Not much is out there on male victims of sexual assault. The site 1 in 6 does a great job providing resources, but most of what I've written about sexual assault has appeared on Huffington Post Women. 

I interviewed a male victim of sexual abuse and attempted to tackle a few of the issues that make that crime such a difficult one to talk about. Seems it's even more stigmatized than sexual abuse/assault against females. 

So, check it out: Is the Man Box Preventing you from Confronting Past Abuse? 

Also, are the winds changing in the NFL, or has it always been a more stand-up organization than the media gives it credit for? 

I talked to Chad Johnson, chaplain of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Check out what he does to help players find balance in a cut-throat profession. 

Also, I was impressed by the 49ers reaction to the recent arrest of the often-in-trouble player Aldon Smith. Read about their unusual response.

WROTE

I did a piece about an artist who used to play professional football-- Baron Batch. Fascinating conversation about career paths, callings, being in the moment, and creating legacy.  Who would view shredding one's ACL as a magical moment? This man: 

Former Steelers RB Baron Batch: Shredding my ACL was a perfect, magical moment


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Are you angry, resentful, critical? Do you live with someone who is? Dr. Margaret Rutherford wrote a great article for Good Men Project about people who need to be right. 

Do you Fight to be Right? 5 Reason Why You Might

Touching & courageous NYT article about one woman's experience with stillbirth, a relatively common tragedy that is rarely discussed. 

After a stillbirth, a silent delivery room

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Why men might not go to therapy (Good Men Project).  Some thoughts on how therapy is often marketed (to women) and how to find a therapist. 

Football character & Steelers rookie Gerod Holliman: The Blame Game (Behind the Steel Curtain). Sometimes what scouting reports refer to as "football character" reminds me of what some teachers call "laziness." Both labels are often cop-outs and don't take into account other factors that could be at the root of substandard performance.

Ray McDonald arrested for domestic violence: Learning from tragedy (Behind the Steel Curtain). Domestic violence is not just an NFL problem, and incarceration is not the only solution.

The fun run: Kindergarten's greatest sporting event (Crooked Scoreboard) A fake (well, not entirely fake, but mostly fake) pep talk before the Kindergarten fun run. 

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A summer reading list from top business leaders (LA Times). I didn't read many books during the past few weeks, but I did read this article on what books CEOs recommend. One of them, Dead Wake by Erik Larson, I am in the middle of.

Mourning the loss of a dog can be a lonely endeavor (Boston Globe). Losing your best friend, as in your own personal man's best friend-- your dog, can be devastating. This article described the struggle of mourning the loss of a pet.

The secret sadness of pregnancy with depression (New York Times). Longform article about dealing with depression while pregnant.

Character in the NFL has been a hot topic lately. I wrote about it recently for Crooked Scoreboard. Here’s an interesting Bleacher Report article about how the Chicago Bears handled the situation of a La’el Collins, a talented offensive lineman connected (though not suspected as of now) to the murder of a young woman and her child.  


Excerpt: “Also in play: the league's ability to be fair with a prospect; the machinery of a collective bargaining process that cannot account for everything; the problem of having to quickly evaluate a player as a human being in crisis. All of this had to be confronted while remembering there were actual victims: a woman and a child.”


Talk about persistence. Almost 20 years ago, John Krakauer  authored Into the Wild (link), book about the last months and death of Christopher McCandless in a remote area of Denali National Park. Krakauer has been attempting to figure out the cause of McCandless’ death for nearly two decades. Teaming up with a chemist, Krakauer may have finally found the answer. NPR reported on this recently. 

Excerpt: "What he did was not easy. He lived for 113 days off the land in a place where there's not a lot of game," says Krakauer. "And he did really well. If he hadn't been weakened by these seeds, I'm confident he would have survived."


Are  you passive aggressive? No? Check out this Washington Post article  to see if some of your passive aggressive behaviors are flying under your radar.   

Excerpt: “Passive-aggressive behavior has 100 percent deniability and zero percent accountability,” Gilbertson says. “You can always say you didn’t receive the invitation, you lost it, or it completely slipped your mind, while your true motive — to turn down the invitation — remains hidden.”

A story of hard work paying off and dreams coming true reported in the Wichita Eagle (and all over the Internet at this point) 

Silence is Violence on the Good Men Project blog.  "Words can be really cruel, but the can't hold a candle to silence. Silent treatment adds worse insult than injury to a person. It adds invisibility." So true. When there are angry words, there is still a connection, a hope for resolution and restoration of the relationship. Silence creates distance and completely discounts the existence of the other- and the relationship. 

This past week, I also discovered PTSD Jedi, a site curated by a survivor of the 2004 tsunami. Sam shares his raw and powerful experience with trauma. 

To keep him here: Suicide and mental illness in 'modern' America in the Harvard Review.  Author brings up important questions about the stigma associated with mental illness and PTSD, but what resonated with me the most was her discussion of the "Pick yourself up and brush yourself off" mentality so prevalent when it comes to mental illness.  Excerpt: "I pretended to be fine and cried alone at night." So many of us have been there, yet we're alone.

On a lighter- or maybe heavier- note, Food 52's article on fried toast will change the way I do breakfast.

Did you encounter anything interesting or helpful on the internet this week? If so, please share.

Wouldn't it be great if there were cut-suit-like technology for other high-stakes tasks?

Parenting: "Whoa. I didn't handle that situation very well!  Good thing you're wearing a parenting suit. Let's try that one more time to make sure I get it right before you take off that suit and I try to handle it for real." Nice, right?

Dating: "It was good to practice that pickup line on someone wearing a dating suit. I can see that didn't go over as suavely as I imagined. Let me try one more time before I go out and attempt to interact with someone for real."

Relationships: "Let's do the scenario where we get really mad at each other so we can figure out the best way to solve our problem without actually hurting each other when we get it wrong."

In most situations there aren't do-overs. Our actions have a real impact-- the first time.