In “Survivor Mode: Male Sexual Abuse/Domestic Violence” (Ep268), we tackle the under-discussed topic of men’s trauma experiences. Through probing questions, we delve into survivor mode’s genesis in family dynamics and the status of the HE TOO movement. Uncovering the cultural and psychological barriers men face, we explore recovery strategies, emphasizing the necessity of support networks and boundary management. We confront societal taboos and provide resources for healing and empowerment in the face of these profound realities.
Tune in to Survivor Mode Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- Do you know what is Survivor mode and where it comes from?
- Are men victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence?
- Do men handle being a victim differently?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/selfmanagement
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
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https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
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Episode268 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hi, this is Chris Gazdik, your host of Through a Therapist’s Eyes, where you get direct insights from a panel of therapists in your car or home, knowing it’s not to delivery of therapy services in any way. We are going to be talking about a cool topic that we’ve covered on the show before Long time listeners will maybe remember some dialogues that we had about something called survivor mode and i’m going to be very curious to hear john what you have to think about this idea how you use it if you use it the same way I Do but we’re just me and you we’re missing victoria tonight.
What’s up with that? Do you think?
John-Nelson Pope: I think that she probably said, get me out of here. No, she didn’t do that. I think she wanted to be here, but she had a family. She
Chris Gazdik: had childcare, childcare, which she told us to say. So yeah, this is episode two 68 on April of [00:01:00] the third. We’re coming forth. Huh? Is it the fourth?
Of course it’s the fourth. That’s what I meant. Did I say the third?
John-Nelson Pope: You said the third, but the fourth is
Chris Gazdik: okay. I screwed up. I’ll come clean. 4
John-Nelson Pope: 4 24.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, really?
John-Nelson Pope: Yes.
Chris Gazdik: You know what sucks about that? I have had a horrible day. And I literally did not see a client. Like it’s spring break in this area and so I don’t know if this has ever happened.
I mean, I’m booked for three weeks, but I didn’t, I didn’t see one client today and that just sucks because writing the date for four 24 would have been fun all day long.
John-Nelson Pope: It certainly would. It
Chris Gazdik: right. Yeah. Slash four slash 24. I didn’t get to do that. I feel like I got completely gypped.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, exactly.
Chris Gazdik: Of course I listen to audiences like, Oh my God, stop talking about the date anyway.
I will move on. I’m we do have the sponsor Truist Bank. They are with us still, and we appreciate them being with us. No,
John-Nelson Pope: it’s Horizons.
Chris Gazdik: Huh? What did I say? True? Oh. Yeah, we [00:02:00] don’t do that. No, we don’t.
John-Nelson Pope: No. Truist has the does our charging thing.
Chris Gazdik: I got it backwards, yes. Now I, we have to delete Neil and go back and rewind.
No, now it’s the best ever because we also use First Horizon services. First, they are the sponsor. Oh,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah, they’re based out of Memphis out, man. They’re based out of Memphis and they’re a very much a community hometown bank, even though they have hundreds of, of branches, they, they really give personalized service to their customers.
Chris Gazdik: So we appreciate first horizon.
John-Nelson Pope: First horizon is,
Chris Gazdik: Hey. Click the bell, click the subscribe button, help us out on YouTube and tell at least one person about the show. If you like what we do, that is your job that help us out. That is your part. We develop content and we hope you enjoy it, but we need your help to do that.
Subscribe, tell at least one person [00:03:00] and click the bell for notifications and stuff. Also YouTube, Apple, iTunes, all that kind of good stuff. John gets mad if you get four stars.
John-Nelson Pope: No, it has to be five stars because that, that lifts us up
Chris Gazdik: five stars, right? We ride
John-Nelson Pope: like cream. You are an all
Chris Gazdik: star, John. I tell you, thank
John-Nelson Pope: you.
Chris Gazdik: Contacted through a therapist eyes. com. This is the human emotional experience, which we endeavor to figure out together. Did I say the topic yet? Or was that on the YouTube Live? Survivor Mode, episode 268, Survivor Mode. And we’re gonna talk about Survivor Mode as it relates to two depthier topics that we’ll go into a little bit, but not as much, on male sexual abuse and domestic violence.
Cause there’s a, there’s a, there’s a lot of myth out there that, you know, men, Do not experience, John. Did you hear or hear this? Men do not experience domestic violence.
John-Nelson Pope: And I think part of [00:04:00] it’s cultural and I think that’s what you’re gonna, we’re gonna go into. A little bit. Definitely.
Chris Gazdik: Because obviously men also aren’t victims of sexual abuse, right?
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, they are. They can be. Yes.
Chris Gazdik: In fact, there’s three questions today. Do you know what survivor mode is and where it comes from? Are men victim of sexual abuse and domestic violence? I mean, that’s a question I ask for you to ponder through the show. I hope you don’t have to ponder that one long. Mm hmm.
Because the answer is John, what
John-Nelson Pope: is? Yes, yes, yes. It’s a both cases.
Chris Gazdik: It’s a terrible reality that men not only can be victimized with domestic violence, being the object person, meaning the woman is domestically violent against the man. That is the thing. And it’s not a new thing. I would suspect it’s been an age old thing that just like male sexual abuse is just it.
Not talked about [00:05:00]
John-Nelson Pope: it. Isn’t there has a code of silence.
Chris Gazdik: It is a absolute, it’s more than a code of silence, John. It’s it’s banished to silence. How about that? Is that a little stronger?
John-Nelson Pope: I think that’s stronger and better
Chris Gazdik: and more accurate. I mean, this topic is one does
John-Nelson Pope: not talk about
Chris Gazdik: this. It’s not okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Because what kind of man are you? It’s against the rules. Against the rules.
Chris Gazdik: You will be objectified as all kinds of weakling, you know, the P word, to be honest, in male world, like you do not want to be put down on the sense of your manliness, your toughness, your strength. Machismo. And so, machismo in another culture, you know, and most, a lot of cultures have words for it.
You know masculinity. Well, I think
John-Nelson Pope: most cultures look at it as a negative if To to somehow you’re not man [00:06:00] enough. So in other words at least in Western cultures It’s it’s very unacceptable To, to even talk about this massive topic, you know,
Chris Gazdik: really and truly massively. The last question is, do men handle being a victim differently?
And
John-Nelson Pope: yeah,
Chris Gazdik: just give me a yes or no on that, John. Oh yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah,
Chris Gazdik: yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I think
Chris Gazdik: so. Based on some of these things we’re talking about.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: actually.
John-Nelson Pope: So, but I think so much of the of the way that it’s handled by society and our culture is that men handle it very differently.
