The Maitlands – Iain, Tracey, and their three children, Michael, Sophie and Adam – were a happy family living by the sea in Suffolk. Their eldest son Michael then went to university and everything changed.

Whilst there, Michael suffered from anxiety and depression. He kept this to himself. His family did not know what was happening. Eventually, Michael’s mental ill-health led to anorexia, hospitalisation and a five-month stay in the Priory.

Michael went on to do an MBA and marry – he then became unemployed and divorced because of his mental illness. He moved back home to start over. Today, he is happy and fulfilled and works as a tattooist. Michael and Iain are ambassadors for the teen mental health charity, Stem4, and the authors of Out of the Madhouse by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Here, they talk about their journey.

Michael’s Thoughts

Mental ill-health can strike anyone, any time, and you don’t always realise it until it’s got its claws into you. I just thought I was low and felt lonely (when I went to university) because I’d moved away from home to a new environment and lifestyle. But it was depression, and by the time I recognised that, I had all sorts of other related issues too.

I became anorexic as eating food – or not eating – was the only thing I could control. The anorexia was what led to me going into hospital; that, the pneumonia and the collapsed lung. I thought that was the worst moment of my life, but it wasn’t. The Priory got me back into the right BMI range and I went home, but the depression and all of that was still lurking, and it came back and ruined everything. It was only when my wife broke up with me, I lost my house and went back to my family’s home that I hit rock bottom; my ‘live or die’ moment, really.

Getting better was a long, long haul; it took me two years. At first, I just felt completely empty and pretty much wanted to die as I had lost everything. My dad kept on at me to see someone, a therapist, and I went to a hypnotherapist called Suzanne who talked me through everything. That was a huge help. Getting it out in the open and talking it through was a big relief. Talking is so important with mental health.

Other things helped me too – I tried to have a structure to my day, eating regularly, exercising, and keeping busy-ish. I have always loved art and focusing on sketching helped me relax. Playing computer games took my mind off things too. Seeing friends is important as well. I had good friends who came back into my life at this time. My family were supportive and we went out to the cinema a lot. They were always there in the background, not too close, but around if I needed them. It’s good to have support that’s nearby but not suffocating.

Today, I work as a tattooist in my home town of Felixstowe. I work with a close-knit team who are like a family to me and I feel good about myself. Experts say that mental illness never goes away, but it’s been a while now since I felt depressed and I am hopeful for the future. Like anyone, I have odd moments of stress and stuff and I have breathing exercises that I do. I go to the gym before work. I also set aside time to relax and meditate. When I go to bed, I like to fall asleep to music; these little things all help keep me balanced.

My dad and I are ambassadors for Stem4 (Stem4.org) – they have a brilliant (and free) Calm Harm app for when you feel stressed. We go into schools and colleges to talk about mental health and our book, Out Of the Madhouse. I read the book again recently (it was published on 18 January), my diary entries in the Priory and when I came back home; it’s so weird to see how down I was then, close to suicidal. It’s been such a turnaround.

I am always asked two questions when I do a talk to students or parents. One, ‘how can people spot mental ill-health?’ The answer is it’s not always easy. Quiet people may be suffering. So too might the ‘life and soul of the party’. Over-the-top, almost forced cheerfulness can be a disguise. You can look for changes – personality, demeanour, manner, body language – between what someone is like now and how they used to be.

The other question is, ‘what can you do to help someone with mental ill-health?’ Getting mental health issues out in the open is really important so that people feel they can talk about them more. There is such a cliched sense of ‘masculinity’ in society but it’s changing, albeit slowly. It’s good to see ‘strong’ men such as the actor David Harewood speaking out about their mental health. There’s still a stigma. Mental health matters need to be normalised. Talking and listening and ‘being there’ without trying to impose your own thoughts or solutions is very important.

