Content Warning: This article discusses rape and abuse.
One night in January, my roommate was hanging out with her friends while I was trying to do my own thing in our dorm. She had been increasingly abusive towards me during our entire time living together. She would insult me in front of friends. She would treat me harshly if I ever put down boundaries. It was sickening. I was in a behavioural sink and wanted out desperately. I had been bottling up everything she did to me. Everything she made me do that I didn’t want to just got shoved into a folder in the back of my mind slowly piling up, tearing at the seams from overuse.
That night in January, I decided enough was enough. This was the last fight I would ever let her drag me into. I realised then that the way she had been treating me was wrong, I needed to leave. Now. I had enough of her siphoning every ounce of control I had over my life. My friends. My relationships. My happiness.
At first living together was fine. We had known each other before the semester and I was happy to be living with a friend. However, as time went on things got worse. She got more and more controlling over me. She would degrade me in front of people and in private. Worst of all, she had gotten me to have sex with her. The first time I didn’t mind, but as she got more abusive, I wanted to stop. Whenever I would tell her this, she would act out. She would make a mess of herself and make it a point to let me know it was because I did not want her.
How could I live with someone like that? I tried making excuses for myself saying that it was just the moment. Eventually, I had to follow through and it just sucked the life out of me. I eventually resorted to blaming my condoms, saying that they weren’t going on correctly or that they were defective.
Still, the damage was done. I had lost power over my own body, and I felt horrible about it. All of that dread piled up inside of me. When I found myself fighting with her that night, I said enough was enough. I had to put an end to it.
I do not remember what was said in the fight or what started it, but this was my moment to finally break free. All that was on my mind at that point was that I needed to leave. I remember trying to tell my father over the phone what was going on and what I needed from him. All that came out of my mouth were these gorilla-like wails that drowned out every ounce of coherency in my speech.
Eventually I got out some sort of request for him to drive to campus and take me back home for the weekend, to which he responded without hesitation. After getting that out, I took out the last of my Montecristos that I had and began to smoke like my life depended on it.
As I went through the tobacco, I felt my mind start to clear. I don’t know if it was the nicotine or just the fact that I had finally grounded myself with that ritual of puffing life into the cigarillo, but something in that moment clicked in my head. I might not have understood the gravity of what had happened, but at that moment, I realised that I did not deserve any of what my roommate had put me through.
In that moment, however, I had not realised how badly my former roommate had affected my life. I never realised how long those memories of breaking down from the abuse would stick with me. I never knew that the feeling of self-loathing and anxiety would stay with me after I left.
While I did understand what had happened to me was wrong, the gravity of it did not appear to me until a mutual friend and a few others had come to get my side of what had happened. Between leaving and then, I had kept what had happened to myself. I never thought that anyone would take my word over hers, but when I had finally let it out, I was relieved to find that I was taken seriously.
I felt liberated. I was back to having friends. I was eating. My walks around campus stopped being a retreat strategy and started to become pleasant. Eventually, I even started dating and met my partner.
When I first met her, I just couldn’t help but fall in love. The way she would look at me just hit me in a way that just pulled me in. I felt like I was on top of the world.
Eventually, she and I got to the point of making love and I was excited to share that experience with her. Beyond sharing intimacy with my partner, I was also glad to finally reclaim my body. I was finally with someone who respected me and did not try to dictate how I was supposed to use myself.
However, as time went on, I started to relapse. Every so often, I started to get the feeling that I had with my former roommate during sex and I did not understand why. I was good for such a long time and suddenly, I was not. One minute, I would be enjoying myself with my partner, and the next minute, I would just get a flashback that would take me right out of what was happening.
These flashbacks soon started to leak into normal moments in my life, and I started to worry. I tried looking up resources to find out what had happened and then I encountered a problem that had troubled me for a long time.
When I first looked back and realised how much abuse my former roommate had put me through, it was hard for me to understand that I had been raped. I identify as non-binary, but still, the fact remained that I have a penis. Because of that fact, I had some difficulty coming to terms with what had happened, but with the support of those around me, I was able to accept that fact.
However, when it came time for me to learn about how that experience affects people and how I can better deal with it, nearly every resource I came across seemed to echo my original sentiment. Whenever I would come across an article that gave coping strategies or talked about how being a survivor can affect one’s love life, none of the articles were geared towards male survivors. In fact, the vast majority of resources I had found specifically referred to women and made it clear that they were addressing only female survivors.
As a male survivor, this killed me. It was hard enough for me, someone who has lived through the experience, to realise that men can be survivors too. Having the very resources that I am using to help understand what I am going through exclude me based on my sex, something that I have been trying to distance myself from, was heart-breaking to me.
All of a sudden, I started to go back to questioning myself. My anxiety has since gotten worse and I now have to convince myself that my sex does not invalidate my experience. I know that no matter what I tell myself, I was raped, and I do not have to feel sorry for it. However, having to tell myself that will never make my situation any better.
What is even worse is that I am someone who knows they have been raped. While I was able to eventually come to terms with that fact, I know that in the beginning, it took a lot for me to do so. Had it not been for my friends who finally got me to open up about what had happened, I might not have ever realised how bad my situation really was.
This is a problem that is inherent to our culture and it needs to be addressed. In trying to research how to cope with my trauma, I have yet to find any resources that are intended for male survivors. While I was able to find an article here and there that acknowledges that male survivors even exist, resources for men are effectively absent aside from medical treatment.
Male survivors rarely have been represented in popular culture either. To my knowledge, the only one I have encountered that addresses this issue seriously has been the British sitcom, Peep Show. In an episode entitled “Jeremy’s Mummy,” one of the main characters, Mark, is faced with some of the same conflicting feelings of self-blame that I have personally encountered after having been forced into penetration.
While being a comedy show, the episode feels like it takes the issue seriously. The characters don’t laugh it off or make fun of it. They actually help explain the problem to Mark in a way that feels pretty true to what I have experienced.
Every time I go back to that episode, I feel relieved. For me, I have faced a lot of difficulty trying to tell myself that I am not to blame for what happened to me. I always have that voice at the back of my mind telling me that my experience is meaningless and that I am just not being man enough to just deal with it. However, seeing that somewhere someone is recognising experiences like mine as a real issue makes it easier to remind myself that I am more than just an anomaly.
I may never know if someone on the show’s staff had gone through what I have or if I am just taking a joke too seriously. However, to me, feeling recognised has helped me stop blaming myself as much as I otherwise would. Unfortunately, the representation of male survivors is scarce. I know how hard it can be to go through something as traumatic as I have gone through and not know whether you have a right to feel bad about it or not. Even writing this, it has been hard not to tone down my language or be honest with how I feel. I hope that by sharing my story, I can help people like me realise that they are not alone.