Chris Gazdik: And we’ll go down through some of the specifics with that.
So all right, let’s go into a little bit of an understanding. Do you know what survivor mode is and where it comes from? John, I’m, I’m curious. I don’t think. We’ve talked about this. I have talked about this in the history of the show before, but I don’t know if, if, if I’ve [00:07:00] talked about it in, in context of the panel or not,
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t recall, but I kind of suspect what you’re going to say.
Is that you build up a or let’s say in this case men, they build up a scar basically. And you don’t, you, that’s something that, that you suppress or repress very, very deeply in, in the core of your, your being, because you have to operate. You have to be able to, to. Present yourself as being together, always having it together, that sort of thing.
So, or you’re numb to your feelings. And of course men don’t have feelings, right? Yeah. I mean, that’s a stereotype. Am I in the area that you are
Chris Gazdik: not?
John-Nelson Pope: I am not. You are not. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Actually, something totally different.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay.
Chris Gazdik: So, which I was wondering, I was very curious if you were going to get this [00:08:00] because I, I, I think I used the word combo survivor mode because of what I heard early on in my training back in the days.
Huh. of, you know, the 90s and such, when a certain lady named Claudia Black,
John-Nelson Pope: Huh,
Chris Gazdik: you know her, yeah, right, was giving, doing a lot of work about a certain area, and you know that, I’m sure, is the family dynamics, right, of addiction,
John-Nelson Pope: right,
Chris Gazdik: so that’s the world that I’m coming from with this,
John-Nelson Pope: oh, okay,
Chris Gazdik: do you remember that stuff, does that ring more of a bell or, play more of into your mind?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I think most of my training was before that, since I’m so old. Right. Okay. But yeah, I recall some of that.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. So, so how do you, so do you frame up in your mind what I am meaning by survivor mode a little bit more? Well,
John-Nelson Pope: I want you to talk a little bit more about it because then I’ll say, oh, I remember, or no, I don’t.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Yeah. Well, I was just curious about that [00:09:00] because I’m, I almost wish Victoria was here, although I’m pretty sure she would not how many clinicians out there? Like, I would love to have immediate responses on Facebook live to see like how many people are like, Oh yeah, I’m down with that. Substance abuse, family dynamics, addictions, treatment, you know, what happens in the, in the family relationships because this survivor mode is kind of, you know really descriptive of family dynamics, but I think it can be operational with other traumatic realities.
Are we talking
John-Nelson Pope: about being on autopilot?
Chris Gazdik: Now you’re in the ballpark. Absolutely. Yeah. Right. Right. And it’s funny because I, I do lose, like, I don’t know how much I do in the therapy education piece with this. I kind of have morphed a little bit in the second half of my career dealing with trauma and trauma oriented care.
This is where survivor mode [00:10:00] can be really helpful to understand, but I think when I began to describe this stuff to people, it would kind of get lost. Even if they experienced it exactly because of John, I think what you just touched on mostly.
Intro: It
Chris Gazdik: really gets down to that. So, can you say more about what you were thinking?
John-Nelson Pope: Ha! I’m not, I’m not good at this. Yes, you are. Okay. Now, well, if you’re an autopilot, you’re, and that’s what I’m assuming you’re, you’re talking about is that there’s a sense that you just, you just act as though nothing happened. Yeah. And what
Chris Gazdik: the hell do you mean you’re not good at this? You’re on point!
That’s exactly Claudia Black’s stuff. Yeah, keep going a little bit.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay, so I am remembering a little bit. So, that you don’t It’s something that you don’t visit. Or, and so I’m wondering if it’s so deep that you may not even be able to, [00:11:00] to recognize. I think it is. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I really do. And I think that’s why I lost people when I would try to do a psychoeducation piece on this.
Cause I do. I think us as therapists need to be educators in therapy sessions, a whole lot more than
John-Nelson Pope: we are. Oh, definitely. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Absolutely. Because that may actually plant a seed in somebody that is, is dealing with the trauma is that they might be able to, to take it out safely. Right.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Yeah. And we’ll demonstrate that in a few different ways tonight. Talking about, you know, sexual abuse and domestic violence because those are different kinds of trauma experiences. But everything you
were saying about this deep level experience with that, I want you to expound on that.
Let’s talk about that. [00:12:00] After I give, like, to you listening, what I what I will describe as Survivor mode being a, a psychological state really that you get into that is exactly like you were describing, John. It’s almost like you just checked out and you don’t even know the trauma that’s in front of you because you’re just subconsciously normalizing things so deeply.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s like being shell
Chris Gazdik: shocked back in the, in
John-Nelson Pope: the sense that in the second world war or the first world war, particularly more in the first world war is that people, they would be almost catatonic. They could respond somewhat, but there was not that engagement. So they were checked out. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So this is, I think.
At least a conceptualization was a gift from the substance abuse addictions field [00:13:00] that was primarily Claudia Black, but others that really began to look at the family relationships with addicted member of the family and what happens with all the other dynamics in, in the family members. So I remember Claudia in a conference I got to see her in gave a vivid description of her own life that was a real.
Image of imagery, real story, a real event that she experienced in her youth that perfectly demonstrates what happens with survivor mode. Okay? So you have an alcoholic mom or dad and the kiddos are experiencing life through the eyes of survivor mode. Like Claudia Black lived, her parents had a bar next to their house that they owned and operated.
And of course they were having problems with the alcoholism. And so she described the scene that she was in one random night where she is sitting on [00:14:00] the couch in her living room with her sister sitting in another chair watching TV with her boyfriend sitting on the couch with her. And it’s a quiet evening like any other night.
Until all of the sudden, kerblam, the door flies open in the front door and it presents a man standing in the doorway looking in, walking in, saying, Hey, where’s the bathroom at in a rather loud, obnoxious voice with Claudia to point
over to where the bathroom is as he proceeds to go to the bathroom, leave the living room, boom, the door is closed.
Claudia goes back to watching TV. Now, The boyfriend’s perspective here was sitting here with my girlfriend, guy presents at the front door. What is going through the boyfriend’s brain? Can you imagine, John?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. [00:15:00] You know, are we being attacked? Right? Yeah. Is, is there, are, are, is there a possibility somebody’s going to be harmed?
Chris Gazdik: What? She points to the bathroom. As
John-Nelson Pope: though it’s
Chris Gazdik: He walks to the bathroom. What’s he thinking? Is this guy What’s he doing? Where’d he come from? He leaves the living room. He closes the door. And he’s like, What is he thinking? You know, Do we need to lock the door? Does this happen very often? Should we call your parents or do you need to call the police?
John-Nelson Pope: This was normal.
