dissociation), emotion (e.g., alternating between rage and affective emptiness), behavioural self-management (e.g., dangerous impulsive risk taking), bodily functioning (e.g., somatoform disorders), self-perception (e.g., believing oneself to be permanently damaged), interpersonal functioning (e.g., alternating between enmeshment in and devaluation of primary relationships), and sense of purpose in life (e.g., loss of sustaining spiritual beliefs) (van der Kolk, 2010).
The men in this study manifest various forms this kind of dysregulation and identity confusion including emotional reactions like confusion, aloneness, fear, sadness, anger, numbness, shame, embarrassment, exposure, and inadequacy. As Sid recounts, "I grew up not feeling just like a fish out of water but wondering if I am a fish at all." Or Rick, "I felt so alone and scared shirtless. It was like fuck! I really don't count! I broke down and felt like such a child." Cory recalls the destruction turned inward and the Civil War that was going on inside. But the participants also talked about their struggle to figure out how to become a man. Cory recounts, "I struggled so much 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." Danny, "I was trying to fit that mode of being a man but I was so anxious I couldn't." Rick says "he (his father) was so powerful he was scary. He tried to act like a man but. “This reduced me to tears. I cried and cried.” Dean described his fear of not being able to protect his family while simultaneously being afraid of that the pent up rage that exists inside of him will become violent. Sid sees himself "like a little boy who is still asking 7 or 8 year old questions." This study shows that men who suffer an injury in their relationship
