Child abuse happens everywhere. It happens to girls, and it also happens to boys. Today we introduce you to Ben. Just a warning - his story can be hard to hear.
When Ben's mother remarried, her new husband began abusing Ben when he was just 7 years old. The abuse was psychological, and turned physical on many occasions. Ben shares what it was like to go into "survival mode" as a child, and how that has affected him well into adulthood.
Through a close relationship with a child in his life (his nephew), and his volunteer work at CARE House of Oakland County, Ben has come to terms with his abuse, and offers some powerful advice for other survivors.
The "It Shouldn't Hurt To Be a Child" Podcast is narrated by Karen Newman, and is made possible thanks to the generous support of Sheryl Hauk.
Resources:
CARE House of Oakland County Website: https://www.carehouse.org/
CARE House Phone Number: 248.332.7173
Find a Child Advocacy Center (CAC) Near You: https://nationalcac.org/
Ben: Everything you're doing, everybody in general's a work in progress. And you know, you always want to do something to get better, but I mean, you know, that's, that's where I'd like to be.
Karen: It shouldn't hurt to be a child. Welcome to the podcast named for that simple fact. I'm Karen Newman. One in 10 children will be abused before they turn 18.
In this episode, we introduce you to Ben. Just a warning, Ben's story can be difficult to hear. But it's important to understand that boys, even those who have grown into men, are among survivors of abuse. It started when Ben was seven. His mom got remarried. And from the beginning, Ben says that man became his abuser.
Ben: The vast majority of the abuse that I endured was psychological. Name calling, taunts, being humiliated in public.
I was struck of course, on more than one occasion. That did happen too. I very vividly recall the first time he put his hands on me, I was seven. I hadn't been in his house less than two weeks. Um, something that I had never been forbade to do before, as a child, and I can't remember precisely what it was... playing with something or doing something.
And, um, he just laid into me in a very aggressive way verbally. And I complained about it to my mother. I said, I don't understand why this is happening. And he took me into his bedroom when my mother had left the house to go grocery shopping. And he essentially threatened my life. And then I tried to get away from him.
He grabbed me by my arm. Now this is a 40 year old man with military training, grabbing the arm of a seven year old boy. And he grabbed my arm and pulled my hair and he shoved me into the bathroom and he put his hands around my throat and pushed me onto the toilet. And then up onto the top of the tank against the wall, and told me that if I told my mother about this, or if I ever did anything like that again, he would kill me.
And that was not a super common incident, but it wasn't uncommon either. I'd say if we were to put a time it was a bi-annual thing, probably about twice a year, he would find a way to get me alone and, you know, threaten to kill me or do me pretty extreme bodily harm
Karen: Because he was so young when this all started, just seven years old, Ben says it has taken much of his life to process it and live life as a survivor.
Ben: The way I remember processing this was, I mean, to some degree, and I think this is true for a lot of people, you shut down and there's a part of your mind that goes into a survival mode. And when I was in my early twenties, I was in a very bad car accident, broke both my legs and part of my arm and several other things.
And the car was on fire. Yet I managed to push myself out of the car and drag myself along the ground and flagged down help, even though I couldn't even completely sit up. And I think about it in those terms, there are certain instances where there are responses for survival that simply take over. And I lived, in hindsight, I realize I lived a lot of my childhood in that, you know...
People often describe it as kind of walking on eggshells around somebody. But the reality is what you're doing is you're constantly thinking in terms of how do I survive this person? What do I need to do and not do? What can I say? And what do I not say? Where my exits, I was always very cogent, especially in my room, which I was in a lot with the locked door, of how I could get out the windows if I needed to. You think consistently in defensive terms, especially doing what I do for a living as a historian. It's difficult not to think militarily. And that's how I describe it. I thought in militarily defensive terms, I thought about places of egress for escape and just survival in general. And as horrible as it sounds, but you do get used to it because you don't have a choice, you know, if you want to live or go uninjured.
Karen: Ben says one of the keys to his healing has been enjoying a nurturing relationship with a child in his life, his nephew. That coupled with the ability to volunteer at CARE House of Oakland county, the child advocacy center near his current home in Michigan.
Ben: This is my nephew. My wife's sister's little boy. I was his favorite person by far and away. And there is nothing like being a kid's favorite person. It is the most amazing feeling in the world. And like I said, between him and my wife and they're my favorite human beings, bar none. They kept me grounded. But I went through a lot and I started, you know, utilizing some very poor coping behaviors in order to deal with a lot of this.
And there were added stresses because of financial issues. I left good jobs to essentially come to one job here that was terrible. And I hated it. I was getting very depressed and very angry. And so I started looking for psychological help. One of the things that we discussed of course was my childhood and it didn't take either one of us very long to figure out.
