Healing Beyond Silence: Reflections on the Accelerating Men, Inc. Summit 2025

The permission to be vulnerable should not be a privilege. It should be a right. In theory, many may agree with this sentiment. But culturally and systemically, men's and boys' vulnerability is often policed by social constructs and community nuance.

The cry to be seen is glaring, but muted by the noise of perceived manhood and masculinity.
And here I sit, overwhelmed with emotions after attending the Accelerating Men, Inc. Summit 2025, a gathering focused on the mental health and sexual violence experienced by men and boys.

My emotions are not simply because I had the honor of serving on the planning committee or because I was chosen to deliver the closing speech.
The weight I carry today is different.

It is the realization that gatherings like this are heartbreakingly rare yet desperately needed.

The summit made something painfully clear:
There is a silent plea in the hearts of many men. A plea for organizations, for systems, for communities to reexamine the deep gaps in services available for boys and men who have suffered.

It stirred something in me, something that words still struggle to hold, when I thought about the impact we could have if we truly and intentionally joined forces.

Marcel Anderson, a powerhouse of compassion and action, pulled together an incredible vision in less than thirty days. He, along with an outstanding planning team including Greg Funderburg, Shereka Dunston, MSW, MSHR, Othaey Fitzpatrick, and Jason T. Mahoney, MS, CFWI, created a summit that not only filled a room but cracked open many silent hearts.

But what the summit also did was unlock something in me.
It allowed me to see the hidden connections between old traumas I had buried and the wounds I was still navigating today.

When Wounds Wear New Faces

The summit did not just educate me. It made me confront parts of my story I had learned to walk around.

It exposed how trauma has layers, and how the trauma of my divorce, marked by misandry and systemic silencing, was eerily connected to the feelings of my molestation at eleven years old.

Both experiences carried the same chilling undertone:
The forced silence.
The feeling of being at the mercy of someone else's choices.
The loss of agency over my own body and my own voice.

For so long, I had separated those events, not realizing they were threads in the same tapestry.
The summit gave me permission to finally weave them together and begin to heal them together.

It May Have Happened to Us, But We Are Not It

Though many of us understand, at least intellectually, that anyone can be a victim regardless of gender, age, background, or strength,
there remains a gap between knowing it in our minds and carrying it in our hearts.

Sexual abuse is always about power. Always about the violation of consent.
It can happen once.
It can happen over time.
It can be physical, emotional, psychological, or digital.

Yet despite what we claim to know, there is still a disconnect between experience, reporting, and healing. It is believed that more than two-thirds of sexual assaults that men face go unreported.

When it comes to men, the silence is even heavier.

Societal stigma and misconceptions about male victimhood often press men deeper into isolation.
I would go further.
We have normalized the abuse of men to the point that many do not even recognize they were abused.

Some believe that because there was physical pleasure, it was not abuse.

But here is the truth:
Pleasure does not erase violation.
Willingness is not the same as informed consent.

Let me start by saying something too few of us have ever heard:

You are valuable.
Your story is vital.
Your healing is critical, not just for you, but for all of us.

And no matter what has happened to you,
You are not what happened to you.

I was eleven when I was molested.
Eleven. At an age when I should have been protected, I was violated.
Confused. Silenced. Shamed.

But I stand before you today, not just as a survivor, but as a man who chose healing over hiding.
A man who refuses to let what happened to him define who he is.

Too often, men are told to "man up" or "move on," while carrying wounds we never asked for.
Wounds that bleed silently into our relationships, our decisions, and our identities.

But hear this:

Abuse does not discriminate.
Being a victim is not about gender.
Anyone can be hurt.
And everyone deserves the right to heal.

Talking about it is not weakness.
It is wisdom.
It is strength.
It is courage in its purest form.

We must normalize the conversation, not the abuse.
Because silence cannot heal what it is too afraid to name.

Healing Is Not a Single Act. It Is a Lifestyle.

Some of us have unknowingly traded one form of abuse for another.
Emotional manipulation.
Control.
Disassociation.
Isolation.
Because we never received the permission or the tools to heal.

Healing is not a one-time decision.
Healing is a lifestyle.
It is not a destination.
It is a daily tending of wounds that refuse to be forgotten.

I am still healing.
Because healing must be cultivated like a garden.
And if we stop caring for it, old weeds will find their way back.

Here is what healing has looked like for me:

  • I accepted and acknowledged what happened.
    Acceptance allowed me to process. Acknowledgment allowed me to trace and uproot.

  • I allowed myself to feel and process emotionally.
    I honored every emotion rather than burying it.

  • I identified my why, my how, and my what.
    I replaced confusion with clarity.

  • I established healthy boundaries, not beautiful prisons.
    Boundaries that nurtured connection, not isolation.

  • I gave voice to my pain and freedom to my healing.
    Through creative expression, honest conversation, and professional support.

  • I removed harmful labels and redefined my experiences.
    Naming things honestly so that lies could no longer control me.

  • I allowed myself days of revisitation.
    Trauma is not something you "get over."
    It is something you learn to live with, without becoming it.

  • I allowed my faith to be both my foundation and my coping mechanism.
    Trusting something greater while honoring my humanity.

An Invitation to Witness

Healing is not easy.
It is vulnerable work.
It is often messy and uncomfortable.
But it is necessary.

Today, I invite you to witness a vulnerable moment in my journey.

Watch the Closing Speech:
At the summit, I gave voice to what I had carried silently for years.
I connected the impacts of misandry, the trauma of divorce, and the long-forgotten ache of childhood violation.
It was not a polished speech. It was a moment of liberation.

If you have ever needed permission to begin your own healing journey,
if you have ever wondered if wholeness is still possible,
I hope this moment shows you:

It may have happened to us.
But we are not it.

 

Love Is A Parable- an initiative and movement that later became an organization within itself. Love is A Parable is a DBA and subsidiary of Altar and Dwelling Place, Inc. We are a charitable and educational 501c3 organization, that provides character, social, and leadership development to those who have an aspiration toward unity, love, and kindness through a reflective thinking approach and sacred-box theory that involves value-based education.

J. Dwayne Garnett, BSRT, MHA, QP
Chief Executive Officer
Love Is A Parable
Available for Empowerment Speaking Engagements, Consultations, Uncovering Sessions, and Instruction.
Find out more about J by clicking HERE!

J. Dwayne Garnett