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Last week on the first day of the sex abuse trial of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, a 28-year-old man referred to as Victim Four in court papers took the stand and offered graphic detail of years of abuse.

He also expressed regret for not coming forward earlier. He told the jury he had spent, quote, so many years burying this in the back of my head forever that when he heard there were other cases like his, he felt responsible.

But his reluctance is not uncommon. Earlier this month, an article in the New York Times raised allegations of widespread sex abuse of studies at the Horace Mann School in New York City, most of it in the 1970s and '80s. Psychologists say that many people sexually abused as children are silenced by fear and shame and never reveal what happened. Those who do can carry the secret for years or even decades.

If this is your story, give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Later in the program, the art of the ultimate counterfeiter, but we begin with Sarah Pleydell, who joins us here in Studio 3A. Thanks very much for coming in.

SARAH PLEYDELL: Hi.

CONAN: And this is your story.

PLEYDELL: Yes, it is.

CONAN: When did you become aware as an adult that you needed to say something?

PLEYDELL: Oh, well into my 20s and into my 30s. It was an experience that, you know, had lain buried for 25, 30 years.

CONAN: What happened, briefly?

PLEYDELL: I grew up in a household in London, in the '50s, '60s. My parents were professionals. My father was one of those sort of debonair charmers, you know, sort of a Cary Grant kind of type. But he was a profound drunk. And my mother couldn't stand him. He totally exasperated her, and she would, you know, fly into a rage and pack up and leave.

And so he repeatedly abused my sister and me between the ages of eight and 11. I was left to give him dinner and put him to bed. I think one of the most poignant pieces of it is that in that kind of strange, childish heroism, I thought that if I were his caretaker that I could prevent him doing any damage to my sister.

CONAN: So you didn't know at the time that your sister was being abused, as well.

PLEYDELL: No, and when I discovered in my late 20s, it was just horrifying. It was, you know, one of the most devastating things.

CONAN: How did you find out?

PLEYDELL: Well, we didn't talk about it until we were in our late 20s, and by then, I was flooded with the kind of graphic dissociative images that survivors, you know, are flooded with. And I began to share them with her.

But up until that point, you know, none of it had really made any sense to me. I think that people don't speak up because of the way that sexual abuse impacts the body and the mind and the heart. My father was, when he wasn't drunk, my primary caregiver. I adored him. I was the apple of his eye, and the idea that he could betray me in this way was unthinkable. You know, I just couldn't engage it as a complete thought. And so my mind just scrambled up the images, scrambled them all up.

CONAN: And what did your sister say when you started to talk about it?

PLEYDELL: She asked me what I remembered, and I told her the kind of strange, dissociative, graphic images that I had that, you know, they were out of sequence, that didn't make any sense but were very vivid, had, you know, free-floating sort of sensory horror to them, smells and sounds and words. And, you know, she sort of revealed that she had the same things, the same things.

CONAN: And that's the devastating moment.

PLEYDELL: Yeah, well, we helped each other piece together what our immature brains could not do.

CONAN: Were your parents still alive at that point?

PLEYDELL: My father, because he was an addled drunk, unfortunately, well, in some ways fortunately, had a massive stroke in his 50s. So by the time I was ready to talk to him, he didn't really know who I was or not for more than five minutes. But my mother was still alive and still very together.

CONAN: And did you talk to her?

PLEYDELL: Finally in my 30s I made the choice to talk to her. I don't think it's the only choice to be made, but I did make that choice. And I confronted her when she came to visit me. And she at first was very defensive. She was - denied it, and I was very angry. So I can see why, in some ways.

And gradually she accepted it, and then she became incredibly sorry that she had not left my father earlier because she did leave him. And to fair to her, I mean, the symptoms that we were demonstrating would now be considered classic symptoms of child abuse, I mean, bedwetting and anorexia and all the rest of it, but then, you know, she just knew we were being hurt, and she did kick him out.

But we did this over a period of 10 years. Every time she came, we would go through this until finally I felt I'd done it enough.

CONAN: The range of emotions that must have warped back and forth between you and your mother, and your sister of course, too, feeling abandoned, lack of protection, a mother's obligation, her guilt yet her own need to be out of a situation that was clearly - she didn't know what was going on but clearly not healthy for her, either.

PLEYDELL: No, no, but it was the '60s, and it was a hard thing for a woman to get up and leave a husband. And the information wasn't out there. So, you know, I respect her for doing it; I wish to hell she'd done it a whole lot earlier.