Iain’s Thoughts

The question I’m asked most about Michael’s journey goes something like this – ‘how could your son go to university, become depressed and anorexic over a five-year period and collapse and be rushed to hospital whilst you stood by and did nothing?’ And the honest answer is, I don’t know. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot. Guilt and a sense of failure probably don’t help much though.

I think the answer is a complex one. We were a happy family and had no knowledge of mental illness. It never occurred to me that anything like this could happen to Michael, even though I know now that it can happen to anyone. He did not know himself for ages – maybe two years – and he felt embarrassed and ashamed. He never wanted us to know. And anorexia? Well, that’s for teenage girls isn’t it? At least, that’s what I thought at the time. Ignorance, that’s what that was – men, and not just teenage boys, suffer too. Arguably, it’s harder for men – they have to be ‘tough’ and ‘strong’. Nonsense really.

Looking back, there were plenty of red flags – the ‘changes’ Michael talks about. The signs were all there – he changed his appearance dramatically and repeatedly, he was more distant with us, he stopped engaging, he hid himself away, and he became stick-thin with lots of layers of clothing. And still we didn’t see. I don’t know how.

I wish – and I always tell parents this – that I had been a more open, emotional father. I saw myself as a good father – picking my children up, dropping them off, sitting in my car for hours whilst they did this and that. And, as they grew older, I made sure they had enough money, their cars had MOTs and all of that practical stuff. But we never talked, not properly – I shied away from it. Lots of men do; it’s not helpful.

The advice I give to parents I talk to is much the same as Michael’s. Watch for anything ‘different’ about your children. Perhaps they chop and change their minds a lot, cannot settle; maybe they no longer talk to you or confide in you the way they did. It may be something and nothing – but it could be the start of something more serious. It’s easy to mistake changes, as we did, as part of growing up; it’s not always the case.

Spotting an issue is one thing, dealing with it is another. I talk to a lot of parents – they come up to me after a presentation and share their, sometimes tragic, stories. A common theme is that Dad goes in too strong, ‘This is the problem you have, son. Do this! Do that! Now! There, that’s fixed that!’ This may work if you’re teaching them to kick a football or climb a tree but it’s about the worst thing you can do with mental health.

We learned fast what to do when Michael came home. We had to, we thought he was going to kill himself. We took advice from anyone we could speak to (GPs are a good place to start, those who work in self-help groups and who have experienced mental illness themselves are better). The sufferer has to want to get well – Michael did – and they need to find their own way through. You have to be there to support them.

Michael said he was on the mend for a long time before we believed him. We spent months tip-toeing around him, being gentle and saying the right things. Eventually, we all sort of relaxed together. Writing the book was a positive experience; reading Michael’s diary entries was shocking at first but gave us an insight into what he was thinking. It helped us to understand him better.

As for the future, Michael really enjoys tattooing and will be doing that long-term. I have spun off to write dark, literary thrillers. The first, Sweet William, was published in November and the next, Mr Lamb’s Secret, is out at the end of the year. We continue to go into schools and colleges for Stem4 and will do that for a while yet. We are also working together on an illustrated book, Stick Boy, which should be published in 2020.

Michael and Iain’s book, Out Of the Madhouse is published by Jessica Kingsley Publishing, available here

 

Do you remember the last time you were on a train delayed by a “passenger incident”? Can you recall what went through your mind — was it a shudder at the possible devastation hidden behind the euphemism? Or did you look at your watch and curse at being made late for work again? I’m ashamed to say I know which of these responses I’ve had in the past.

Now an extraordinary new play, entitled 31 Hours, about four men who clean up after rail suicides, is forcing its audiences to take a moment to think about the reality behind these often hidden tragedies. Filled with humour and humanity, it takes the audience on a journey through masculinity, mental health and messy aftermaths in modern Britain.

Here in an exclusive for insideMAN the play’s author, Kieran Knowles, explains what drove him to tackle this taboo subject. 31 Hours runs until October 28th at The Bunker, Southwark Street, London — scroll down to watch a YouTube clip from the play.

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Every 31 Hours someone jumps in front of a train. For me that statistic started it all.

