Let 'er rip, Sleepy. Helping each other through triggery/socially unacceptable dilemmas is why we are here. For sure, bottling it up is hazardous to the health and sometimes hazardous to the community.

We care. Whenever you feel ready...

I think you should talk about it if you feel safe and comfortable doing so. The things that happen to us are crimes of isolation, keeping us apart. I bet if you share you will find nothing but sincere support and understanding here. So whenever you would like to, I would love to listen. Much positive energy to you.

Unfortunately I've learned that these key issues I need to vent about trigger the same hostility in people even here on DS when I've tried bringing them up in the past.

Just do what you're comfortable with.

That's just it. I'm not comfortable talking about it due to how so many people react to it, and now I'm stuck bottling up everything.

I hope you find a way to let out all your feelings in a healthy way, journaling does sound like a good solution. I hope you find someone you are comfortable talking with that won't judge you and will treat you gently.

I don't know where to begin. The simplified version is that my abusers have been almost exclusively female and the abuse has come from my own mother and a very large portion of the girls/women I have encountered while growing up and even into adulthood (albeit some have been significantly more proactive about it). I've even heard some of them justify their actions by saying that because I'm a quiet, anxious (due largely to the ptsd) introvert that makes me "creepy" and therefore justifies women abusing me with false accusations and threats thereof in order to coerce me into either staying out of their sight or doing what they want.

On top of that I am extremely bothered by the fact that there are many laws in the US that permit women to do things like this and prevent men from legal retaliation. In many cases the rights of men in such situations are outright stripped from them. Plenty of these laws are able to be used as weapons to hurt and victimize men and deny them their rights to fair trial or defense.

Then if men like me complain about these things we are attacked and labeled things like "sexist" or "misogynistic". In some cases it even results in radicals giving us death threats, assaulting us, harassing us, sending death threats to family members, and even the murder of the pets of those who complain about these injustices.


Therevis a ton more, but for now I'll leave it at that. All this anger and stress is giving me a really nasty coughing problem thatbis acting up really bad right now, and I need to try to calm down (at least to a point where I am not coughing up a lung).

hugs

If you feel you need to let 'er rip (good one from Arfie)--- then do so.

As for worries of triggering others, and backlash? Yeah, that's a legitimate concern, but maybe a good way to deal with that would be to rant it out in a journal where it's no-holds-barred, all-yuck-flowing---then maybe read it the next day, see what key "themes" come up? I do that a lot--not enough---and it does help me figure out what to take to my therapist.

If that fails, I actually have a three-foot-long stuffed plush toy to cuddle, so go for it. What the heck.

Gentle purring hopes for healing and balance,
Leo

I hope you find a way to let it out. Here is good place, and others put TW as a warning to others it may be a trigger for them. Journals are good and you dont have to share it until your ready. Were here

I am sorry that has happened to you. Sending support while you work through your feelings and journey.

Anyone can be abusive, man or woman. But no one should be abused. Sorry this stuff happened :(

Circa 1968, my most treasured brother and myself went to get help. I got help, my brother got profiled. Watching him fold in on himself rather than abuse others the way he had been abused might be THE toughest heartbreak in my heartbreak train. Folding in on himself did not stop the profilers from profiling. He is STILL being profiled with great prejudice. It seems he will never be able to satisfy the price for the crime of having been a victim. Advocating on his behalf has given me first-hand experience with the realities behind the fears which are silencing you, Sleepy. My heartbreak for my still gentle brother is big enough to cover you as well, Sleepy.

You would think I would have learned by now, but still I am fool enough to dream of amends for this social injustice. I am already braced for an attack for calling it a social injustice.

This issue has me always feeling like I'm walking on glass when around women, and that doesn't exactly help with my ptsd.

I look around me and see that society has become very misandrist and it seems to become more so as time goes by. There are even scholars and researchers who have noted this and published their findings in books, articles, etc. That includes the details of what they've found and/suspect to be the reasons behind the institutionalization of misandry in western culture.

There are tons of very anti-male laws in the US alone, and it makes me feel very unsafe knowing how easy it is for these laws to be used against me (or any other man) like a weapon out of spite or for no reason in particular.

Look at the laws and policies in the US for domestic violence cases. The way they are right now if a man in an abusive relationship (where the wife/girlfriend isvthe abuser) is being physically assaulted by his partner and calls the police for help, in many parts of the country he is likely going to be the one arrested, not the partner assaulting him. This is due to things like policies (encouraged by the Violence Against Women Act) requiring an arrest to be made in such cases, but often requiring the male to be arrested due to "predominant aggressor" policies.

On top of that, most domestic violence shelters and hotlines have been found to either refuse to offer assistance to males or flat out ridicule any males who turn to them for support and even blame the male for whatever abuse they are suffering.


In several states there are laws requiring male rape victims to pay their female rapist various support fees (including child support) of the rapist becomes pregnant as a result of raping him. This law even applies to men who were raped as children (there are a few relatively well circulated news stories about such incidents). A few other states that don't technically REQUIRE the victim to pay their rapist still strongly encourage the victim to pay their rapist.


Another part of this issue is that many (if not most) universities in the US have reduced standards of evidence required to convict male students of rape due to various laws/policies meant to encourage cracking down on sexual assault and rape cases on campuses. And as if the reduced standards of evidence required to convict a man of rape wasn't bad enough, many universities allow the person who made the accusation to have the accused individual be put on trial a SECOND time for the same charges if the first trial finds them to be innocent (which is not allowed in US courts since it is considered double jeopardy).


Yet another part of this issue that scares me are all the studies and statistics from reputable organizations showing just how many cases of reported rape end up being revealed to have been false accusations. The Innocence project has even said that false rape accusations are the most common reason for false imprisonment.

It is unbelievably frustrating and painful how misandrist society and the legal system is and knowing just how vulnerable I and other men are to such major injustices.

So sorry you feel so bottled up, Sleepy. I recently read a statistic that I reported here last week that mentioned that 19% of women and 2% of men have been raped. I'm so sorry so many women are reported as being sexually assaulted. That's almost 1 in 5! I don't know if that's the balance of things or not.

On the other had, I just know that I'm one of the 2%. So being able to speak here and be accepted by the 19% has been very healing to me.

I've found that there are ways when we support each other one on one that it no longer seems to matter which percent we belong to, the 19% or the 2%. We are very different, true. I actually grew up in South America, where my violation took place in the land of machismo. Still, I find that in the end, it seems that on an important basic level here we've survived the same intimate soul violation.

With all the societal differences, the cultural differences, the gender differences, the legal differences, it seems there's a trauma survivor's core in my DS PTSD friends here that touches my trauma survivor's core over and over again. I'm very grateful. Society still has a long way to go before it treats us the way it should. The legal system has even farther to go before it is fair. I'm 56 years old now, and I won't be alive to see the day in which society and the legal system are set as right as they should, as much as I and all of us deserve to see that day.

In the meantime, speaking for me, I'm getting more acceptance here than I ever expected now that I've come out of the closet about being one of the 2%. And it's really healing me more than I ever have been healed. I know what it's like to bottle it all up because you're a guy. I'm so glad I don't feel so bottled up any more since I came here.

Like solitude said, you can put a TW warning on whatever you share that you think might trigger others. Thanks for sharing what you've shared already. Your sharing has helped me. I hope you feel less bottled up, too.