CONAN: We want to hear from people in the audience today whose story this is, too. Give us a call if you've kept these memories quiet for years or decades afterwards, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. And we'll start with Al(ph), Al's calling us from Phoenix.

AL: Yeah, thank you for taking my call. I was abused by several different people, cousins and neighbors and a few other people, as was my wife. And she was repeatedly abused by someone that she had babysat for, which led to later on choosing I guess abusive relationships as an adult.

And by the time she was really ready to deal with what had happened, when she and I came together, and she sort of started trying to heal and deal with things, the statute of limitations had run out to prosecute this man. And he's now in his late 60s and is now married to a 19-year-old girl, and we have since also found out that in the years when my wife had moved away from where he was, he had abused several other girls.

And to me the statute of limitations is extremely problematic not only because you can't prosecute someone but because it sort of implies that the victim should have gotten over it already.
CONAN: It does vary state to state.

AL: If you haven't done something about it in a certain amount of time, then you really couldn't have felt that bad about it is what it seems like.

CONAN: I understand, just - I don't think you could hear me, Al, but it does vary from state to state. In some states, there's no statute of limitations on rape, as there is none on murder.

AL: Right. Where we are, it is, so...

CONAN: How did you and your wife find each other?

AL: How did we meet, or how did we find each other?

CONAN: Well, how did you find out that you shared this background?

AL: Well, I think I have dealt with mine much earlier. I've lived on my own since I was a very, very young man and also had a lot of friends that had been molested, and I had helped some friends sort of move out of their homes or move out of abusive relationships. And so I think very early on in my relationship with my wife, I recognized the personality traits.

And she and I had been friends for many, many years, and she had been dating someone else, and I had recognized the type of relationship that she was in was also very abusive and a symptom of someone who had been abused as a younger person.

CONAN: Well, David - Al, thanks very much for sharing your story, and good luck to you both.
AL: Thank you very much.

CONAN: And Sarah Pleydell, he raises an interesting question. The effects later on, abusive relationships, clearly in your case it could have led to alcoholism, abusive relationships, a lot of things.

PLEYDELL: You develop a vulnerable personality, and you're susceptible to patterns that have been imprinted from childhood. And it takes a lot of work to change those patterns.

CONAN: David Lisak is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He's a clinical psychologist, a founding board member of oneinsix.org, an organization that serves men who were sexually abused as children, and he joins us today from member station WUSF in Tampa. Thanks very much for being with us.

DAVID LISAK: Thank you, Neal.

CONAN: And this is not just a topic you research, this is your story, too.

LISAK: That's right. I was abused when I was a kid.

CONAN: And when did you come to terms with it?

LISAK: Well, that started really only in my late 20s into my 30s. I either completely repressed the memories for about 25 to 27 years, and then over the course of several years began to come to terms with it and eventually told my surviving parent, my mother, about it.

CONAN: It was your father who abused you, too?

LISAK: No, no it wasn't. It was a babysitter, a boarder who was taken into our house to help pay the rent.

CONAN: So again, the emotions are unbelievably powerful. Your mother, again, is supposed to be your protector.

LISAK: Yes, and one of the - you know, there are so many effects that children who are abused suffer, both at the time and then as the years go by. And for myself, as for so many, when you're five years old, even though your mother does not know what's happening, you inevitably interpret it as an abandonment, as a betrayal, and why isn't she protecting me, why isn't somebody rescuing me from this.

And there's really just no way that a child that young can see it as any other - in any other way. And that really can so undermine the child's relationship with their parents, with adults, with authorities, and that can last a long time.

CONAN: We're talking about carrying the painful secret of childhood sexual abuse for years or even decades. If this is your story, give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. I'm Neal Conan. Stay with us. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. Jerry Sandusky's defense team continues to call witnesses in the former assistant coach's trial on dozens of counts of alleged sexual abuse. High-profile cases like this often spur conversations and sometimes revelations of past abuse.

As we've heard, victims often suffer in silence, alone, in many cases blaming themselves. We're talking today about why it's so difficult to talk about childhood sexual abuse and what happens when the truth comes out. If this is your story, our phone number is 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org.

Our guests are Sarah Pleydell, herself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. She teaches writing at the University of Maryland, College Park. And David Lisak, associate professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He researches the effects of childhood sex abuse. He's also spoken out about his own past abuse.

And David Lisak, some of these effects down the years, they can vary with different individuals.