I was working for Southeastern railway at the time I stumbled across it, I was a maintenance manager, waiting for my acting career to take off, I’m still waiting, though no longer at a rail company. I was sat in a Management Safety Training seminar, and I was handed a Samaritans brochure with all of the statistics, figures and factsthat would inform the play and get me angry enough to write it.

For me the fact that the biggest killer of under 45 years old males is themselves is an indictment of the society we live in.If there was a virus causing that devastation we would be ploughing money into research and prevention. But its too easy to belittle mental health, it is too easy to ignore it, to assume it isn’t there.

The anger I felt at the suicide rate combined with working at a rail company, collided and I began to see incidents of suicide on the railway in a new way. The dehumanisation of a life is what drew me in, the public sacrifice and the logistics. When a human is hit by a train they instantly become dehumanised. Whether it is a tut from an angry passenger, a phone call to the engineers, an email to support teams and clean up teams that attend to make sure theservice can continue. One second you are human the next you are an inconvenience. All of your achievements and memories are replaced by a tinny announcement on a crowded platform speaker system. It was this element that caught my attention. So I started with that, and I came up with the idea that we would follow a network rail clean up team who attend incidents of this nature.

The first thing that this offers, and probably my favourite irony about the play is the uniform all rail staff must wear. High visibility coats, trousers, waistcoats, a hard hat, steel toe capped boots. All workers wear a uniform designed to keep them safe. But this plays into our general misunderstanding of Mental Health, we can’t wrap the part of your brain up that causes anxiety, grief, pain or worry we can’t dress it in reflective material. But until we deal with the issue in the same way we will never fully understand how to keep people safe. And if we don’t understand how to do that, then itseasier to ignore it, to stigmatize it, to pretend it doesn’t affect the people we love.

Literally everything about the outfit these workers wear is designed to protect them from the outside in, but nothing can help their struggles from the inside out.

I realise I have painted a fairly serious picture of the play here, and I know that no one really comes to the theatre to be lectured at, and so I hope I have created something that doesn’t.

The play actually, if you reduced to type is a workplace drama, it is about four everyday men in their workplace, their workplace though is perhaps a littleuntraditional. They do however, have a job to do and they have the banter, the gallows humour, the frictions between colleagues and the pressures from idiosyncratic maintenance managers (ahem).

I believe that in theatre it is important to laugh, to follow a story with a smile rather than constantly be bombarded with tragedy and so I have tried to marry the most serious of subjects with the most mundane everyday chit chat, and compliment them with other views of those involved in a clean up of this kind, in the hope that the elements harmonise to make the whole sound and look better and the message to ring out clearer. If you can enjoy a piece about mental health and suicide you are more likely to remember it. I hope.

To buy tickets for 31 Hours click here

“They understood without prying, did not judge and did not seek to. It wasn’t counselling, but a connection with men from every type of background” — Richard Holland, Vice President of the National Association of Round Tables

Experts in men’s mental health are beginning to discover that the kinds of support and therapy that work for women, do not always work for men. They are also finding that the often knee-jerk assumption that “men don’t talk” is inaccurate — closer to the truth is that men need the right environment in which to talk. This can mean all-male spaces in which men feel safe to be themselves and communicate in ways that work for them.

Here Richard Holland, Vice President of the National Association of Round Tables Great Britain and Ireland, an all-male voluntary organisation that has been supporting men for 90 years, speeks about his own battle following the breakdown of his marriage and how the uniquely male support of his tight network of friends from Round Table was able to bring him back to himself.

“Over my many happy years in Round Table and most recently being on the road meeting members as National Vice President, I’ve learnt something special. It’s a fact about Round Table that I know to be true because I have had personal experience of it. And this fact may not directly speak to you but I know that it will speak to someone you know.

“What is it I learnt? That Round Table saved my life, when I was at the lowest point of my life. When I was at rock bottom, the Round Table community was there for me. And this is my story.

