I am a Man. I am the Victim of Domestic Violence.

When I snapped awake from unconsciousness, the first sight in my eyes was her face.

The pain was intense, ravaging through my head as the waves of dizziness spread from one side of my body to the other. I couldn’t think, could barely breathe, and, for a moment, couldn’t figure out why I was on the floor.

Then I remembered the frying pan, and the way it came crashing down on my head, held in the hand of the woman I thought I once loved.

It wasn’t until some years later, and a lot of tears, that I remembered the pancakes, the smell of them as they lay on the floor, burned and horrible looking (mixed with not a little of my blood, as well). The scent of them wafting in the air, that acrid tinge of oil cooked too long and too hot.

It wasn’t until, those some years later, I remembered it was me who was cooking those pancakes, and I messed them up, burning them to the point they would be inedible, and how she, in fury, took the frying pan — large, made of cast iron — and whacked me on top of my head for my ineptitude.

I was knocked out cold.

I didn’t realize until that years-later day, in fact, that the reason I can’t cook pancakes without crying and freaking out is because of that singular incident, when a person who claimed to care for me took her bad day out on my head and couldn’t care less if I were dead or alive as a result.

What I distinctly remember of that moment is the overwhelming and uncontrollable fear I had of this woman and the fierce anger in her eyes as the skillet, still in her hand, hovered inches away from my nose.

“Do it like that again, and I’ll kill you,” she said.

There were many more incidents in the five years I remained in her clutches. Some more “dramatic” and some just her taking her anger out on me by screaming at me for hours on end. Fear was my watchword, my mantra, my stability. It was all I knew, and all I cared to know, because I felt I deserved no less than what she was giving me.

After all, my dad did similar in the years he was a whiskey-drunk and angry. Why should my wife be no different?

I speak of these things not for sympathy. I desire none of that, nor pity for being involved in that kind of situation.

I’ve moved past that, and have found a wife who loves me for the me I am and has never, ever, dreamed of harming me in such a way. It’s not her nature.

I, in turn, love her with a fierceness the fires of a thousand suns could not match.

I’ve found happiness and, sometimes, in quiet moments when I don’t have to think about the past, peace with the lot in life I now have.

But that wasn’t ground swiftly gained, my friend. It took me years to even acknowledge I was a victim and, when I did finally escape the situation, it took me even more to begin to reveal what I went through.

And when I did?

I was not believed.

I am a man, after all, and it’s impossible for men to be victims of spousal abuse.

At least, that’s what I was told. Not just by one person, but everyone I tried to open up to about what happened to me in those years within her house.

Why didn’t you hit her back? You should have protected yourself!

That was asked by a “friend,” and I have to admit the thought crossed my mind. Many times.

I was also raised with the mentality that under no circumstances is a man to ever hit a woman. There is no justification for it, ever, and to do otherwise would broach a spiritual schism for me.

Besides, I reasoned, to evoke violence against violence is not a solution. It’s part of the problem.

Why didn’t you just leave?

Another good question.

Setting aside the fact I was working poor and barely scraping by, making the affordability of such a proposition difficult at best, there was something else, too.

“If you ever leave me, I’ll f**king kill you.”

It was said off-handedly, and more than once, but I knew from her eyes how deadly serious she was.

She softened it, though, by adding in, “Nah, I love you too much to kill you. But I’ll break your f**king back so you can never walk out that door.”

With her physique, she could do it. Easily. And I had zero doubt she would.

There is another issue with just “leaving” that is difficult for men. It’s a hard, bitter pill to swallow, but it’s truth in the day and age we live in.

Ready for it? Here it is.

While there are many shelters for women affected by domestic violence and it’s an easier process to put protections in place once they do escape, there is nothing like that for men.

Oh, there are homeless shelters, rescue missions, and the like, but there are no safe spaces specifically designed for men who are victims of domestic violence in mind. Those homeless shelters and missions also come with their own set of problems that add to the conundrum “maleness” goes through in these situations.

That, my friends, is a real problem.

Why? Because I know I am not the only one who has gone through this, and the heartbreak is that most, like me, were stuck in it to the point of an untenable and unbreakable force keeping us shackled to the abuser through systemic issues.

The fact is men are statistically just as victimized as women when it comes to domestic violence. There is a slightly higher rate for women, but bear in mind with that statistic that it is damnably hard for men to talk about the issue and be believed.

We males know this, are taught it from the get-go by our elders. Keep everything bottled. it’s no one else’s business. It’s not something to talk about. Keep your house in order, keep your spouse in order, keep…

It goes on and on, this cycle of destructive teachings that males get in the toxic environments we are raised in. It’s self-destructive, it’s eating at the soul of males as a cancer, and it’s got to end.

Men have to be able to talk about their abuse. They have to be able to verbalize it’s happening to them, and society has to recognize, as a whole, it happens.

Please understand, none of this is to down-play the victimization that happens to women. That is in no way the intent with my story.

In fact, it’s the wholeness of understanding that it happens regardless of gender, age, race or creed that will, perhaps, start to bring about real change to the world.

It has to start somewhere. Maybe that somewhere can be with you.

I was able to get away from my abuser, thankfully, and have begun, with a lot of help from someone who loves me, the process of healing from the wounds that are still so deep. I’ll probably, because of how trauma works, never really know the depths of those scars and bleeding sores, but that, too, is a part of the process.

But I know I am not the only one, and there are many out there who are waiting to speak, to know they will be heard when their voices to finally break free enough to tell their stories.

They, as do women, need a safe place to be able to verbalize the fact they are in trouble and need rescue.

Please be the one to give them that help. Believe them when they speak. It was already hard enough for them to try.