Chris Gazdik: Claudia is already into the program. So I would ask clients after I give this little imagery and this story, which person is in survivor mode. And a lot of times people couldn’t even tell me. Really? It’s Claudia. Claudia, of course. She’s in survivor mode.
John-Nelson Pope: So the, the, the boyfriend is. Acting appropriately, right?
Chris Gazdik: He’s got a lot of [00:16:00] questions. This isn’t safe. We’re not okay. This can’t happen. Don’t we need to talk about it?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: we’re watching TV. It’s fine.
John-Nelson Pope: In a way that’s like with, and I’m making an analogy to PTSD is that when people for example, I had, I had one client that said, yeah, we were being shelled all the time and I was able to sleep through it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Just normal, like every other night. And there
John-Nelson Pope: were bombs bursting in air. In air! Yeah, and you know.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, this is a big deal in the way that human beings psychologically process trauma. And the thing, That I really want to get at is exactly what you got at John. So go ahead and expound more on What happens when somebody is enduring?
Literally day today and day after day Moment after moment after moment after moment as a child [00:17:00] of somebody who has an alcohol or drug addiction problem Their life is well.
John-Nelson Pope: I think I think there’s gonna be a effects on many different levels, but some of it will be minimizing what goes on in saying, assuming that, that what they’re experiencing is normal.
When I was talking about the, the, the, the client that I had that was, he was actually in, in a, a place. That was kind of classified and there was classified,
Chris Gazdik: classified,
John-Nelson Pope: in other words, that, that the U. S. was involved with some sort of an activity that got a lot of publicity, but they were being shelled every, every day.
Every night without secession, without ceasing, he would end up just rolling over and sleeping. And yet, he was now, years later, experiencing great anxiety and great problems in [00:18:00] his life.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And here’s, here’s the thing. Like I think what would happen for me, John. So let’s, let’s, let’s focus in a little bit on, I’m curious, you know, give me, give me some supervision here and tell me what you’re thinking.
Cause I really have never really fully figured out why I was not able to give good descriptions of this to my clients. And they just oftentimes would get, you know, confused, frankly, or I think, like you said, rationalized or minimized away the effects that were on them because I don’t, I don’t even really do this in sessions a lot anymore.
Like I said, my first half of my career, I kind of did a lot of this. When I came across, you know, someb
origin dynamics or sometimes even trauma, but now I just go into different trauma things.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Do you think that maybe this might be with in your own case that your, your mother’s a therapist?
Am I going in the wrong [00:19:00] area there?
Chris Gazdik: What do you mean? I’m not following you. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: in other words, you kind of grew up in that environment where you could talk about these things. That there was more of a permission. So in other words, you’re, and that people that you’re counseling doing the, the therapy with.
These are folks that are, are traumatized and and survivor mode. And so they can’t see it.
Chris Gazdik: Well, they learned no talk rules. That’s a dynamic of families in this issue, right? Right? Very much with sexual abuse as well. No talk rules. No, I don’t, I don’t, I, I, again, I’m getting what you’re saying about my situation, but I will say, no, I don’t think that’s it.
Because honestly I grew up, my mom was a therapist, but you got to remember, she didn’t come into this whole thing until she was well in her forties. Oh, I didn’t know that. And all that kind of stuff. Yeah. This was her whole second half of her life. I grew up. Kind of not with the substance abuse addiction.
My mom [00:20:00] or dad didn’t have those issues, but my mom did growing up. So remember that whole three generation thing?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I experienced that. Like I was the second generation and my kids were the third generation that eradicated my granddad’s effects on the family. From generation to generation to generation to generation.
They say it takes three generations of sobriety to eradicate one person’s effect on the family from addiction.
John-Nelson Pope: Dr. Bowen would, I was also dealing with that in terms of the family dynamics. And so there’s the idea of generational dealing with with
alcoholism or substance use or, or sexual abuse that would be going from, and it would affect the three generations.
And so that’s probably. I, I think that’s been a big part of, of what we’re dealing with sometimes. It’s, it’s as though sometimes if you’re sitting in there with your client you’re [00:21:00] actually maybe sitting in with a representation of, of a grandparent. Or a great uncle or something of that sort.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Yeah. No, that plays out in sessions. I mean, I think, you know, Cass, Hey, Cass on, on YouTube, she gets, she gets into it very appropriately saying that growing up in our culture back in the day, men were expected to control all activities of their households. They were expected to be. Brave and not speak of any of their weaknesses, which you know, yeah, I think, I mean, that
John-Nelson Pope: Gary Cooper, right.
Good example. Very taciturn, laconic. Kind of like early, a tonic,
Intro: okay.
John-Nelson Pope: I’ll speak English. What was that? I’ll speak it. I’ll speak English now. No, basically you just, you’re the silent type. You didn’t share any of that. You had to put, you know, suck it up. Be tough. Right.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And, [00:22:00] and, and I think that happens in, in, in, in.
Male world, but I want to make this strong point when you’re involved in family dynamics, that’s very much easily equally so women as well, women, little girls learn, you got to keep your own emotions in check, you got to keep your crap together, you don’t get rattled, you don’t let anything bother you, you deal with the situation really quickly, and then you settle yourself down because you know that There’s likely to be another situation, possibly later that night, certainly possibly the next day or the day after that.
And you never know. It might be a fine day. Nothing ever happens, but then eventually unpredictably boom, something pretty quickly soon thereafter is going to happen.
John-Nelson Pope: So there’s a certainty of uncertainty.
Chris Gazdik: There is a certainty of uncertainty. I love that.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. And so basically what you do is if you can’t rely on anybody else or anything else, you can at least keep your.
Yourself, right.
Chris Gazdik: And you become quite street smart. You become quite adept at [00:23:00] dealing with problems, you know, at hand. There’s a big, burly guy who’s riskily, dangerously in our living room now from the unlocked door going to the bathroom. He’s gone to problem. We got it figured out and we move on that quick.
John-Nelson Pope: So you normalize
Chris Gazdik: it. Whereas the boyfriend is just not going to be that. So he
John-Nelson Pope: was probably scared senseless.
Chris Gazdik: Yes.
John-Nelson Pope: Doing that and she’s like,
Chris Gazdik: It’s fine. It’s fine. I know. It wasn’t even that big of a deal. Okay, no clue. Give me an example. Hold on a minute. No clue that Question is she equally as terrified trick question, but not really a trick question for you Right is Claudia equally as terrified in that situation as is the boyfriend
big pause with a look on John’s face
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, yeah, I think so. She is she is she
Chris Gazdik: really
John-Nelson Pope: is. Yeah Because it does affect her.
