When A Man You Love Was Abused: A book interview with author Cecil Murphey

When I learned about Cecil Murphey’s recently released book, I knew immediately I had to interview him here on the blog. And graciously, he agreed. As survivor/thrivers of abuse, Cec and I both know the importance and darkness-shattering impact of sharing our stories far outweighs the feelings and hardship which often  accompany “the telling.”

And I’ll be honest–Cec’s story was difficult for me to hear. It may be difficult for you to hear. Even though I hear from survivors and thrivers often, hearing someone’s story never, ever gets any easier. I am utterly and physically, emotionally, and spiritually wrecked every time. 

***Important note: If you are a survivor, there may be thoughts in this interview which are triggering, so please be aware of that beforehand. ***

And now, on with Cec’s story.

About the book

One in every six males has experienced unwanted or abusive sexual experienced before the age of sixteen. The myriad of lasting effects are as varied as the men themselves and can have a devastating impact on future relationships. Yet while so many must deal with it, few are talking about it. Until now.

Writing with the empathy that only a true survivor can convey, New York Times best-selling author Cecil Murphey has written and honest and forthright book about surviving—and thriving—despite past abuses. Both informative and highly practical, When a Man You Love Was Abused will help you understand the continuing problems that survivors may encounter but are unable to express, including hurtful memories, issues of self-worth, and the need to feel in control. Whether the survivor is your brother, father, son, boyfriend, or husband, you will find strength and encouragement from the balanced mix of statistics, personal insight, and inspirational stories from other survivors.

A powerful, compassionate, and timely tool, When a Man You Love Was Abused offers the strength men need to confront the past—and the encouragement women need to help them recover and heal.

Amy: Why did you write this book? What do you hope is the #1 take-away for readers?

Cec: I wrote this book for women who love men that were sexually abused in childhood. They can help the men in their lives who hurt but often can’t talk about it. 

My book is to bring about awareness and with awareness comes hope and from there comes victory.

Amy: Will you share a little of your story with us?

Cec: First, I was sexually abused by a female relative—she fondled me and made me touch her. I’m sure she also abused my two younger brothers (both who died of alcoholism). One of them told me that when he drank it was the only time he didn’t feel pain.

Second, when I was five or six, my parents rented a room to an elderly man who sexually abused my older sister and me. She told our parents. Dad beat the man and kicked him out of the house.

My coping method was amnesia (a form of denial) and I didn’t face my abuse until I was fifty years old. The memories slowly (and painfully) returned. My sister confirmed many of the memories as they emerged. 

Amy: What percentage of males are sexually abused as children?

Cec: No one knows. The conservative estimate is 1 in 6. I think it’s more like one in threee and so do many experts. Men and boys don’t talk as openly about abuse.

Amy: Why don’t men talk easily about abuse?

Cec: For many men, just to talk about their own abuse is extremely painful.

“I should have pushed him away,” is one comment. They forget that they were children and it was usually an adult—a trusted adult—who abused them.

Another factor is that they’re afraid people will think they’re gay or that there’s something wrong with them. [Sexual stimulation] is a natural act to bring about sexual arousal . . . some men think that because it felt good something must be wrong with them. {Amy: Those are biological feelings/responses which simply cannot be helped. It doesn’t mean they enjoyed the act or that they were attracted to their abuser(s).}

Men also connect shame with their abuse or they think they will appear weak or feel no one will understand. Some of them tried to talk about the abuse but no one believed them.

Many of us were lonely, needy kids and perpetrators seem to sense the most likely victims. They offered us gifts, attention, and affection as their means of seduction. For some of us, abuse resulted in gender confusion and uncertainty about our masculinity.  (Some experts believe that most self-declared gay men were abused children.)

Amy: In chapter 11, “The Inner Abuser,” you refer to the lies he might have believed. What are some of those lies?

Cec: When significant people said something to us we tended to believe them, regardless of the truth. We internalize those messages and they become our inner abusers.

• Sometimes they defend the abuser by saying, “What he did was wrong but he loved me,” or “but he was lonely.”
• “I caused the abuse.” The perpetrator says, “If you weren’t so good looking,” or any phrase that manipulates the child into thinking that he caused the abuse.
• “It wasn’t that bad.” Although they say it and assume they believe the words, deep, deep inside they know it was terrible.
• We often speak of the loss of childhood—our innocence was stolen from us. We felt we were cheated out of normalcy (and we were). 
• We feel different from other men. And we often translate different to mean bad.

