I have six scars from domestic abuse.
A black tooth from a right jab in Saltspring Island. An upper lip scar from a haymaker in Haague. A broken nose from a cast iron pot in Victoria. A temple scar from a pint glass in Victoria. Two cigarette burns from boat trips around Vancouver Island. Six different moments. Six different places. Not one bad night — years.
And every single time, I couldn't do a thing about it. Because as a man, you can't defend yourself. You put your hands up, you're the one going to jail. You call the cops, they look at you — 200 pounds, standing there bleeding — and the first question is still "what did you do?" So you take it. And you stay quiet. And it happens again.
It wasn't just one relationship either. My wife would hit me — minor scratches, nothing that scarred the skin. But one time she hit me, went upstairs, and told my son that I hit her. I didn't. My son came downstairs and yelled at me. That's the scar that doesn't show up on my face. When they turn your own kids against you — when your child looks at you like you're the monster — that breaks something inside that no amount of time fixes.
The six scars came from the relationship after. Different woman, different level. Jabs, pots, pint glasses, cigarettes. Across years. Across islands. And still, not a single person asked if I was okay.
I wrote a book once. Called it Scatter. It was a mess of everything — poems, diary entries, physics theories, stories about my buddy Leonard driving into a gravel pile at 6 in the morning. I wrote it because my memory was going. Concussions, weed, bipolar — take your pick. The memories would surface now and again, "like the sea-ed mammal, only there long enough to take a gasp of air before diving ever deeper into the uncharted emptiness of my head." So I wrote it all down. Beauty.
What I didn't write about enough was the abuse. Because I didn't have the words for it yet. Or maybe I did, but they came out sideways:
My hard times were justified
By steering clear of suicide
The things I hear are my own thoughts
The should have done and the should have nots
I got yelled at so much throughout my life that my cowardness grew high in personal interaction situations. I became a very shy person. When bad things happened I tried to steer away. The bad things I created always used alcohol as the clay. Then fold it and roll it and turn it into a cartwheel through the fire.
Sometimes life turns out the way you expected. Sometimes it is harder. Sometimes people are happy. Sometimes people are sad. It's quiet when you're lonely. The music fades to the point that eventually you forget to turn it on. You lose your motivation to be something better. After all, trying is what got you into this mess in the first place.
But here's what I also know: laughter was the greatest thing. Still is. I've sailed through bioluminescence so bright it looked like a spacewalk through a meteor shower. I've watched my best friend drink an entire case of beer on the roof of a junior high. I've fallen out of a car laughing so hard my boss dropped to his knees when I explained why I was late.
The scars on my face don't erase any of that. They're just there. Every morning in the mirror. And I know I'm not the only man carrying something like this with nowhere to take it.
Every resource I found was built for women. Every hotline, every shelter, every support group. And I'm glad those exist. But there was nothing for me. Nothing for any of us.
Men Still Standing is a weekly video call. That's it. No sign-up forms. No clinical intake. No one's going to ask you to relive your trauma on a scale of 1 to 10. It's just a room full of men who have been through it — talking, listening, or just sitting there. You don't have to say a word if you don't want to. Some weeks it's heavy. Some weeks somebody says something so stupid we all lose it laughing. Because that's how it works. The hurt and the funny live in the same place.
Whatever will come of me and my life, I'll continue to pass through like a well wetted knife. Abandoning nothing but the plight, angst and strife.
If you've been looking for a place where someone actually gets it — this is it.