Chris Gazdik: But it doesn’t look like it. And it doesn’t [00:24:00] even look like it to herself.
John-Nelson Pope: Give you an example. Okay, this is, has nothing to do with abuse. I was at Subic Bay in the Philippines. Okay. Okay, my wife and I were having dinner.
And we’re having dinner at the officer’s club up at Cubie Point, which is the the Navy aviators place. Okay. So And there are people that have pcsd in to the, to Subic Bay and then PCs in coming in. Alright. They’ve moved in. Okay. Yeah. Your son knows this. I know he’s an acronym and letters here.
Here’s, here’s the point. We’re having dinner. And we’d been there three and a half years getting ready to leave and we’re having a steak dinner and we see these rats go across underneath tables and underneath people’s feet and we just keep eating and the new people start screaming. They’re driven out.
Yeah. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Right. You’re in some military [00:25:00] survivor mode. Okay. That’s what you’re saying, right? But that’s what
John-Nelson Pope: you’re saying. Yes. I mean, that’s just, you know. Yeah. Our little version of it.
Chris Gazdik: It is. There are different versions and different elements of this different components that go into normalizing and rationalizing and minimizing and then having the emotional impacts though, that is so insidious because they just, you don’t even know they’re affecting you.
Right. Chronically. And so there’s a bifurcation.
John-Nelson Pope: In other words, you, you have, you basically, there’s a part of you that that’s convinced yourself that that’s not affecting you, but it is
Chris Gazdik: right. Right. And I think John, that’s why I lost people in therapy when I would have this conversation, because they, I think they literally would call bullshit and say, no, that doesn’t, they don’t.
I lost them in understanding this because they don’t believe me. They don’t I don’t think that people realize that those types of [00:26:00] things Affect you so deeply. I mean obviously if your uncle, you know is inappropriate sexually with you People are going to be like, of course that’s going to affect you You know if you’re a victim of domestic violence in some way, of course, you know People can understand that that’s going to affect you.
But if you’re a chronic victim of unpredictability and certainly uncertain So
John-Nelson Pope: it’s, it’s more than repressed or suppressed memories. There’s also the sense is, yeah, that was the reality. And then that’s, you just say, well, just go on, you know, just move on.
Chris Gazdik: Repression. What were those two words? Repression and suppression.
Suppression and repression and also sort of fragmented memories and what not. Bifucation. Those are, those are all normal responses where you suppress. You kind of forget you don’t know that you really remember what you can recall it repress You can’t recall even that anything happened to you It’s not in your memory banks or [00:27:00] fragmentation where it’s like scattered and scattered in your mind This is your right different.
It’s added component. It’s actually different from those types of things where you don’t even know there’s an impact,
John-Nelson Pope: right? Because I’m, I’m, I’m wondering, is that that one of the areas during some of my training years ago was that, you know, there’s the, just the pure reef repression. And so you’re saying that’s why you don’t remember when you were sexually abused and that was, you had to kind of undergo some intense therapy because you might have a recapitulation when you’re, when your daughter is out of a certain age, when you were being sexually abused.
Do you feel me with that? Absolutely. Okay. So that would be repression. Okay. Is that correct? Correct. So, and then the fragmentation is, yeah, you, it happens. I remember bits and pieces. Bits and pieces. Sort of. [00:28:00] Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It’s, it’s, they’re very powerful realities to trauma. I think that I’m just trying to drive home, you know, to anybody that I’ve worked with in therapy up until like 2004, right?
Maybe 2010. You know that this is the this is the depth here what I’m trying to get at with survivor mode, you know All these folks that I may have lost in in in gathering that Understanding, you know, it just it John. It just makes me sad that people grow up in these false Dysfunctional family systems and are so dramatically impacted like you would see with these other Forms of trauma and and don’t even don’t even give it credence Don’t even give it the time of day and just think Subconsciously that everything that they do and did that way is normal And, and, and it’s just, it’s not.
Intro: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s so maladaptive to just numb out on the events that are going [00:29:00] on around you that are causing you upset. And numb, after numb, after numb event, I mean, do we even have words to describe adequately what, what that does to somebody? Because it’s how many events in a kid’s life growing up, is it
John-Nelson Pope: so?
So are you talking about dehumanization in a sense that what probably a good word that factors in there, right? It’s,
Chris Gazdik: it’s, it’s, it’s a different kind of desensitization to really destructive things. And I mean, you know, the types of things that maybe it stands to give specifics here so that you listening can understand.
This is your alcoholic father, right? He’s yelled at your mom, just a normal night, but it’s a yelling fight or another one where he just thought was going to come home at eight o’clock to watch the movie with you. And he wasn’t there until 1130 [00:30:00] and you’re sleepy and waiting for him to give you a tuck into bed and you don’t even get that or.
So
John-Nelson Pope: if somebody confronted you about that, would you, would there be, let’s say you’re, let’s get in the skin of a 10 year old. Yeah. And dad, dad may have done some terrible things to you or he comes in and he’s blitzed out of his mind or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, there would or narcotics that, that, that, that you would say, no, I had a perfectly good childhood.
Chris Gazdik: I’ve heard people say that.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. It was good. You know, it was fine. And so you have that
Chris Gazdik: rationalization. So that’s exactly, yeah. And this is a lot of the times that I would go into it. Cause see, when I’m working in therapy with somebody, I’m looking at the whole life, I’m looking at, you know, the whole life cycle, different things that are major factors and being a substance abuse therapist, working with people that have addiction gives me an understanding of the family [00:31:00] dynamics.
And so whenever I would find somebody that did have. You know, through sometimes it’s, you know, week 10 of therapy, you know, or, or maybe the 13th session, you know, and, and I get hip to the idea, Oh, wait a minute, you’re, you’re, your brother had addiction and you lived with him and he was 10 years older than you.
What was family life like? Boom. And now I’m realizing there was all these dramatic events with family. Family related to one of the members addiction issues and the client had no idea that they were even impacted and I would try to teach them that and I don’t think they bought it.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Yeah. Because when we look at individual therapy, we think just the individual is in there, but there’s, there’s a whole family in there with you.
Chris Gazdik: You can’t do that. You can’t. You can’t just look at that. Yeah. Right. And we’re trained at least, you know, young therapists out there definitely understand there’s a whole lot more in the room than that person, man or woman sitting in front of you. Yeah. Right. Right. [00:32:00] Certainly the kiddo that’s sitting in front of you in a therapy session, we know their parents are not in the room, but they’re highly impactful.
Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. Same thing for a 35 year old. Yeah, I had one of my first cases was with a wait a minute. You remember your first case? One of my first cases. That’s
Chris Gazdik: impressive.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, it, it really hit me. Actually it was a woman was a nurse she had five children married to a dentist this is up in West Virginia of all places and best state in the union.