Amy: Should he seek professional help? If so, when?

Cec: That’s an individual’s issue. I didn’t seek professional help because I didn’t trust anyone with my secret pain, especially a stranger. After I was well on my way to recovery, I became a member of a year-long, state-sponsored group to help men who had been sexually assaulted in childhood.  The year’s experience confirmed much of what I had already learned.

My wife, Shirley, and my best friend, David, were able to listen to me, to accept my pain, and to hug me when I cried (and I cried a lot in the early days of recovery). Because of their support, I didn’t need a professional.

Some men do well with professional help. And if they are open and feel it will benefit them, I urge them to consider it. 

To heal, an abused man needs to talk to someone who can listen non-judgmentally and affirm them. That person may be a professional.

Amy: You refer to the “other victim.” What do you mean by that?

Cec: My wife was the other victim. At times my behavior was bizarre or unhealthy. For example, whenever Shirley initiated sex without my being aware or prepared, I froze and I didn’t know why. Shirley cried.

At other times something powerfully emotional would take place, such as the time Shirley almost died in an accident. My emotions felt frozen. I was overwhelmed by the pain and went numb. She needed and deserved my compassionate love but I couldn’t give it to her.

Those who are emotionally close to us suffer because of our behavior and often assume they did something wrong. If they accept blame for our unconscious behavior, they also become victims.

Amy: You talk about breaking the silence. Why is that important?

Cec: To speak about the sexual assault frees us. Something about saying the words aloud and having the other person understand infuses us with courage.

Until we can talk about the abuse, fear resides within us. I was afraid someone would find out and afraid that if they did, they’d walk out of my life.

By speaking out, we not only take a large step in our healing, we break the inner accusations. The abuse is no longer a big, hidden secret.

Amy: “Where was God?” I’m sure that’s a question many men ask. How would you respond? 

Cec: That’s a powerful question for believers. I didn’t become a Christian until a short time before I met Shirley so I didn’t face that question. Many men do; so do the women in their lives.

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that I like who I am today. And, more important, because of God’s grace, I am more open and forgiving toward others.

Because I carried deep pain for many years, I’m able to sense and to feel pain in other men. We can only offer others what we have. My healing has given me the ability to empathize with others. (Perhaps that’s also the reason most of my writing career has focused on writing others’ first-person accounts.)

Amy: Wow, Cec, and thank you. Thank you for your courage in telling your story. For your dedication and forthrightness in writing this important book.

And if I may, I’d like to pray for any survivors–especially male survivors–who may read this post: Dear Lord, please be with those who are hurting and who have suffered sexual abuse. Please deliver them even now from the slime of the perpetrators. Free them from the shackles which bind them from living a free and loving life. Shelter them when they are most afraid. Assure them they can and will be whole. And lead them to the people in their lives who can help them start and/or continue on the road of healing. In Jesus name, Amen.

About Cecil Murphey

Cecil (Cec) Murphey is the author or co-author of more than 100 books, including the NY Times bestseller 90 Minutes in Heaven (with Don Piper) and Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (with Dr. Ben Carson). He is also the author of the following recent releases: When a Man You Loved Was Abused, When Someone You Love Has Cancer, When God Turned Off the Lights, Christmas Miracles, 60 Seconds to Greatness (with Eddie Long), and Words of Comfort for Times of Loss. His books have sold millions of copies and have brought hope and encouragement to countless people around the world.

Cecil stays busy as a professional writer and mentor and travels extensively to speak on topics such as sexual abuse, writing, recovery, caregiving, and spiritual growth. Prior to launching his career as a full-time writer and speaker, Cecil served as pastor of Riverdale Presbyterian Church in Metro Atlanta, as a volunteer hospital chaplain for ten years, and was a missionary in Kenya for six.

For more information about Cecil Murphey, visit www.cecilmurphey.com. You can find his great writing tips at www.cecmurpheyswritertowriter.blogspot.com. Help for men who have been sexually abused can be found at www.menshatteringthesilence.blogspot.com.

(You can also find helpful resources on my resource page by clicking here.)

Looking in the Mirror: a guest post

by Ronne Rock

In a city with a median age of 32, it’s easy to feel ancient at the ripe old age of 50.