A lot of my frustration, especially that sense of not having any control over my life was rooted in the fact that so much of my childhood had been abusive. And a lot of my insecurities were rooted in essentially constantly being on the defensive and really being denied any kind of agency, even the kind of agency a kid should have.
And that was certainly helpful. Now it's very much part of the process, but a big part of it for me too, is maybe because I was looking for that kind of agency, I'm an active person. I always feel the need to do things. That's why I volunteer at the places I do. It's why I engage in the activism that I do.
I knew I needed to do something more than just do talk therapy. So that's kind of what ended up bringing me to CARE House. I knew that, you know, what's a good way to put this? CARE House for me was going to be catharsis, if nothing else. You know, those first few years that I was here, yes, I really did need this.
Not just because I could confront what happened to me and speak openly about it with people. But then I knew at the very least I was part of something that could help kids who were in the situation I was when I was young and maybe even prevent horrible things like that had happened to me.
Karen: Ben says part of his role as a volunteer is to help show that men are part of how we build understanding about child abuse.
Ben: I mean, the statistical reality is that while males, boys are less likely to be abused, that abuse is also more likely to go unreported. And quite frankly, we live in a culture that tells men they should take abuse. You need to man up, I think manning up means dealing with your problems. I think manning up means not taking that kind of thing.
Karen: Ben has a message for other victims of abuse. He says he understands what they're going through. He offers these words to remember.
Ben: It is difficult, especially for people who, they had to endure this through their formative years and now they're adults. So this becomes a part of who you are. It is now totally ingrained in your psyche.
It's part of that makeup. And so, you know, how, gosh, how do you deal with that? Because you know, at a time when your mind is developing, you have seen so much ugliness from people who are supposed to be the ones taking care of you. This always sounds terrible. And I'm, you know, I'm in no way, endorsing that idea that, you know, child abuse is a good thing, but there's that great quote from Nietzsche, "Out of life's school of war that which does not kill us can make us stronger."
Now we always use the second part, but never the first. But the point is it's school. It's about learning the lesson. And it took me a long time as adult to process that lesson. I spent most of my teens, my early adulthood being a very angry person, very angry, but what going to therapy and having these great relationships and spending time at CARE House.
And like I said, kind of at least symbolically, taking control of my childhood scenario, trying to, you know, give myself that kind of at least facsimile sense of agency, you know, taught me to learn the lesson, to take that energy and put it towards something positive. And that's the reality for anybody.
Everybody experiences something negative. There is no such thing as a painless life, and I don't care how hedonistic you attempt to be. And I always say it's like The Princess Bride. Life is pain. Anybody who tells you different is selling something. You will experience pain. The point is to become better, to become a better version of yourself.
And I mentioned earlier that concept of growth. Everybody's a work in progress. The point is to direct yourself in a way that you become more, the person you want to be. That those finer qualities and abilities that you have are nurtured and grow. And that's what you have to do. I always tell people, you know, these are things that happened to you and the reality is, they're not your fault.
You're a child, you know, when these things happen. It's not that they won't affect you. It's not that you shouldn't be sad or angry. Of course you should. It's incredibly wrong. And the people who did this to you were amoral and cowardly. They absolutely are. You can't control them nor can you undo the past.
The only thing that you control is you. You control your responses to what you're doing now. Those things happened to you, but they don't have to define your response to everything that happens to you. You have to take that on board the way you would take anything else on board, but you still have to have a sense of belief and moral grounding and an expectation of the kind of person you want to be.
And that has to be what pushes you forward. That abuse is an experience and it's an extreme one, but it informs it doesn't rule.
Karen: Ben wants you to remember the child advocacy centers are worth supporting and remembering wherever you live.
Ben: When I was young, this was happening to me, there weren't places like this. And most of the adults in my life didn't listen to me.
No one believed me. And you know, literally people told me that I was lying, to shut up, that I was trying to cause problems. And these are, you know, not my abuser who could've cared less, but from people who were parents and guardians who were supposed to, but didn't want to have that problem, didn't want to rock the boat.
Here now, especially as we become more aware of abuse and the signs of it now, and now that there are places like, you know, this is the kind of place where if you have a concern about a child or if you're an older kid and these things are going on. This is a place where you can talk to people. This is a place where you can go.
This is a place where actual intervention can happen.
Karen: "It shouldn't hurt to be a child" made possible by the generous support of Sheryl Hauk. For more information on care house of Oakland county and its programs. Visit care house.org To find a child advocacy center near you, visit nationalcac.org. I'm Karen Newman.
Thanks for listening.