“A couple of years ago, I went through a pretty horrible separation from my ex-wife which ended in us getting divorced. It left me devastated.

“I suffered terribly. And it took an overwhelming hold on my wellbeing. For the first time in my life, I felt vulnerable. For the first time in my life, I was scared for what the future held for me and for my children. For the first time in my life, I felt totally alone in the world.

“I took on habits to cope. Late night partying with people I didn’t know, drinking too much and an outlook on the world that was negative and bleak.

“In short, I will share with you how deep it went – without Round Table I would not be here today.

“But Table was there. The spirit, the fun, the opportunities, a reason to be involved in life again; it all lifted me. But it was something else more human and more touching that really helped. Others, that understood without prying, did not judge and did not seek to. It wasn’t counselling, but a connection with men from every type of background. I felt comfortable with Tablers, less scared, more confident. Through Table, I got my life back.”

As men, we too often think of ourselves as strong and in control of our emotions. Maybe a sense of “big boys don’t cry” keep our emotions under lock and key. When we feel hopeless or overwhelmed by despair we often deny it, even to ourselves. Yet depression is much more common than many first expect. It is estimated that 1 in 6 people in this last week experienced a common mental health problem.

And with an average of 12 men a day taking their own lives and suicide the biggest killer of men under 45, Round Table are proud to partner with the Men and Boy’s Coalition to directly draw attention to men’s issues and help more men like Richard.

Richard said: “Now I look back and my life is wonderful.  My children are beautiful and I am in love again – my heart and mind repaired.

“Round Table saved my life, as I know it has done for many other members of our incredible organisation. We not only help lift others through incredible fundraising activities, but we help lift ourselves – through fun, fellowship and community work. Some men don’t need help in the same way as I did, but I believe every man needs opportunity and Round Table gives young men so much. Men are beginning to break down their traditional barriers of a stiff upper lip and leading this change is the greatest young man’s club in the world – Round Table.”

Last week the Office for National Statistics released new data that revealed more than one in three victims of domestic violence in England and Wales are men, and that the gap between male and female victims is now the narrowest on record. Despite these statistics, there are a total of 24 refuge places dedicated to male DV victims in the UK, compared to around 4,000 spaces for over 7,000 women and children.

A key aspect of this gendered approach to domestic violence is the widespread use of Duluth Model perpetrator programmes, which frame domestic violence as a crime committed by men against women as a result of men’s wider patriarchal oppression of women in society. Here counsellor and insideMAN reader, Phill Turner, gives his insight into the reality of how these programmes operate with the men who are required to attend them, and asks whether this is either an accurate or effective approach to tackling the issue.

Since my divorce in 2004, I have worked on the helpline for Family’s Need Fathers, trained as a counsellor, I have two children now 22 and 18 and a supportive partner and now works part-time as a counsellor in primary care and private practice. I was challenged by my experience working in a domestic violence agency, and I wanted to explore the impact that a gendered view has on men and also wondered if a gender-inclusive view and therapeutic approach could possibly be more effective to help end family violence.

What is the Duluth Model?

This model of domestic violence (DV) was developed by the late Ellen Pence and Michael Paymer in Duluth Minnesota in the early 1980’s the idea is based on the feminist theory of patriarchy, that men feel entitled to control and dominate women and intentionally use violence and coercion. (1) The idea is to coordinate the responses of the police, courts and community based organisations to end violence against women, hold ‘batterers’ responsible and put them through a Non-violence or perpetrator group program (2). It was revolutionary for its time and as Ellen Pence says it reduced reported incidence of DV by 50%. (1)The Duluth’s power and control wheel was developed in women’s groups and refuges are central to its theory and gendered view, it is the widest adopted approach in the world.