Best state in the union. Yes, sir. That’s exactly right. So. What, what happens is that and this is more from the, the point of view of the mother of the, the woman died she had esophageal varices. In other words, she bled in, she basically literally drowned in her own blood. Oh dear. Okay. That’s horrible.
Horrible. And, they had an [00:33:00] open casket at the time, had a scrim over her so that the woman that died, the, they go through the house of the woman that, that died of this, the alcoholism. And basically they found bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles and bottles of Everclear. Okay. Oh, good stuff.
And the mother told me at the as we were, as we were talking a little bit later on now here, I’m 27 years old and she, so she’s 60 ish, the mother. And she says Oh, I think she just, she died of liver cancer. Yeah. Would not, it would deny the alcoholism didn’t even exist, didn’t exist, just completely denied it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And why do you think that nurse denied? The bottles of Everclear and the alcohol and the nurse and all of the behavior that we could associate likely to [00:34:00] have been happening for years with her mom, right? Why she would deny the addiction issue.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. She I think she, that’s how it was. She had this, this idea.
I mean, it was normal for her and it was. And she accepted it, but it was horrible for her and it affected the five kids.
Chris Gazdik: And particularly years ago when women were not recognized as alcoholics at all. Like you’re going back a little ways. Oh yeah. I’m talking
John-Nelson Pope: about 1979. And
Chris Gazdik: there were, there were women that were alcoholics then don’t get me wrong.
They were drinking, but they were drinking in private. He was even more shameful for a woman to be an alcoholic than a dude to be an alcoholic.
John-Nelson Pope: He was more accepted. Especially in the greatest state in the union, West Virginia.
Chris Gazdik: I love that you agree with that. Okay, let’s get some examples in the way of [00:35:00] sexual abuse and then think about like how men deal with this differently and then the same for domestic violence before we go on a little bit.
And talk about like, you know, how do we want to recover with these types of major realities in our, in our lives? So, so we’re thinking about this from a men’s perspective tonight, which I guess we got two male therapists. So that’s kind of cool. I told Victoria, I kind of really wanted her to be a part of this because, you know, us two guys perspective.
I’d be curious about, you know, her as a female looking at this, you know, how men do it. Very, probably
John-Nelson Pope: she has a very different point of view.
Chris Gazdik: I. Would wonder. Yeah, I would wonder. So I’ve got it documented on shows. Now. I’m happy about that because I’ve been thinking about the heat to movement for a long time.
Probably before all of the me to movement. Got fired up. But certainly I put the words on it. He too, you’re going to [00:36:00] copyright that you’re going to trademark it. No, I don’t want to trademark it or copy market. I want it to be, I want it to be a thing. Like I want it to be out in the world where people can gain insight about all of the silent object persons.
That’s what I like to call people that are victims of abuse or violence in some way. They’re the object person. I don’t like the word victim, of course, right? And people get sideways on that, but the he too movement doesn’t get any kind of credence. It’s still doesn’t have any traction. Doesn’t
John-Nelson Pope: No, no, no, I’m just going back to my own youth, you know, being bullied and that sort of thing.
Chris Gazdik: I literally typed the, the words he to movement because I think I’ve heard those words before, you know, when, when all that was going on, there were some people talking about that. [00:37:00] All that I got on Google queries and searches pretty far deep in was an update five years later of the me too movement.
That’s all it was talked about. It wasn’t even on the, on the Google radar as an issue, specifically a male five years later. Yeah, it was just update on the Me Too movement, which has also crashed, by the way. Me Too was what, 2017?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: about five, six years ago. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And Harvey Weinstein
Chris Gazdik: and, Yeah, nothing.
Man, there was, there was nothing on there about people that have been victims of this or Object persons of somebody’s sexual abuse is terrible. I guess, Neil, we should do a plug, right? For the, this will not defeat me.
You don’t have your microphone and everything ready and anything. Do you give us a different voice?
What is this will not defeat me. He gives a cough, a shudder. I caught him cold off the [00:38:00] go.
Neil Robinson: This is not to feed me. It’s a, it’s a, It’s a video course that we created or a video experience. I think is what we would call it along the lines. Should we get you from the main website, but it’s this will not defeat me.
com. I believe I’m right. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at it. That’s sad.
Chris Gazdik: Well, what’s up with that? But, but
Neil Robinson: yeah, no, it was a great, it was a great experience that we did with Chris Davos who worked with us to. Go through his experience, talk about what he went through. And this is a course that, you know, it’s good as an intro for people who have had past experiences, you know, it is not just
Chris Gazdik: men, by the way, right?
Neil Robinson: Not just men, even though this is a man’s experience. The idea is this is a safe space for people to go, go through the course, go sign up for the free intro, see what it’s like and start. Trying to figure out what’s going on and how to get through it and how to live your life, get your life back. You know, this will not defeat me.
That past experience will not defeat me. So yeah, go check it out. This will not defeat me. com and go sign up and go see what you think about it.
Chris Gazdik: I like it. Yep. Little shameless promo. Cause we did spend a lot of [00:39:00] work You know, promote or creating this program, John, and as a, as a way to kind of manage the feelings and the impacts that people have, because the big question is, okay, great.
I remember you know, this stuff happened to me when I was a kid and I have no idea what to do about it. Yeah. This will not defeat me goes through a whole step process. So,
John-Nelson Pope: so to hear this. Heal. Okay, to hear another person’s story is that, that kind of allows healing for someone else to say, okay, this happened to him, this happened to m
To me, right. Or something similar.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Yeah. And Chris shares a heck of a story. I mean, his abuse was just he was very courageous to come out and pretty openly share his story. As a matter of fact, this will not defeat me. com has a free section that you just go and you listen to the first, like, I don’t know, Neil, is it like four or five segments that people can go, go with?
And there’s different [00:40:00] modules that go along with it. That you learned, but the free section, he, we made sure that he was able to get his story to you just so that you can compare stories and not be alone. I’m foreshadowing there. So how do men experience John, would you say the terrible realities of sexual abuse and, and how is that different for them?
What, what off the cuff do you, do you think about that?
John-Nelson Pope: I think that there are many more men. that have undergone this sexual exploitation and aggression from other males and then they will ever admit. I think that as you keep it into context and the rubric that you have Or the, that you described about survivor mode is that they probably didn’t, don’t even recognize it as abuse and yet something maybe eats at their crawl.
Let’s just pause there because
Chris Gazdik: I think [00:41:00] that’s a really important big part and part of why I wanted to pull these concepts together because we hadn’t talked about survivor mode for a long time and it’s a really important substance abuse world. Concept kind of.
