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A couple of years ago I was in a therapy group for male survivors of incest and childhood sexual abuse. Louise Kindley facilitated the group. Louise is an exceptional therapist--both thoughtful and empathetic. Perhaps her most memorable insight concerned the profound importance for survivors of finding our voice.

Having a voice means being able to express one's feelings, needs, experiences, one's soul to others. The abuse I suffered denied me a voice for most of my life. As an only child in a loveless marriage, I became my mother's surrogate husband. She sexualized our relationship while sternly warning me never to tell anyone about our (my) shameful secret.

This secret stole my voice from me. I was filled with a shame I could never express for decades. I thought telling the truth meant revealing what was wrong with me; that I was an incestuous child, teenager, later young man, who somehow cajoled my mother into a relationship she knew was wrong, but continued anyway because she loved me so. Bullshit! As the adult, she had all the power--physical, intellectual, emotional, and financial. I did not even know what a sexual relationship was.

My heavy burden of shame made it increasingly difficult to relate to other children. I gradually withdrew into self-loathing and depression. I had no friends from age 13 to 30. My sole "raison d'etre" was to be my mother's caretaker--her sexual stimulus, therapist, confidante, friend, and nurse (when she was ill). I was the adult, assisting my mother through a life she found overwhelming.

I buried my voice so deeply that my first therapist noticed that I seldom spoke in the first person, such as "When my mother yells, you feel lousy." Similarly, my writing voice was passive, for example, "A trip was taken by me." I could not say, "I want this or did this." By age 40, two years after my mother died, I had told just three therapists all or part of my real life story. Then, seemingly miraculously, I found and was invited to join a male survivor's group. I was very nervous because I did not know whether I could share my story with non-therapists. Even if I could, I thought it would take months.

Instead, I told the whole story at the first meeting. The four other survivors told their stories in turn. Each man had lived with his own "shameful secrets" for years, too, but now realized that the shame belonged not to them but to their abusers. By speaking my truth that night, I began both to heal and to recover my voice.

I implore all survivors to seek therapists and survivor groups who allow us to speak our truth and find our voices.