‘Just wait until your father gets home – you are going to get it!’ I remember being so scared, coiling up into a ball on my bed and sobbing in fear of what he was going to do to me…. I often felt threatened and unsafe.” Masculine identity confusion. All six of the men identified confusion about their masculinity, in relationship to themselves or others, as part of their injury. Cory says he was lost. His words bring back memories of the times his father sent him into the wilderness without a compass. “I felt so insecure trying to figure out how to become a man and I was lost – lost without a compass or a rule book. There is no instruction manual telling me how to be a man. I wanted that from my father so I wanted to slap him and help him at the same time.” He struggled to figure out how to become a man so he looked to popular media figures. “I struggled so much to try to figure out
how to become a man. I made a list of male figures like Doc Savage, John Wayne and other movie characters so that I could decide the kind of man I was going to be, the kind of boss I was going to be and the kind of womanizer I was going to be.” Danny tried to imitate his father and be a man the way he was even though his father was terrifying to him. “I was trying to fit that mode of being a man but I was so anxious I couldn’t. As a teenager I imitated him sometimes as he was my model for masculinity. In my early twenties, I noticed how taking on this role was not a fit for me.” Robert believes he has moved forward in his recovery because he can now trust some men. He is more able to, “fully accept that not all men are abusive." Even after his recovery he says, “I don’t know if I will ever become fully trusting of men I don’t know.”