But these examples with domestic violence and sexual abuse, just like you perfectly pointed out for us, you’re teaching us, and you said something that I really wanted to highlight, is that men, I think especially, more so than women, but by no means, women as well, fall into this trap. I want to make that strong point of not even knowing they experience sexual abuse, John.
They don’t even know it. Like you might be listening to this thinking, how could somebody experience sexually inappropriate behavior perpetrated on them and not know it? [00:42:00]
John-Nelson Pope: Your mind is a powerful tool that can cause that illusion, right? Yeah. Do do that. And I think it’s very,
let’s just say that in my own case I had somebody touch me inappropriately, it was a doctor, and do an examination, and I didn’t think of it at the time, at that, because I would not allow myself to think that.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
John-Nelson Pope: It was only 30 years later, 40 years later. That I was able to, to reflect on that. I haven’t even talked to my wife about that.
So she’s going to have to see this.
Chris Gazdik: She’s going to listen to through a therapist eyes and hear a new piece. Wow. Yeah, John, that’s huge. I mean
John-Nelson Pope: and, and I, part of me is like, God, why did he do this? You know, to you, but I mean, into, yeah, because it was very angry about it and found out later the [00:43:00] guy had been lost his license.
Yeah. Oh my gosh, really? For someone else.
Chris Gazdik: Pedophilia, inappropriate touching or whatever. Yeah, inappropriate. You know, yeah, I, I, I, absolutely. I mean, on a, on a lure. But I’ve never
John-Nelson Pope: talked about it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, no, I, I, I’m gonna join the party, John. I’m gonna join the party. Because I have not talked a lot at all publicly either about, like, mild I guess you’d call it arguably abuse, but there’s, you know, sexual events and, and, and experimentation.
You could say exploitation, but you know, whatever with neighborhood games, you know, kiddos doing kiddo things, you know, in the neighborhood that I was younger than them. And it was like, is this appropriate? Is this inappropriate? But the fact that I haven’t talked about it with hardly anybody in my life, people that are super close.
The fact that you’re
John-Nelson Pope: still remembering it so vividly. Yeah. Right. That tells you something.
Chris Gazdik: So, you know, this is not just spin the bottle kind of games or things like that, but this, this is touching inappropriate [00:44:00] sexual activity. That’s an exploration, exploration and exploitation. This isn’t just horrid sexual abuse.
Kind of issues that happen with your uncle having sex with you in a dark basement from age, you know, seven to 15. This is the, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of things that go into this. And again, people will experience lesser extent and related to survivor mode, kind of not even realize that it was abuse.
Like I didn’t know that until about 10 years ago as well, John. So it’s, you know, but I figured out like, yeah,
Neil Robinson: well, that. Was that an issue?
Chris Gazdik: And the person I was working with was like, Well, I’m comfortable calling it an issue. I’m like, Okay, well, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t. And I still don’t have a lot of energy about it.
You know?
Intro: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: But, gosh, like, yes, it is an issue. So, there’s also fundamental doubts about masculinity. That I think is a different factor when a man is an object [00:45:00] part Point with with abuse. How many times John in therapy? Have you heard men questioning their own? Sexuality when they’ve been the victim of abuse all the time,
John-Nelson Pope: right?
Right. I mean, it’s just par for the course
Chris Gazdik: You can’t talk about it with my family. Yeah, can’t talk about it with my friends But deeply wonder if I’m like, well, look,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m, I’m, I’m talking about it in a, in a podcast, but I can’t talk to, about my, to my family.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Yeah. Right. What is that in our head? It’s a survivor mode.
It’s a form of survivor mode. Yeah. What else comes to mind? Oh, the strong man mentality. Simply, you know, walling off of the reality with, with the events. I, kind of like you just said, I mean, we both just, I think, you know, said like, there’s, there’s a, there’s a walling off, there’s a, it didn’t happen.
There’s a, no reason for this to come up ever, you [00:46:00] know. Not gonna talk about it. It’s a no talk rule. All of these things kind of play into into the mix Let’s switch gears with similar thing because I think we’re gonna have the same things kind of that happen with with domestic violence How similar is this with domestic violence say you?
John-Nelson Pope: I, well, I think that happens more often than, than one thinks. I think that having worked with couples but particularly in, in a couple of cases of, of men there’s not so much the physical violence that can be, but it’s also Yeah. Let’s make
Chris Gazdik: that clear. It can be.
John-Nelson Pope: It can be. It can be very much so.
In fact, I’ve, I’ve worked. With someone that, that has dealt, has struggled with
Chris Gazdik: that,
John-Nelson Pope: but, but it’s also been the, the, the constant verbal haranguing that that person may undergo. That [00:47:00] person that just sort of sucks it up and sucks up the abuse, right. And silent about it. The man
Chris Gazdik: who is silent about being berated,
John-Nelson Pope: but, but.
The thing is, is that I think our culture sets us up for this, and there’s, there’s sort of a double standard, and you see, it’s not very politically correct now to talk about it this way, because, well, so much is where the man is portrayed as the aggressor and as the perpetrator, because men are physically bigger.
Right. Okay. And yet it, it, it, the, the thing is, is that there are people that get physically abused. I see that in same sex couples as well. Right. With that. For sure there. Yeah. Very much there.
Chris Gazdik: For sure there. But I mean, in heterosexual couples too, like we’re saying. All the time. Absolutely happens oftentimes.
Yeah. It is. I think you’re. Right to say. Are we correct in saying maybe probably it is more commonly in form of [00:48:00] emotional abuse. Yeah, I would say generally speaking more common, but there’s brain
John-Nelson Pope: differences. Women are much better. It’s not just cultural. They’re verbally. Able to express themselves better than men, especially when men get a, or, or feel threatened
Chris Gazdik: or, or angry.
We, there’s definitely some science behind that, but make no mistake about it. Women are, can be threatening to the man in the home. And sometimes you’re a boy too. This can be, you know, your mom who’s, who’s domestically violent to their kids. That happens and a dude is growing up. How am I supposed to be tough?
And they’ll end up getting into fight after fight, after fight, after fight, because they’ve been, they’ve been through abuse. And, but just as much, you know, we’re all grown up men, but a woman slaps and can hit and can pinch. And, and the dude’s kind of like, what am I supposed to knock you [00:49:00] out? You know, I don’t want to do that.
I’m not going to hurt you. So they suck it up.
John-Nelson Pope: And of course, if there’s, if the police are called, it’s immediately, it’s the man, right? Yes. The man gets taken, gets taken, put in jail. And
Chris Gazdik: if you’re not careful, no, it’s gotten a little bit better. Culturally it has now there’s interview. The. Police officers have standard procedures to interview the man and interview the woman.
