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SUPPORT THE CHILDREN

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Neart Marthanóir is Irish Gaelic for “survivor strength”and stands for the universal name of strength I have found in the soul of every survivor of childhood abuse and/or childhood trauma. It is not important that you walk away from this memoir knowing my name, it is more important that you walk away from it knowing that this memoir is a representation that transcends just my life - it is a universal memoir - one that is shared by the hearts and souls of so many other male survivors of childhood abuse that I have been privileged to cross paths with in my life. That is why I have removed my name and identity from this series, and replaced it instead with the universal survival spirit of all those the world over who struggle daily, as I have, with their traumas.

 

This memoir series is one of immense internal struggle that so many male survivors the world over have come up against; a shadowed world of secrecy, embarrassment, and judgment that maintains them in an epic battle to find their saving grace in a world that so often does its best to understand, but so often lacks the life experience or understanding to do so effectively. We have, in this modern age, grown up in a world that reacts passionately (rightly so) to stories of child abuse, exploitation, and victimization, but that too often does little to understand the lasting and permanent effects that are caused by it and that too often go unresolved and unaddressed as the child grows and matures into an adult. We spend so much effort stopping the abuse and protecting the child, but yet we still struggle to empathize with, understand, and help heal the mental imprints, pathways, and links a survivor has created in an effort to help them cope and survive, and which they often continue to cling to desperately as they grow and mature into an adult. As an adult survivor of childhood physical, sexual, and psychological abuse and neglect I believe that we must have a better and more focused understanding of the significant and lasting effect such atrocities play in the lives of survivors; no matter how shocking or difficult these realities may be and regardless of how old they are or when the abuse took place. Abuse does not end because the perpetrator is gone or simply because the child is no longer a child. The child within remains affected, scared, and unwilling to trust the world it lives in.

 

The first book in this three part series, The Base Remains Unbroken, invites you, the reader, to understand how the abuse came about and how it was processed, rationalized, and stored within the mind and body of the abuse survivor in a format that uses intense visual imagery to place the reader into the circumstances and inner turmoil the abuse survivor is enduring and suffering from. In the second two books in this series, Saving Grace and Long Nights Journey Into Light, the reader is invited to travel further into the survivor’s mind and life to experience, first hand, the reasoning process, thinking, and behavior patterns that were developed and adopted in response to, and as a result of, the abuse and the life paths and choices that were consequently played out because of it.

 

In opening my life and mind, and the much larger universal life and mind of so many male survivors the world over, I hope that society may no longer be the cause of more scars, but rather the understanding and empathetic eye that finds beauty in the strength and surviving spirit those scars represent.

 

If we can begin to do this as a society, perhaps we can begin to open the doors to more informed and directed attention at helping and healing the many survivors who continue to suffer in silence as the vicious predatorial monsters of their past chip and gnaw away at their souls.

 

For my fellow survivors, may you know you are not alone in your journey. Know that I understand that your life is not just one mistake, one wrong action, one triumph, or one crowning achievement; but the culmination of a life of negative and positive moments of impact that no one but YOU will ever truly be able to understand, comprehend, and rationalize.

 

 

I know the pain you have suffered. I know the good you have done. I know the resilience you've built in the eyes of others that cannot understand.

 

 

I understand.

 

THE FACTS OF MALE

CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE

 

Debunking the myths and stereotypes surrounding male childhood abuse through my own personal experiences and reflections as a survivor is a cornerstone of my mission in releasing this memoir.

 

Through This Memoir Series I Work To Demonstrate The Fact That: 

  • Boys and men can be sexually used or abused, and it has nothing to do with how masculine they are.

  • If a boy liked the attention he was getting, or got sexually aroused during abuse, or even  wanted the attention or sexual contact, this does not mean he wanted or liked being manipulated or abused, or that any part of what happened, in any way, was his responsibility or fault.

  • Sexual abuse harms boys and girls in ways that are similar and different, but equally harmful and equally scarring and lasting. 

  • Boys can be sexually abused by both straight men and gay men. Sexual abuse is the result of abusive behavior that takes advantage of a child’s vulnerability and is in no way related to the sexual orientation of the abusive person.

  • Whether he is gay, straight or bisexual, a boy’s sexual orientation is neither the cause nor the result of sexual abuse. By focusing on the abusive nature of sexual abuse rather than the sexual aspects of the interaction, it becomes easier to understand that sexual abuse has nothing to do with a boy’s sexual orientation.

  • Most boys who are sexually abused will not go on to sexually abuse others.

 

THE CHILD I ALWAYS WAS

BOOKS ONE AND TWO

THE BASE REMAINS UNBROKEN

AND SAVING GRACE

AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

I AM 

ROAD TO RECOVERY

BOOK ONE

WHAT IS LOVE?

IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

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