Masculine Gender Role Trauma

‘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.”

Rick saw his father as society’s perfect model of what a man is supposed to be. “He

was the man of the house as the man he was the boss of the family. The women take a limited

role in decision-making in my family. He was so powerful he was scary.” Rick recounts a time

when he as a young man challenged his father. “I challenged one of my father's political

opinions. I wasn't rude or anything but he got very angry. He said to me, ‘when you are a man

you can speak to me like a man; as long as you're living here you will listen to me.’ This

reduced me to tears. I cried and cried.” He goes on to say that because of these experiences he

can feel very “inadequate and confused about who he is” and the only basis for pride for him

as a man was his reasonably successful performance as an athlete in high school.

Dean talks about his fear of not being able to protect his family, a role he identifies with

himself as a man. “Often I did not/could not fight back. So as a man I worry that I will not

stand up to others who may try to hurt my family or me now. Part of my fear is that I am afraid

of the pent up anger that exists in me His fear was not just that he will remain passive but that

he

will lose control of his rage and become violent. “ I can lapse into violent daydreams where

I beat the crap out of three or more people at once. I have daydreams where I take an axe and

chop my mother up into pieces and stuff her down a hole. I have to be in control. I have to

control the rage and keep my sense of self together. If I don’t hold me together I will fly apart,

hurt others and cease to be.”

Sid only makes one reference to masculine identity confusion. He acknowledges that

he still as an adult doesn’t think about his masculine identity, “I don’t have a sense of what

this all means to me as a boy or as a man. I don’t really think about what it means to be a man,

I think of myself as a person.” Sid says, “I see myself in some ways like a little boy who is still

asking 7 or 8 year old questions.” What Sid does not say reveals some of the injury and Sid’s

confusion. Sid does not refer to himself as a son or as a man once through his discourse. He

only refers to himself as a guy once, when he is reflecting on his narrative and is in the process

of considering his success so far and looking towards his ongoing progress in recovery.

Otherwise, throughout his discourse he talks about himself as a “person.”

Process of Recovery Pattern 2: Preparation to Enter the Process of Recovery

Participants described two main issues that precipitated them entering into therapy.

The first is the loss of or the fear of loss of a relationship. It was after the death of Corey's

mother that he began questioning the meaning of life and that opened him up to seek help.

When Rick lost his relationship with his wife and his relationship with his kids he realized that

he was a lot like his dad. This motivated him to seek therapy. Danny entered into therapy

when he suffered depression at the end of a long-term relationship. Dean said he kept working

at therapy and wouldn't give up because he wanted to save his marriage. Robert suffered

multiple losses. He became estranged from his mother, moved away with his father sister.

After a few months his

father moved again and left his pregnant 17-year-old sister behind alone. The woman he and

his father lived with died of an overdose before his mother finally invited him to move back

with her.

The second issue that precipitated participants entering into therapy was the deepening

awareness of the pain and the injuries. Cory says he started examining himself and he

“became aware of the injury." He started “considering the possibility of change and having