All is not what it seems

The room was dark but the occupants could just make out the outline of the others, hearing breathing and shuffling as if to indicate each other’s presence. Outside the room a man and a woman’s voices could be heard, quiet at first but getting louder and more agitated. The man said “I’m only f’in asking, am I not allowed!?” The woman replied “It’s not my fault, why do you always start?” Their recriminations got louder and louder as they spoke over each other to create a crescendo of indistinguishable noises, then CRASH! as if something hit against the wall. There was a long silence of anticipation. What would happen next? The door opened to let in a dim light and the two people walked into the room and quietly sat down.

What sounded like a couple arguing was actually a role play between a female group facilitator and myself at a group meeting for male perpetrators, which was run according to the Duluth Model handbook: “Looking at the impact of men’s violence on women and children”. This session was aimed to illustrate how DV impacts on children. But for Greg*, however, one of the men in the group, there was horror on his face as the sounds of the role play had taken him back to his childhood memories and he was reliving the trauma of his own parents’ violence.

Does everyone have a ‘normal’ childhood?

As a counsellor one question I often ask my clients is “what was your childhood like?” supplemented with “and your parents?” nice open questions, and not too directive. Early childhood experiences influence us and set up patterns of behaviour that we replicate or react against; it’s where we learn to have relationships.

How was my childhood? Ordinary and loving, I suppose. My father worked long hours and did shifts. My mother was anxious and would send me and my older sister out to play so we wouldn’t get under her feet. I do remember sitting on the stairs with my sister, listening to my parents arguing and that felt normal. But doesn’t everyone’s childhood seem normal to them?

Luckily my grandparents lived next door but one and their house was somewhere that I felt more accepted and loved My grandfather was a tall gentle man, with a dry sense of humour, hands the size of dinner plates and a dimple in his temple from a stray German bullet from the First World War. My grandmother was short, round and bespectacled, always dressed in a house coat and loved us with hugs and food but she was firm and even my grandfather knew where he stood. They were a loving and affectionate couple to the end and positive role models for me as a child.

Not until my divorce did I have any understanding of domestic violence. I went to a meeting at ‘Families Need Fathers’ (FnF). I told the meeting my wife wanted a divorce and that I believed equal parenting would be best for my children as I’d always been a ‘hands on’ kind of dad but I knew that my soon to be ex-wife didn’t agree.  A number of the men warned me to “wait for the accusations of DV!” “There haven’t been any” I replied but they were not wrong and as soon as I applied for shared residence, the accusations of me being violent started.

Skip forward 10 years. I had gained shared residence, volunteered for the FnF helpline and trained as a counsellor, a process that can’t help but change your life.

As a therapist I feel I need to challenge my own prejudices

My divorce and helpline work had given me experience of how men are prejudiced against in the family courts and how an accusation of DV can change the dynamics for fathers but women’s violence or controlling behaviour is often not taken seriously. I had the chance to volunteer at a domestic violence agency as a trainee facilitator and I wanted to challenge those past experiences of my divorce and FnF helpline work, I found the helpline work fulfilling and saw it as helping others as I had been, and was aware of the high suicide rate in this area of work. But I had only experienced one side of DV and thought a broader perspective would help me as a professional counsellor and I wanted to understand more about why I had been treated as though I was a danger to my wife and children without evidence.

I’m aware how violent some men can be and the impact that their behaviour has on others. I specifically remember one older male client who was recovering from another familiar round of binge drinking but this time with a new suicide attempt. Out of the blue he broke down in floods of tears and started talking about his childhood, remembering his “beautiful mother” being beaten and thrown naked into the snow by his father, an incident which had plagued him for 60 years. I saw this as setting the seeds of his own violent co-dependent behaviour with his wife, alcohol problems and own self-harm.

The ‘perpetrator’ group

The men were from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities. Some reminded me of the people I had met at FnF meetings or helpline callers, as they were struggling to maintain relationships with their children and having to attend the group as part of ongoing court procedures. Some were violent, or in co-dependant violent relationships, it was discussed in the group. Others complained there had not been violence (but then it’s not always about violence) and were not sure why they had to attend the group, and when it was discussed about men’s violent or controlling behaviour said there hasn’t been anything like that.