LISAK: Yes, and they do, and that's an important thing to remember, that - the circumstances of the abuse, the context in which it occurs. You know, in my case, I was abused by somebody who was really outside the family. I had, I at least had a mother who was a good mother in so many ways. And in my other work, I do a lot of forensic work, I evaluate men who have committed serious crimes, most of whom have also been terribly abused as kids.

But most of them had no parents who were there to help them in any way, and that's one of the factors that can really alter what happens over the long run. So despite the abuse, I was able to get an education and get a foundation under me and recover from those experiences, and that's not always possible.

CONAN: That vulnerable personality that Sarah was talking about a moment ago, was that you too?

LISAK: Oh yes, for many, many years, and you know, to this day, you know, I - I'm an adult, I'm a professional, I do all kinds of research, I do forensic work and so forth, but the abuse lives on in me. And you know, there are still nights when I wake up with nightmares because of things that have triggered me during the day, and that's just part of, at least in my case, that's part of the reality that I live with, and it is for many survivors.

They can thrive in many ways but still suffer many of the symptoms.

CONAN: Sarah Pleydell, you were nodding there, yeah.

PLEYDELL: My sister has a very strong image. She says that childhood trauma is like a house with a horrible room in the middle of it, and you do your very best to keep the doors locked, but every now and again you wake up and there you are, and you're eight years old, and your heart's racing, and it's happening all over again, and you have to very slowly and carefully turn on the light and pick yourself up and take yourself out of there, and the room never goes away.

But the house changes, and the house over time can become a safer place.

CONAN: Let's get Tammy on the line. Tammy's calling us from Buffalo.

TAMMY: Hello.

CONAN: Hi, you're on the air, Tammy, go ahead, please.

TAMMY: (Unintelligible) bring back so many memories because as a child going through the same experiences, and coming from an African-American community, sometimes you could be alienated when you're up front about the experiences that happened to you as a child, especially molestation.

And even as an adult with my kids, I'm like very, very protective. I don't do overnights over at a friend's house. Certain smells trigger off, like, depression. And when I decided to finally get counseling, a part of my childhood, when my daughter was asking me about things, what happened to you when you were nine, or - I can't remember anything.

So when I decided to get counseling, and they suggested maybe I should, you know, rethink what happened to me when I went to the court and just get the information about my case, I was denied because in order for me to even - for them to even open the books on my case, I would have to get a lawyer, then the lawyer has to go to the judge. It was just really, really a stressful process. I mean, I'm still dealing with it, even today like with relationships and commitment.

And it's just like a lifelong struggle that you go through on a constant basis.

CONAN: I'm intrigued - smells?

TAMMY: Yeah, just certain smells like the cologne, it just triggers it off.

CONAN: You too, Sarah Pleydell?

PLEYDELL: Yeah, the book I've just written is called "Cologne."

(LAUGHTER)

PLEYDELL: And it's about this very topic, yeah, smells, absolutely.

CONAN: David Lisak, I know smell is a very powerful stimulant to memory. Is this common?

LISAK: Oh yes, it is, and it's just as your guests have been saying. All of the senses record just very sometimes microscopic but incredibly vivid details. And they are profoundly etched in memory, and they come back, sometimes because they're triggered by something that you've encountered, and it can be quite overwhelming when they come back.

CONAN: Especially 'cause it jumps up at you when you least expect it.

LISAK: Exactly, there's no (unintelligible).

PLEYDELL: And they're dissociated from one another. They don't add up. They just, you know, assail you.

LISAK: Yes, that's right.

CONAN: Tammy, are you continuing to get counseling?

TAMMY: Yes, I am. I mean, some people think, you know, I think there are a lot of misconceptions. People think you just go to counseling, and then after a certain period of time it just gets better. It just doesn't. I mean, just - it's a lifelong struggle.

CONAN: There's no cure certificate they hand you after a certain period of time, yeah.
TAMMY: Exactly.

CONAN: Well, good luck to you, Tammy, thanks very much for sharing the call.

TAMMY: Oh, thank you. Bye-bye.

CONAN: And David Lisak, she raises an interesting question. Are cultural differences in different communities - is it more or less - it's always going to be difficult, let's be honest about it, but is - some factors can exacerbate that?

LISAK: Yes, certainly, and there are differences amongst communities and the degree to which a child or an adolescent feels that they can speak about this. Of course there are differences between families and the degree to which a child may feel like they can disclose and speak out.

