Being Both: A Male Survivor and an Advocate

There are days when being an advocate for male survivors feels like the most important thing I could possibly do.

And there are other days when I wonder whether I have anything left to give.

I am not an advocate because I studied the issue from a comfortable distance. I am an advocate because I have lived it. I know what silence does to a boy. I know what shame can do to a man. I know what it is like to carry something for years that was never yours to carry in the first place.

When it happened to me, there was no name for what I was. No website. No number to call that felt like it was meant for someone like me. No man standing up and saying, I know, I survived it too, and you are not what he made you believe you are.

There was nothing.

So I built something.

Not because I had to. Because I refused to let another boy grow into a man with nothing waiting for him at the other end of his silence. That is why I do this. Not for recognition, not because I had a plan, but because the absence I grew up inside of is a specific absence, and I know exactly what would have filled it.

That lived experience is at the heart of everything I do.

It is what drives me to speak when it would be easier to remain quiet. It is why I created Male Survivors. It is why I write, share research, challenge harmful assumptions and try to create resources that make another man feel less alone.

I believe in this work wholeheartedly.

I believe male survivors deserve to be seen, heard and supported. I believe we deserve services that understand us, laws that protect us and conversations that include us. I believe silence has protected perpetrators for far too long, while survivors have been left carrying the consequences.

But believing deeply in something does not make the work easy.

Sometimes it makes it harder.

When you are both a survivor and an advocate, the work is never entirely separate from you. The statistics are not just numbers. The stories are not simply case studies. The dismissive comments are not abstract disagreements.

They can land somewhere much deeper.

A comment questioning why male survivors need their own spaces can remind you how invisible men have been for generations. A suggestion that speaking about men somehow diminishes the experiences of women can leave you wondering why compassion is so often treated as though it is in limited supply.

And when people reduce male survivors to stereotypes, suspicion or jokes, it can feel like another door being quietly closed.

You try not to take it personally.

But sometimes it is personal.

There are moments of frustration when it feels as though you have to keep proving that male survivors exist, that our experiences matter and that our needs are real. You find yourself explaining the same things over and over again: that men can freeze, that men may take decades to disclose, that boys can be abused by women as well as men, that trauma does not disappear simply because someone grows older, and that masculinity can make asking for help incredibly difficult.

There are also times when the work feels lonely.

Advocacy can look powerful from the outside. People may see the articles, the website, the resources or the social media posts. They do not always see the uncertainty behind them.

They do not see the moment before you press publish and wonder whether you have shared too much.

They do not see the emotional weight of reading another survivor's story and recognising parts of your own.

They do not see the disappointment when something you have worked hard on reaches very few people, or when the response is silence.

They do not see how difficult it can be to carry hope for others while still trying to hold onto your own.

There have been times when I have felt like giving up.

Not because I no longer believe in the cause, but because I believe in it so much.

Because I want change to happen faster.

Because I want men to receive support before their lives reach crisis point.

Because I am tired of seeing male survivors mentioned as an afterthought, if they are mentioned at all.

Because every dismissive comment, every funding gap and every service that does not understand male trauma can feel like evidence that we are still asking men to survive quietly.

But then something happens.

A man sends a message saying that a post helped him understand he was not alone.

A partner says she finally understands why the man she loves sometimes shuts down.

Someone tells me that they have spoken about their abuse for the first time.

Or a survivor simply says, "Thank you for saying this."

Those moments matter more than people may ever realise.

They remind me that advocacy is not always measured in likes, shares, funding announcements or public recognition. Sometimes it is measured in one person feeling seen at a moment when they had almost given up hope of being understood.

People hear the word advocate and picture something certain. Someone composed. Someone credentialed. Someone standing at a podium with answers.

That is not what an advocate is. Not the ones who matter, anyway.

An advocate is not someone who has stopped hurting. An advocate is someone who kept speaking anyway.

An advocate is not someone who has all the answers. An advocate is someone willing to sit in the not-knowing with you, rather than leave you in it alone.

An advocate is not a title, a stage, or a platform measured in followers.

It is a decision, made over and over, to turn your own wound into a door someone else can walk through.

That is all it has ever been. That is all it needs to be.

Being a survivor and an advocate means living with a tension.

My experiences give me strength, but they can also leave me exposed.

My anger can fuel the work, but I have to be careful that it does not consume me.

My hope keeps me moving, but hope also needs somewhere to rest.

I am still learning that advocacy does not require me to be endlessly strong. It does not mean I must respond to every comment, fight every battle or carry every survivor's pain as though it is my own.

I am allowed to step back.

I am allowed to protect myself.

I am allowed to admit that this work sometimes hurts.

That does not make me less committed. It makes me human.

I do not have all the answers. I am not perfectly healed, and I do not pretend to be. I am still navigating my own life, my own memories and my own understanding of what happened to me.

But perhaps that is part of what gives this work its truth.

I am not speaking from the other side of a neatly completed recovery. I am speaking as someone who is still here, still healing and still rising.

I continue because I know what silence costs.

I continue because male survivors deserve more than sympathy after a tragedy. We deserve early support, informed services, meaningful funding and a place in the national conversation.

I continue because somewhere there is a man who still believes that what happened to him does not count.

And I want him to know that it does.

I want him to know that he does.

Being both a male survivor and an advocate can be fulfilling, painful, frustrating, empowering and lonely, sometimes all within the same day.

But it is also an honour.

It is an honour to stand beside men who were taught to remain silent.

It is an honour to help create the words that many of us were never given.

And even on the days when I question whether I can keep going, I come back to the same truth:

We have been silent for long enough.

I am still here.

And I am not giving up.