Each man had to attend 24 two-and-a-half hour sessions. Groups were run by at least one male and one female facilitator and each session was based around an exercise from the Duluth handbook. There were about ten men in the group I attended.

At the start of each week’s session, we all had to check in and even the facilitators had to say if they had been violent or abusive to their partners that week. This check in process sometimes took a while if several men recounted incidents in detail.

One week a chap recounted a long story about a fight with his partner, which ended up with her smashing up his plasma TV. The couple’s children were there and got involved in the argument and I wondered what it was like for those children and what future they would have? The man wanted to also talk about his partner’s violence but he was accused by the lead facilitator of minimising the impact of his own actions. It is a central part of the Duluth model that men should take responsibility for their violence, and women’s violence is only seen in response to men’s violence. This one sided view did leave me feeling uncomfortable as it didn’t fit with my experience but at the time I was there to learn and gain experience.

Another chap had trouble seeing his daughter on Saturday afternoons because his partner would put obstacles in the way, like parties or family were visiting, a story I was used to hearing on the helpline. As part of their remit the agency wrote court reports on how the men were progressing in the group sessions. He said he had been to court and he was angry that the report had shown him in a bad light. He was getting frustrated and angry he seemed to be thwarted at every turn but for a moment I was aware he was getting upset when he spoke about his daughter wanting to see him too. This seemed to reveal a more vulnerable side which was never acknowledged or discussed. I wondered if he had to hide it because he was constantly being criticised, you don’t reveal vulnerability’s if it’s not safe to do so, his default position was to use aggression if he felt vulnerable, which had got him where he was.

There were some success stories. One chap had come to the end of his 24 weeks of compulsory attendance and seemed to have a real sense of achievement and remorse. He said he was ashamed of holding his partner against the wall by her throat, and he was pleased and it was clear to see in his face he was proud how far he had come in understanding and starting to atone for his actions. He said “I didn’t realise it was domestic violence to hold my wife’s arms by her side”. I was also surprised and wondered if it indicated she too had learnt to respond with violence and indicated a co-dependent relationship learnt from their childhood to respond aggressively.

I enjoyed going to the group, I felt I was helping the men turn their lives around, and a couple of the younger men responded in a positive way towards me as an older male. I did struggle with the Duluth model’s rigid and stereotypically gendered view of DV and if the funding for that group hadn’t finished I would have found it hard to continue to work there. Yes I did also feel embarrassed to be a man because of the violence that some men had enacted, but I was also embarrassed with the way that some of the facilitators responded to men’s disclosures behind their backs, we were there to help them, these behaviours doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The agency’s assessments forms included the title “Mr Perpetrator” where a man’s name was to go, and the male and female assessment forms were different and didn’t question the woman’s behaviour, they were titled ‘Ms Survivor’. A gendered assumption of who were perpetrators and victims.

As a member of a professional body, working under ethical guidelines, I have to wonder if there are ethical considerations of treating men and women differently based on a gendered assumptions. I personally know of men who have been referred to ‘perpetrator’ programs despite their partners  having been violent and abusive. With the recent example of the case of Sharon Edwards long term abuse and murder of her husband we are aware that DV does not have such a simple explanation.

Men’s mental health, my misgivings

All of the sessions I attended were focused on other people — partners, children, people who were not in the room. The sessions seemed to miss the chances to reflect on what was happening for the men. We could have explored the men’s reactions on a personal level, and I felt they didn’t feel listened to. Yes, we need to stop violence, but regardless of who it is against. Counselling theory suggests therapeutic change comes about by having your story heard and your feelings validated, I know this wasn’t therapy but working compassionately is the basic starting point for building positive relationships. The Duluth model website says it does not use shame as a way of changing men but in my view it does at an implicit level. Modern research suggests men who experience or perpetrate DV are at high risk of mental health problems. (3) So rather than constantly accusing men of minimising and not taking responsibility for their actions, it may be more useful to help men reflect on what’s going for them in the moment, to explore the dynamics in their relationships with partners and explore a different ways to be a man.

