Nick’s hopes for tomorrow include a girlfriend, a healthy social circle and a stress-free bus ride.
It sounds like pretty standard stuff for most 32 year olds.
But to attain what sounds like a straightforward future, Nick has to first unravel a complex and profoundly painful past.
Nick describes his childhood as being filled with manipulation, sexual abuse and isolation. He grew up in Winnipeg and says the abuse he endured came at the hands of a female family member.
That the abuse came from a woman stifled Nick’s ability to process it. Sometimes talking about what happened only made things worse.
“I’ve heard comments that if a woman doesn’t penetrate you, it’s not abuse,” said Nick, who asked that his last name not be published. “Someone once said to me, ‘At least it was a woman. It would have been worse if it was a man.’”
The sexual abuse stopped before the age of 10, though Nick’s teenage years gave way to psychological torment from his peers. He self-medicated with drugs and spiralled into a life of addiction.
“I started meeting people and making friends who were really abusive and they’d do stuff to degrade me and humiliate me,” Nick said. “I seemed to gravitate towards that. It was like I felt like I deserved the worst things to happen me.”
Nick moved to Vancouver in 2015 and entered rehab. He’s been sober for two and a half years and is in therapy to reconcile the sexual abuse he lived through.
Only Nick’s mom and a few friends know about his life’s details. He spoke to the Courier specifically to bring attention to male sexual abuse, which will be highlighted July 29 via a comedy show at the Kino Cafe to raise money for the B.C. Society For Male Survivors Of Sexual Abuse (BCSMSSA).
Nick has received counselling from the society since the spring and expects those sessions to continue in perpetuity.
“This has caused years of isolation and frustration and not knowing why I felt so closed off,” he said. “Even if someone accidentally brushes my shoulder on the bus, I just start to lock up. I feel like they’re invading my personal bubble or my boundaries. I get angry about it and I don’t like feeling like that.”
Nick’s path to recovery took root earlier this year when he heard a podcast by Vancouver comedian Mark Hughes called Pulling the Trigger. The episode delved into Hughes’ history with sexual abuse and drug addiction, and the help he received from BCSMSSA. Hughes is the organizer and host of the July 29 fundraiser.
“I knew what happened when I was a kid was wrong but I didn’t know if it would be considered a crime or if people would take it seriously,” Nick said. “That podcast was the first time I heard someone say ‘yes, this is wrong.’”
Hughes grew up two time zones away from Nick, but there are parallels in both backstories. He ran away from home and was forcibly raped by the age of 15. The life-long Vancouverite was in an abusive relationship where drugs and sex were exchanged for a false sense of security. Attempted sexual assaults were commonplace while Hughes lived in the Downtown Eastside, where he became addicted to heroin and cocaine.
Now 38 and sober since 2006, Hughes bounced around prisons throughout Metro Vancouver from 1995 to 2007.
“I got clean and then all this shit caught up with me,” Hughes said. “Suicidal thinking, depression, flashbacks, self-loathing, paranoia, dissociation and really toxic, toxic thinking about myself and other people. You get into therapy and slowly but surely over time, you start getting a bit better.”
Don Wright has been a beacon of hope for Nick, Hughes and thousands of other men across the province. Wright founded the BCSMSSA in 1989 and the society sees an average of 120 clients in Vancouver each year.
Those men are offered therapy in both group and individual settings. Wright’s team consists of more than a dozen therapists, all of whom work for less than a third of what they’d make in private practices. Clients pay on a sliding scale based on what they can afford and some men, including Hughes, receive treatment for free when possible.
The society has two primary funders: Vancouver Coastal Health and the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. Clients begin the process with a phone call or email and intake meetings with therapists begin within a week.
Most men receive counselling for about 18 months, though Wright has seen one patient consistently since 1992.
“I’ve heard stories that make Stephen King sound like a Disney movie — nothing surprises me anymore,” Wright said. “I still just shake my head and I just can’t see how people can do some of the things they do to kids.”
Wright first met Hughes in 2003 at a group meeting in Abbotsford. Hughes was still three years away from sobriety and in the midst of a nine-year prison sentence for robbery and break and enter. Hughes reconnected with Wright in 2010 and featured the society’s founder on a recent podcast.
“Because he’s an intelligent and self-aware guy, he was able to think about his life, what it had been like, and he saw that it’s not the kind of life he wanted to lead,” Wright said. “He needed to change it and he made a commitment to himself to do whatever he needed to do to change.”
While Hughes stopped accessing the society’s services five years ago, Nick is readying himself for another round of therapy in September.
“I just need encouragement from other people. I need to see that the world isn’t a bad place,” Nick said. “For a while, that’s how I viewed the world. I just didn’t feel safe. I do feel safe now.”
Tickets for Sunday’s show are available online at funraiser604.eventbrite.ca, while the society’s website is at www.bc-malesurvivors.com.
