Rape Support Group

I endorse group therapy BIG time over individual. I just haven't seen the same astounding positive changes from individual that I've seen in group, but group WILL be tough. You will leave exhausted, not wanting to go back. Go back anyway.

I've done some training which invovled agroup that was similar to a therapy group and i have been in alcohol support groups I think identification and the groups acceptance can be very powerful, I think it can be tough, I seem to experience a lot of shame in groups but if you voice your discomfort it can help you take big steps forward, good luck!

Thanks for the advice. I did experience a very surreal feeling during and after group therapy. It's kind of hard to explain, just a lot of emotions all at once. I've never experienced that before. I'm very protective of myself and feelings at this point. I'm hoping I will open up more as time goes on.

I wish I could know what it's like to experience therapy and hear as well as express personal experiences, but I'm a male and therapy for sexual assault especially that from a female when I was young is not something that is a possibility. Things like therapy and support groups are female only.

Good luck !

Tom

Tom, there are many support groups which have men in them. There are several at the place I go. Don't think just because u are male that u can't find therapy. It's out there. Please don't give up! HUGS :)

Tom, in the UK there are a number of organisations aimed at male survivors, I'm sure there must be some in the US. what makes you think there aren't? And individual therapy is open to everyone

* Anyone who finds this to read, please provide referral *

I live in the middle Tennessee region, home of the Southern Baptist Convention and the KKK.
Anything pertaining to male sexuality is either viewed as a crime or a sin. Culturally, male sexuality is taboo.

Believe me when I say, I am 53 and lived with the notion sexual molestation of boys by women was totally acceptable behavior. It wasn't until 12 years ago when a social worker stated I had been sexually molested as a child and needed to 'work on issues relating to sexual abuse' did I ever begin to realize male equality within the realm of degradation and personal self worth.
I always believed a man could be publicly raped by a paid prostitute because there has never been a single avenue for me to express otherwise, let alone ever be able to actually tell another live person. Without computer, that would still be the case.
I feel that is why so many people from other developed regions find me so difficult to cope with when I express my frustration.

I have been on this and numerous other message boards (even thrown off a few as well) and I have seen hundreds of people of both genders talk about having their soul violated by another persons sexuality. But, I have yet to see another from my region here in middle Tennessee, ever. Not one.

Yes, I do believe there are a multitude of programs available, many publicly funded, and I wish desperately I could be a member of one, even though I have the best medical insurance coverage available. But unless someone actually gives me a name or phone # or some avenue to pursue that goes outside the buckle of the bible belt region (and that includes the local chapters of that damned RAINN network), being a member in recovery from sexual assault and molestation will not occur in my life time, and I speak not only from a male perspective, but a victims perspective that includes women as well as men.
I speak from comes by seeing my ex- mother in law and her sisters, all female victims of sexual assault and rape as children, live without any form of positive support at any point during her life (let alone being constantly treated as illegitimate or some form of trash), and she is approaching 70, all a result of cultural red neck theology and back woods legislation.
Only recently has there been the single rape crisis center in Nashville, the only resource within a days commute of my location, but is run exclusively by females and exclusively for females and they have made this quite clear to me.

Let me reiterate; as a male in the middle Tennessee geographic region of the US, there is absolutely no resource, clergy, professional, or non professional, known available to me or any other male, for the purpose of expression of male sexual assault issues.

* Anyone who finds this to read, please provide referral *

Thank you, and not just for me, but for every sexual assault victim either male or female south of the Mason Dixon.
Tom S. in Tn.