There are also gender differences, and we have very good data, there's good research that boys who are abused are far less likely to disclose at the time. They're far less likely to disclose over the years. There are many more obstacles that boys seem to have to tell anybody about the abuse and also then to seek help, whether professional help, any kind of help as they get older.

CONAN: Here's an email from Charlie(ph) in Portland: I was sexually abused by two women, first at the age of three or four by a church nursery volunteer, later at the age of 14 by my own alcoholic mother. I haven't been silent about this but have received a lot of denial by those who refuse to believe that women are capable of committing such abuse.

Others seem to think female abuse is somehow a lesser crime than abuse committed by men. The biggest impact of the abuse on my life has been a lifelong aversion to physical and emotional intimacy, leading to four divorces and no children. And Sarah Pleydell, that aversion to physical and emotional intimacy, I don't mean to probe too much, but is that something that has happened in your life?

PLEYDELL: You have to work very hard at it, and I'm very lucky. I have a wonderful husband and four children, but it's been a lot of work.

CONAN: Let's see if we can go next to - this is Debbie(ph), Debbie with us from Jackson, Michigan.

DEBBIE: Yes, hi, Neal. I have five children, and to our knowledge it was disclosed to us about nine years ago that at least three of the five have been molested by family members and by an ex-son-in-law. Now, one is male, the other two are female, and until it was disclosed by the daughter that was married to, you know, to our ex-son-in-law, we had never - we were never aware and had no idea this was going on, you know, prided ourselves on being aware and alert and, you know, thought we would know and thought we had taught our children that they had come to us.

And watching - I've been following - I follow everything I can, but watching the Sandusky trial, especially these brave young men that have come forward, I just as a mom, it's just heart-wrenching. And then to hear I think it was David talking about, you know, you think your mother protects you. And what do you do?

My children have not sought therapy. I've watched their lives, and I've watched alcohol creep into some of their lives. It's very difficult, very difficult.

CONAN: David Lisak, is there any advice you might be able to offer?

LISAK: Well, some of this depends on age. We know that with time, more survivors of sexual abuse become more able and more willing to seek help. It is - it's really impossible to make that happen from the outside. You can do everything you can to make it available, you can do everything you can to, for example, make sure you have the name of one or two good therapists, clinicians in your community that you've researched so that if the time does come where you have a child who's willing then to see somebody, you at least increase the odds that that will be a good experience and it will take, that they will stay in therapy and actually - and get some benefits from it.

But there are also, you know, there are a lot of resources now, online, on the Web, that men and women can go to get information. We know for male survivors that so many of them are loathe to disclose this to anybody, and so we know that, for instance, that the One in Six website, we know we have a lot of visitors to that website from men all over the world who are on their own, completely in private, visiting the site to get information, to begin approaching this. And then we hope, of course, that with time, that they will seek more help.

CONAN: And is it also possible that when, finally, you admit it to yourself, anger becomes so powerful that there is useful recourse to the police?

LISAK: Well, yes. But that's complicated, as I know you know. The - you know, the only sort of really sort of outlet for that anger, other than - you know, I spent months and months. For a long period of time, I put a mattress up on my wall, and I would go up there whenever I had to and just pound on the mattress. And that's useful for at least that - you know, for as far as it goes.

But if you want an actual outlet for that anger, something that you would actually do in the world or something, some way to hold the offender accountable, then the criminal justice system, the civil justice system, they're there. But as your callers have already noted, sometimes the statute of limitations gets in the way.

Very often, the criminal justice system itself is not a very hospitable place for victims of sexual crimes. It's a tough row to hoe. And that's why, I think, as several people have already commented, the courage of these young men in the Penn State case who've come forward to testify is really truly remarkable. And they're doing something for the whole community, not just for themselves.

DEBBIE: And - excuse me, but we discovered that the criminal justice service did us no favors. And then the statute, as far as civil lawsuits, statute of limitations, we're only one year past the age of majority. So that - you know, there's a lot that needs to be changed within the system that we've worked hard to try to get changed. But the - that's a long, long, long road, and has been a long road.

And we've been as active as we can in our community. And we have research and we have tried to seek counseling and made that available and offered it up to our children. But, you know, when they're in their 20s and 30s, and they, you know, they have to come to that - as you know - they have to come to that on their own.

