A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:My brother has been acting really strange for the last week, he's hardly been eating and seemed shy and distant. His girlfriend even rang me to see if something was wrong that he didn't want to tell her. We share a house and I needed to look something up on the internet so I used his laptop and on the google search bar I noticed he'd searched for male rape. This caught my attention so I looked in his history and he'd been on rape help sites.I think he's been raped but I have no idea what to do, should I bring it up with him because I love him and want to help him as he's helped me in the past although never with anything this serious. But I'm also wary that there is a certain "shame" attached to it and so he may not want to tell his sister about it. I also realise that he may not know where his head is at so I'm worried he may do something stupid. Should I try and talk to him about as I'm aware that I can't be 100% sure that he has as he might have been looking up that stuff for an entirely innocent reason (I hope so but I doubt it). He's 19 if it makes any difference
View related questions:
shy, the internet Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, Red Green 0289  +, writes (22 March 2010):
Reach out to him and let him know that you've noticed that something is seriously bothering him. Don't ASK, tell him this as a fact. It will make it harder for him to deny, and hopefully get him to open up to you. Tell him that you're seeing signs of something very serious, and see if he opens up. Consider asking him if he was assaulted- if he was raped he may assume that this is what you meant, if he was beaten- he may assume the same thing...
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (21 March 2010): Let him know you can tell something is really bothering him and you aren't going to be talked out of that idea.
Don't let on that you've made the rape web surfing discovery unless you really have to. It will work better if he can tell you what happened himself and not feel like he has been found out. Something like this is a psychological invasion as much as a physical one. He may just feel even more invaded if you tell him you found out this quickly. That could just make him shut down. He could start denying everything and stop searching for any more help on his own.
He may not want to say much more than he got beaten up or something. The shame tends to be the most difficult thing for men to deal with. It may take time. He might only reveal the story gradually in stages.
And he may not have even been raped. Maybe he got molested or something partway there. Maybe he saw something happen to someone else. Maybe he has a friend that it happened to. Maybe a lot of things. It's too early to make full assumptions.
...............................
|