But you
John-Nelson Pope: think about a police and I love the men in blue and the women in blue, okay? Right. I love them. I very much. I know your passion there. But there’s also. There’s bias. That code. Yeah. There’s bias. You know, if he was a real man, he wouldn’t allow himself to have this happen. So he’s got to be the perpetrator.
Unseen that comes
Chris Gazdik: out. Yeah. That happens. So yeah, I want to get into how to, how do we recover with these types of things since we’ve kind of opened up some, some ground with domestic violence and [00:50:00] sexual abuse and the heaviness that that invokes, you know, for people and, and, and focus on, you know, what do we do to manage these things and how do we recover from them?
I always want to make that the focus towards the end of our show, but is there anything else about specifically domestic violence that men react kind of differently with? Stronger experience of shame based feelings, I said. I think that’s probably true, although you could argue me on that point. Insight about it having happened in the first place, I think is different for men than women.
You know? I don’t know.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, probably not a lot of insight sometimes. Yeah. Whereas women
Chris Gazdik: have insight. They know it.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s like, there’s a stereotype of men that say, well, I don’t even know what your last name is, you know, and you’re, he’s my best friend, right? The superficialness. The superficialness.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: A major [00:51:00] culture of silence. And then I also listed the big fear of, we didn’t mention this yet, but I think specifically for men in domestic violence you know, more likelihood of not even being believed. Mm hmm. Like you said, by the police officer, right? You know, or friends
John-Nelson Pope: or jeered, jeered for it, right?
Because, well, gosh, he, he let himself get slapped around by his His wife,
Chris Gazdik: right? What kind of a man are you man?
John-Nelson Pope: Partner? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: What kind of a man are you? Yeah, horrible statement. And again, survivor mode kind of is in all of this. You know, you don’t even know that you’re affected. You’ve minimized this.
You’ve rationalized this stuff. You might have fragmentation. You know, how long have you been dealing with this? Feels like 23 years that this has been going on when it’s been 10. I find fragmentation with this also, John, right, big, big deals. So let’s focus a little bit. I mean, how do we recover? What do we do with these major things in life?
I mean, what a bummer, man, like domestic violence, [00:52:00] sexual abuse survivor mode, family dynamics. Like what’s the, it’s all madness. How do we deal with this, John?
John-Nelson Pope: What do we
Chris Gazdik: do?
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, I, well, there’s part of me. I’m all about forgiving oneself. I don’t know. Forgiving the, the perpetrator, even if that person doesn’t ask for forgiveness in the perpetrator, because you cannot allow this.
Chris Gazdik: Forgiveness is a tough thing, isn’t it? It’s
John-Nelson Pope: tough. And I think that’s why the, the admonition in the Bible is to, I think you’ll find this in other, other holy books as well, but the idea is, is that you forgive over and over again, but it’s a true understanding of forgiveness. Not, not the, not the, the idea.
Well I can’t forgive this person for doing this to me or doing this to my children or, or something like that. It’s the sense of being able to say, I’m sorry. I have to let this, I have to [00:53:00] process this and let it, and then let it go because it’s going to kill me. It’s going to kill my children. What’s going from generation to generation.
We’ve got to stop it now.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it boy, I’m keeping up with you. You’re throwing concepts out and throwing facts down and they’re solid. Absolutely. The intergenerational reality, the forgiveness of the offender. You know, interestingly, you started out with forgiving yourself. Why would you have to forgive yourself?
What did you didn’t do anything wrong? You’re the victim. You’re the object person. When you’re 10
John-Nelson Pope: years old, you’re going to blame yourself. Or even
Chris Gazdik: as an adult victim of domestic violence from your wife, you might fall into the fact that you blame yourself. Right. How did, well,
John-Nelson Pope: I’ve had, I’ve had clients like that.
They just, they, they, they are absolutely convinced that it’s my fault and I, I, I’m [00:54:00] working with somebody right now that’s dealing, that, that’s struggling with that. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Remarkable.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: How we take on, which is also part of survivor mode, honestly, we didn’t talk about, but you, you take on a lot of codependence, if you will, you take on the energy of the room, the energy of the family, the energy of the relationship and incorporate that as like, I’m a bad person.
I did this wrong. I’m at fault.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, you become the identified patient, basically, and
Chris Gazdik: then somebody hopefully comes along as a therapist to point out, wait a minute. You do know this was sexual abuse, right? I mean, it can be shocking sometimes to point that out. Yeah. You do realize that this is inappropriate that your, you know, your mom disciplined you that way, right?
Yeah. You’re like, shocked to find out that it’s not cool to have welts on your legs. What, like
John-Nelson Pope: I, I recent, I would say [00:55:00] in my, I wouldn’t say recent, but within the last 10 years, I had a client that was often sexually abused by his mother and was punished by being burned and some other aspects. We hear
Chris Gazdik: some stuff in therapy, don’t we, John?
Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And he, he’s never been able to talk about that until recently. Well. Yeah, but
Chris Gazdik: yeah, this, this is locked in somebody’s no talk file, you know, being, being burned by their dad or, you know, having been, you know, Neglected as a child and not given dinner for four days, having to scrape for your own food.
I mean, there’s, there’s some horrible situations people have endured and live to not tell about it. Right. Notice how I [00:56:00] said that. Yeah. Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes, live to not talk, tell about, I was, I was thinking about how many are also, we have less sympathy or empathy for, or sympathy, better to have empathy, but the, that have been abused and I’m thinking of one case of, of of a fella in Texas who basically was abused by his.
His mother and was beaten and she was someone that ended up being a prostitute. And we didn’t, we’re, I guess, a sex worker now it’s a more proper term, but he ended up. I don’t know that that’s
Chris Gazdik: a term that drives me nuts.
John-Nelson Pope: I know it does. Me too. Yeah. Okay. Basically she made her living to put food on the table of the son that she abused.
Yeah. So that they could live. [00:57:00] This was during World War II. And when all this happened,
Intro: he went
John-Nelson Pope: to high school and, uh, was sexually inappropriate with a girl that was very popular. He was popular at the time. Hurt people tend to hurt people. Right. And basically was forced to join the military was in Korea, got blown up during Korea.
Then he came back and he became a painter house painter and yeah, and he ended up being caught several times for being a peeper. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I mean, we know with sexual abuse, you tend to act out sexually, so you’re inappropriate yourself oftentimes with pornography or, you
know, affairs you know, being promiscuous is the word I was looking for, you know, and, and just, there’s a lot that goes on.