The moment we moved to Austin, I immediately became older, more conservative, and not as green. The strange thing is, nothing about me really changed – the earth beneath my feet simply shifted.

And I have to admit, there are moments when I look in the mirror and say “Wasted.” I reflect back on the days, when as a kid, we would drive in the big shiny, never-more-than-two-years-old-because-dad-loved-new-cars Cadillac from Oklahoma City to Jonesboro, Texas, to see my grandparents. They lived on a farm in a dot of a town that, according to my grandfather, was a booming place with stores and a post office and even a brothel until Indian raids put an end to the growth in the 1800s.

I tried to imagine the old abandoned buildings as they might have been back then, all painted and filled with people and life. When I asked my mom what a “brothel” was, she said it was a place where “ladies of the evening” lived and went on special dates with men. So, I was particularly interested in that building – and tried to picture myself all dressed up for a party and having tea with a man doused in Old Spice. It made me a bit sad that the ladies had to stay in that house, and couldn’t go to a movie or get a hot fudge sundae instead.

Jonesboro was one long, grasshopper-filled, grain-silo smelling summer day for me. I’d take long walks down the dusty limestone roads past fields and mesquite trees to the combination gas station/grocery store (the only one in town) that I called “Mr. Mayhews” because Mayhew Glover was the owner and only person who ever worked there. He would let me purchase candy on credit and get Big Red sodas out of the cooler all by myself. And he didn’t mind if I sat and talked to the old men who would sit in front of the store, dressed in overalls or those cotton jumpsuits that looked more like adult onesies.

Those men would sit for hours and reminisce about the good old days, when life was simpler and people were kinder and things didn’t move so quickly. I loved to hear their stories because I could close my eyes and see them in my mind like scenes from a television show. And I would always grow a little sad when I would ask about their “now” lives, because the answers were always the same: 

“Well, I’m not good for much these days – too old, too feeble, too…”

I knew I didn’t want my life to end in the past, because sitting on a bench in front of a gas station/grocery store in a tiny Texas town didn’t look like a place I wanted to end up.

Maybe it was there, in that lazy town that seemed to die long before its time, that I became hell-bent on the idea of being fully alive.

It was at the Jonesboro feed store/post office I announced I was going to be an archeologist and adopt older kids who needed love. It was on the sunporch at my grandparent’s house that I split my chin open attempting to fly – or perhaps it was float – off a feather bed. It was even standing in the orchards in the back of the farmhouse that I learned to love the smells and colors and tastes of fresh veggies and fruit, and would conjure up ways to share them with others.

So it seems strange to think I now identify with those old men. I certainly don’t look back on life and think things were better at some other point in history. To be sure, I love how beautiful and messed up things are in the present. Nothing is perfect now. Nothing has ever been perfect. But things are richer now – the colors are brighter and the fragrances are deeper and the stories are more complete.

My identification comes when I look in the mirror and say the dreaded words, “If only I was (you fill in the blank here – I use things like “younger,” or “smarter,” or “more talented,” or “more disciplined”), I could have made something more of my life.”

Wow.

I’m 50.

And I feel like I’ve got on that adult onesie already.

I’m glad Noah didn’t look in the mirror and say “Dude, maybe 600 is a bit too old to be jumping on a homemade boat with your family and a bunch of animals. Maybe you should just give it up and let someone younger take over.”

I need to be reminded the Lord’s plans aren’t governed by calendars or position. My purpose today is as meaningful as it was when I was a kid on those limestone roads. My impact today, as the earth shifts below my feet, is as great as it was when it felt like nothing moved at all.

When I look in the mirror, I should say “Waste not.”

That mirror will certainly say, “No onesie for you today, thank you.”

Ronne Rock is a creative insomniac in Austin, Texas.  Her work as a freelance marketing consultant, writer, and chef/caterer funds her addiction to orphan care ministry in the US and abroad.  Ronne is currently writing “Sunny-Side UPside Down,” a blend of recipes and stories from her beautifully messy life.  Follow her journey at http://christstumbler.blogspot.com. A survivor of physical and sexual abuse and child of an alcoholic/drug addict,  Ronne lost both parents by the time she was 40–heartaches she has found become precious gifts when laid at the cross.  

Thank you, Ronne! 

Gloriana’s Story: a guest post

Nurse Missy with Gloriana, translator Smith, and pharmacy assistant, Erica

by Sarah M. Salter

I read a book once that defined guilt and shame and told the difference between them. Guilt is when you feel that you have DONE something wrong. Shame is when you feel that you ARE something wrong. I think that most of us have experience with both. 