But it's just so hard to sit back and watch their lives and - I'm not saying that they're destroying their lives, but in certain aspects, they are. And they're doing a lot of good, too. But to see that - and to see that - you can just see the, as you mentioned, anger sometimes. One of my children has now started taking boxing. So that's a good thing. I mean, she...

CONAN: The heavy bag taking the place of that mattress up in...

DEBBIE: Exactly.

CONAN: ...David Lisak's attic.

DEBBIE: She's a female, and she's, you know, in there with all the men, boxing away. And it's just very hard to watch, very hard.

CONAN: Good luck...

DEBBIE: Thank you.

CONAN: ...Debbie. Thank you very much for the call.

DEBBIE: Thank you, Neal. OK.

CONAN: We're talking about holding stories of your abuse in for years, even decades. Our guests are Sarah Pleydell, a writer and educator, and David Lisak, associate professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.

And this email from Meg in Chicago: I went to Horace Mann School in New York City. Recently, The New York Times published an expose of decades of sexual abuse. I'm talking about this with fellow students, while more and more victims come forward. I wasn't sexually abused, but I was there. I feel overpowering guilt that I didn't help. I know I was a teenager at the time, but what can I do to support the victims? What can I do to overcome my feelings of helplessness?

And I wonder, Sarah Pleydell, it's not unlike you're feeling - you feeling you failed to protect your sister.

PLEYDELL: Yes. It's a - fortunately for me, I had my sister. I always had my sister to share my story with. We always had one another as touchstones. I always felt that I could - that she was there for me, and I was there for her. I think if I hadn't been abused and she had, it would have been annihilating, totally annihilating.

CONAN: Here's another email, this from Maka(ph): Yes, abused by father, older brother, tried to speak out, told to be quiet. Oddly, the phrase that was given to me was: Loose lips sink ships. I never got the meaning of that phrase until much later. When I finally did speak out as a young adult, family was angry at me for blabbing, for embarrassing them. The last two decades, mom, dad, rest of family rally with abuser. He has the will, I'm guessing is the reason. It's troubling as they know what was happening, yet I was called horrid names like slut or others. I am the ostracized member of the family for daring to speak out and say something.

Of course.

PLEYDELL: Mm-hmm. I know women who go - who've gone through that. I was fortunate to have my sister, as I said. But I know women who have spoken out and been the single voice in the family.

CONAN: It's your fault.

PLEYDELL: Yes.

CONAN: It's your fault.

PLEYDELL: And you shouldn't speak about it. You know, you are abusing us by talking about it.

CONAN: David Lisak, if there's one thing that I think we learn from this is that not speaking about it is the continuing crime.

LISAK: Yes, it is. And I think it - not speaking about it, not disclosing it is ultimately very hard, very harmful for the survivor. But it is also, of course, the cumulative silence that allows this to go on. So when we survivors don't speak out, when we are silenced by family members or by other members of the community, the silence is what these perpetrators rely on, and it's what they are camouflaged in. And that's why we need to speak out about it.

CONAN: Sarah?

PLEYDELL: I've also found that writing is a wonderful vehicle to work it through. It creates a context for exploring a lot of your feelings. In the book that I've been working on, I was able to kill my father.

(LAUGHTER)

PLEYDELL: It's satisfying symbolically.

CONAN: How'd you do it?

PLEYDELL: He dies in a car crash...

CONAN: Uh-huh.

PLEYDELL: ...at the beginning of the book, and at the end. And it was tremendously - I wouldn't say - cathartic.

CONAN: Cathartic.

PLEYDELL: Yeah.

CONAN: A car accident he caused, his own fault?

PLEYDELL: Mm-hmm. Well, yes. I mean, yes. And actually...

CONAN: I don't mean to steal your ending, but...

PLEYDELL: ...the character sort of wills it on him, and she knows she's willed it on him. And she has to struggle with that because, in a way, her fantasy is to kill her father, and she has to live with the consequences that maybe it did impact his ultimate, you know, his death.

CONAN: Well, I look forward to reading that.

(LAUGHTER)

CONAN: Thank you so much for being with us today. Sarah Pleydell, writer and educator, teaches writing at the University of Maryland, College Park. David Lisak, thank you for your time today, as well.

LISAK: Thank you, Neal.

CONAN: David Lisak joined us from member station WUSF in Tampa, where he's an associate professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. I suspect it's not in Tampa, but in Boston. And thanks to everybody who called and wrote. We know these are difficult stories to share. We thank you so much for coming on and being willing to talk to us, and we're sorry we just couldn't get to everybody.

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