John-Nelson Pope: People would not have a lot of sympathy [00:58:00] for
Chris Gazdik: him. That’s what you’re circling back to. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So have sympathy for the outcomes of this. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, cause there’s a no spoken rule that you can’t talk about it and you can’t deal with it and I’m bad person anyway, and now I’m acting out doing more bad things, you know, and, and it’s just a nasty cycle.
It, it, it absolutely is. I think the first thing that came to my mind, John, and how do we recover? How do we deal with these things is exactly. You know what? Even, you know, I think many people like us for years do, which is just stay alone with it. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a suffer terrible suffering to do alone and not telling anybody about, you know, what happened to you.
Mistake don’t do that. Don’t it’s it’s I I almost feel like but it has to be
John-Nelson Pope: it has to be a safe place
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, you have to have find a safe person and you have to have some some some boundaries around that You know and make good decisions, you know, [00:59:00] just tell anybody but Tell anybody that you can have any ounce of trust in is what I’d like to say, right?
You know Because to stay alone with it and keep it the skeleton in your closet is is just devastating Mm hmm Don’t do that anymore to yourself. That’s the part that you you have responsibility for yourself, too I I also wanted to point out that you know, how do we recover? How do we deal with these major life changes?
you know, I was brainstorming and thinking about it and it occurred to me that we need to say have a Safety plan developed just like we would under protocols of domestic violence, right? You think about that as a woman get your money together Tell some friends develop a plan have a place to go get your paperwork.
That’s important. Get a go bag You know, is there is
John-Nelson Pope: there a men’s place like Catherine’s house, right? I don’t think so I
Chris Gazdik: don’t know John.
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t think so I think, I think our culture is so geared that we won’t do that for [01:00:00] men.
Chris Gazdik: Now what John’s meaning Catherine’s places, there’s shelters and domestic violence, protected spaces.
And Catherine’s place is an example of that. That’s local to our area. But no, you’re right, John. You’re right,
John-Nelson Pope: Denny. When I was in the Navy, we, we, I was one of the people that worked on developing a a safe house for women and children
Chris Gazdik: for men. Whoa. Let me know.
John-Nelson Pope: No, this is 85, 80 through 89. Right. Okay?
Right. Why would we
Chris Gazdik: have that for a dude?
John-Nelson Pope: No. No, we don’t do that. And, and I know that there were some big macho Marines and Navy guys and Coast Guard men that basically were having problems and probably needed a place to go and they didn’t have it.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Wow. Yeah. You know, honestly, John, I brought this up from a male’s perspective and I did never even, that’s a new thought.
I never. Thought about domestic violence battery shelters for men. Mm hmm. Never [01:01:00] even occurred to me.
John-Nelson Pope: They don’t have a place. No. You know.
Chris Gazdik: I did make some You gotta live in your
John-Nelson Pope: car. You do.
Chris Gazdik: You have to live in your car. Yep. If you, particularly if you have, yeah, that’s men have done that, haven’t they?
Yeah. I do want to make the point that if you’re listening to the show and wrapping up with us about how do we handle this, this usually is, I would say, John, would you agree? This, this, this content area usually is really like, you know, therapy and at a minimum support group kind of land, isn’t it? I mean, yeah, you don’t want to do this alone.
You want to also get professional involved in these types of things. Fair.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. You definitely have
Chris Gazdik: to have professionals involved with this. I mean, I, I think it’s good just to tell your buddy. I mean, I’m saying, don’t be alone. Just tell your friend if you trust them, but also, yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: you have to have somebody that you can process this with and maybe it’s a, it could be a clergy person.
That you could do this and [01:02:00] depending on, on the background of that clergy person, does that person have training specifically in that area? But I would even say that it would have to be a licensed person. Right. And that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a peer support group. That would be fairly highly sophisticated, but right, but you know, there’s not a lot of
Chris Gazdik: because there’s some deftness with these particular topics.
There’s a lot of damage that’s done, even if you don’t realize it, by the way. Lastly, I’m going to say also it’s a little bit of a side note for men just as well as women, probably more so than women. Men need to be aware Particularly of domestic violence and abuse perpetrated on them as the object of person that there need they need to be very aware of making sure there’s proof of this.
John-Nelson Pope: Definitely.
Chris Gazdik: You can’t just go out and make this claim willy nilly and, and, and, I mean, you know, if you’re going to get help, if you’re going legal, if you’re getting, you know, support for this, then, you know, you want to make sure that [01:03:00] you’ve got, you know, evidence of that and keep that. And that’s true,
John-Nelson Pope: men and women.
As for men and
Chris Gazdik: women. Yeah. I am making the statement. Maybe on shaky ground you correct me if i’m wrong. Please feel free as I know you do You know, I think that’s more of a men’s I would rephrase it. Okay. Rephrase. No, no, no,
John-Nelson Pope: no. If you asked me to, I would agree with you absolutely a hundred percent. No men have to be have to be doubly.
I think
Chris Gazdik: is that the reframe? Yeah. That’s the only thing I believe, because I think
John-Nelson Pope: the, again, it’s it, the process is, is that it’s not done intentionally. It’s done subtly. It’s where a person has to be able to say, I’ve got to back this up and I’ve got to, I’ve got proof, right? Yeah. So,
Chris Gazdik: well, we need to get out of here today and I appreciate cast your comment on YouTube.
What did she say? The excellent [01:04:00] show and powerfully presented. I appreciate that. Truly. Thank you. I want to. Take us out focusing on where I landed John and where you began and usually we’re in lockstep in a lot of ways. I Wrote focus on forgiveness. That’s what you started with in it, right focus on forgiveness Versus violence or getting back and getting even I think that can be a dangerous trap that men Particularly fall into right for giving yourself forgiveness forgiving the perpetrator, but being careful not to fall into violent or getting back passive aggressive or getting even or letting
John-Nelson Pope: it destroy yourself and your effectiveness as a person in life.
Fair enough. And as, and as a man, because I, I do also know people that have had this exploitation or domestic violence, particularly from in a case of a woman where that person [01:05:00] just. Collapsed, right? Emotionally.
Chris Gazdik: Sorry. Absolutely. No, listen, it’s a tough topic. Domestic violence, sexual abuse, man or woman survivor mode.
It is a tough, tough reality. If you’re, if you’re out there listening and you’ve experienced this, don’t be alone. Get, get some help. Be with people. Don’t, don’t be alone. All right. Hope we’ve been a little bit helpful. It’s a journey to get
well, we do endeavor to figure this thing out together. So we’re glad you’re listening.
Stay with us. Stay tuned. Get well, stay well, and we’ll see you
Intro: next week. Bye.