This summer while working in the pharmacy of a mission clinic in Latin America, I met Gloriana. Gloriana is four months pregnant and unmarried. She is also a Christian. And when she came to us for medical care, she was emotionally shattered and ashamed. 

Everyone sins, but somehow when church folks find out that other church folks have sinned, they become shocked and outraged. I don’t know what Gloriana’s initial sin was, but whatever it was, it made the folks at her church angry. So angry in fact, that they told her that she could no longer lead the singing and that until further notice, she had to sit on the back row of the church and not worship with the rest of the church family. 

At first, Gloriana felt guilty enough about her sin that she endured the punishment quietly. But after a few services of sitting in the back and being shunned, her guilt turned to shame and the shame blossomed into anger. 

“If I can’t worship God with my church family, then why should I even come?” Gloriana sat in the back and watched the others worship, but when she would sing, the older women closest to her would turn around and frown. So, Gloriana stopped singing. These older church members had been going to church for much longer than she. If they were angry with her for worshiping, then God must be angry, too. And if God didn’t want her to worship, then maybe she just wouldn’t come to church at all. Maybe she should just go ahead and live however she wanted to. 

And she did. 

Gloriana lived close to the church and so she saw the church people often. She found out she was pregnant, but she couldn’t afford medical care. She couldn’t go to the church people for help and so she really wasn’t sure what she could do to take care of her baby. Then she heard that a group of gringo doctors were coming to another church in the neighborhood to give free medical care. She didn’t know if those church people would help her either, but for the sake of the baby, she had to try. 

The day finally came when the Americans would be at the Iglesia Pentecostal at San Cristobal. Gloriana woke up vomiting, very early in the morning. She dressed in her nicest church clothes, hoping to look respectable enough to be accepted at the church. She looked in the mirror and was hopeful, but the closer she got to the church, the more scared she got. The nausea reminded her that she had a baby to think about and so she kept going anyway. And when she got to the church and saw the large crowd, she almost turned around to go home. 

“They’re only taking 150 today!” The large man at the door shouted to the crowd and she watched them surge forward to try to snatch the numbers out of his hand. She couldn’t compete with this. But just as she stepped away to go home, the man turned her direction and handed a number to her: 97. Relief washed over her and she raised her umbrella against the early morning sun and found her place in line. 

Nueve siete! Gloriana snapped to attention as they called her number and led her inside. It was almost four in the afternoon and the day had been exhausting. She wilted into the seat in front of the American lady and the black translator. They smiled at her and she thought she might cry. 

The American lady talked strangely, but she smiled a lot. She made notes and put little plastic bags of pills into a paper bag with Gloriana’s name written on it. The black man translated: “These are for parasites. Take two each day for three days. And these are vitamins—very important for the baby. Take them every day. And the lady up front—that’s Sarita—she will give you something to help you stop vomiting. Stop at her desk before you leave, Sister.” 

It was the term “sister” that undid Gloriana. She took the paper bag in her shaking hands and dropped her head. As the tears came, the white lady reached over and covered Gloriana’s hands with her own. Surprised, Gloriana looked up and met the lady’s eyes. She found concern there—and love. And before she could stop herself, she poured her story out to these two strangers. 

Holding the hands of two strangers—one white English-speaking American lady and one black Haitian/Dominican man—Gloriana found her way home to Jesus. They told her that Jesus wasn’t mad at her and that He still loved her and that He still had a purpose for her. And that He had a purpose for this baby that she was carrying. 

Gloriana didn’t just receive medicine that day at the Pentecostal Church at San Cristobal—she received life. She laid down her shackles of shame and walked home whole, instead of shattered 

Sarah Salter is a graduate of Methodist College with a BA in English. An employee of the NC Church Education Ministries of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC), her work has appeared in Methodist College’s Tapestry magazine and Evangel, the monthly magazine of the IPHC. She is a member of ACFW and is currently working on her first novel. Sarah travels regularly with short term medical mission teams, but makes her home in Central NC with her dog, Sadie. Visit her website at http://sarahsalter.com/. You can also read more of her writing at her column, “Bookstore or Box Office?” http://christianfictiononlinemagazine.com.

Thank you, Sarah, for this precious story!