Unfortunately, the Duluth model isn’t a therapeutic intervention and it has never claimed to be. Its creators aimed to change men’s violent behaviour through psycho-education. Some of the men in the agency group reminded me of naughty boys in detention, being difficult and rebellious and producing a “them and us” situation with the facilitators. The men who wanted to engage with the weekly exercises did anyway, but those who didn’t just went through the motions of attending as required. It seemed as if the boot of coercion and violence was now on the other foot and the aim was to control the men as some had tried to control their partners, to make the men behave in a more socially acceptable ways by coercing and shaming them. This was a condition that some of the men like Greg understood well and it seemed more like retribution than psycho-education. I wasn’t the only facilitator to think that.

At the end of the day

I feel lucky that there was no crash followed by silence when my own parents argued. They heard us on the stairs and came out to tuck us back into bed, embarrassed as much as angry I suspect. Duluth’s view of family life doesn’t fit in with my family experience as a child, my relationships or even my divorce, but I suspect this model based on a gendered paradigm developed from the experience of women from refuges, does not fit into the lives of many men and women, as they are not a representative sample of society and is only a small albeit unpleasant part or relationship difficulties.

Modern, gender inclusive research which comes from a wide range of sources including LGBT relationships (4/ 5) and government statistics demonstrate DV is a spectrum and covers a broad range of relationship dynamics and problems.

We need therapeutic models to help break the cycle of domestic violence, not by shaming men who have been labelled as ‘perpetrators’, but by trying to decrease violent behaviour in both men and women, by helping people understand and change who they are, and how they have learned to be that way, not just focusing on what people do when angry and distressed.

Greg was a violent man and needed help but from his look of horror on his face and his comments he was re-traumatised by our role play. He was as much a victim of his parents’ violence as a perpetrator and he had learnt his patterns of social behaviour well. I didn’t see him again while working there and I wonder what he had experienced that night, it left me with a sense of guilt that he had been harmed and not helped by it. Erin Pizzey, who opened the first women’s shelter in the UK in 1971, said that DV is a generational problem not a gender problem, what I experienced there I can only agree.

Women’s Aid suggest nine out of ten DV victims are women (Neath) (that still leaves a large amount of men with scant dedicated services) but other research suggest one in three victims are men, and still others suggest perpetration rates are equal, even if outcome isn’t. Lesbian and gay relationship have the similar perpetration rates as the heterosexual community and bisexual even higher (4?), so I have to wonder if the 30-year-old gendered theory that supports the Duluth model needs to be revised. Whatever the reality of DV we need affective ethical interventions to cater for all parts of society, so we don’t produce a new generation like Greg or his female equivalent, who’s first reaction to anger and distress is to use control, aggression and violence.

*Names have been changed

 

References:

1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9dZOgr78eE&list=PLwFAjqGXESqvmhjhYaft3bxU7JImrYfLg&index=2

2.

http://www.theduluthmodel.org/about/

3.

www.bmjopen.bmj.com

Occurrence and impact of negative

behaviour, including domestic violence

and abuse, in men attending UK

primary care health clinics:

a cross-sectional survey

M Hester,1 G Ferrari,2 S K Jones,2 E Williamson,1 L J Bacchus,3 T J Peters,4

G Feder2

 

4 .

Illusion of Inclusion: The Failure of the

Gender Paradigm to Account for Intimate Partner

Violence in LGBT Relationships

Claire Cannon, MA

Frederick Buttell, PhD

Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana

 

5.

Exploring the service and support needs of male,

lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered and

black and other minority ethnic victims of domestic

and sexual violence

Report prepared for Home Office

SRG/06/017

Marianne Hester, Emma Williamson, Linda Regan,

Mark Coulter, Khatidja Chantler, Geetanjali Gangoli,

Rebecca Davenport & Lorraine Green

Published by University of Bristol 2012

I am so fortunate and honored to live in a place like New York City.  For me, New York is a city founded on acceptance, where any one can be any thing that they want. It’s a city that doesn’t tolerate intolerance, and won’t accept bigotry.

At least that’s my aspirational view of it. I moved here to go to graduate school at Columbia in 1987, and I have loved it ever since. I “grew up” here.

The City may not be perfect, but as citizens who inhabit it we certainly do try to make it that way. With the hatred being thrown around this election year, I feel even more fortunate to live in New York where I am personally shielded from it, just a bit.

But it’s not always been this way for me.

I was a divorced, single, gay father raising my children out in the suburbs at a time when none of that was discussed or accepted. Not the divorced part, not the gay part, not the father part, and certainly not the divorced gay father combination. None of it.

I was the only one of my kind that I knew at the time, and certainly the only father that was publicly gay. I faced scrutiny and prejudice at every turn, from fellow parents at school, at work, and even with “friends.” Notice the air quotes.

It wasn’t a good time for me, to say the least.

But I held my head high, knowing that I was a good father. Being a good father was my escape from the reality of public opinion. I relished in every phase of my children’s development and I have dozens of photo albums that not only prove it, but relive it as well. Even though I was also aggressively managing my career to pay the bills and plan for the future, I put my children first as best I could. Just like any good parent.

I’m happy to say that my children are now both young adults, making their own way through the world. I couldn’t be more proud. It’s funny how your children’s success suddenly becomes more important than your own. I guess that’s called being a “dad.”

But I worry about the world that they are starting to live in.

While I’d like to think we’ve come a long way, I am not so sure. #Orlando proves that we can go backwards in time in one moment in time.

In an instant, we snap back to the hatred and fear that keeps us isolated and minimized. One election debate feels like we’re dealing with issues from before Marriage Equality. One unsolicited comment and suddenly we experience the same prejudice from back in the day.

We still live in a scary world and there is a lot of violence and judgment that we face on a daily basis. There is way too much for any of us to feel comfortable and confident in our being.

Which is exactly why I wrote my new book Out and About Dad.

When I was raising my kids and coming out, there were no role models of active fathers or of gay people. I had no one to turn to for advice, and no inspiration to help me get through the struggles.

I was on my own…day after day after day.

So I wrote Out and About Dad to help others cope with their own struggles today. To help them realize that you can make it through the barriers that can stand in your way. I wanted to give others a source for acceptance so that they can feel just as equally human as the next person, despite what others might say.

Truth be told, when I was first writing my book I didn’t know if I should actually publish it. I started to convince myself that we’ve come so far that perhaps my story isn’t relevant any more. Perhaps gay people and gay fathers are mainstream now; perhaps all that prejudice is ancient history.

Oh, really?!?

Given the events of the last few months, I couldn’t have been more wrong and I couldn’t be happier that I listened to friends and family who convinced me to publish it.

#Orlando and the election year are both exactly the reasons why I knew I had to write the book. We need acceptance and inspiration now as much as ever.

I realize now that I did the right thing.

So beyond publishing Out and About Dad, I continue to post pictures of my husband and my children. I write blog posts about the issues we face as a community. And yes, I still aggressively manage my career and I write about marketing too. While my family is the love of my life, marketing is the love of my career.

I constantly post about my journey in life, as my life constantly changes just like yours does too. I don’t think I’ll ever stop as long as I feel like it’s helping other people…personally and professionally.

So join me and share your story too.

We all have struggles and issues that we are tackling. We all face bigotry on some level, just for being ourselves. By sharing our stories, we will indeed help others. By talking about our lives, we unite our spirits. By admitting our own troubles, we push other people to be their best as they admit theirs.

So share your story, as I share my journey as a father with “all its twists, turns, and a few twirls.”

You’ll be glad that you did.

By Jim Joseph

You can buy Out and About Dad on Amazon here and read more of Jim’s writing on his blog here