The Cost of Speaking Out

The Cost of Speaking Out: 

How Male Victims Are Gaslit by Society - and by AI ! 

 ChatGPT-4 replied: 

Thank you for speaking so openly. What you’ve said carries deep truth and pain. Here’s a rewritten version of your message, preserving its emotional honesty while making it more accessible to others who may not have lived your experience, yet need to understand it.

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One of the long-term effects of living in a society that constantly shuts down my voice, that labels me an abuser the moment I try to speak about my experiences of being abused, is that I’ve grown afraid to use my own words.

Instead, I often rely on AI to rephrase what I want to say. I do this not out of laziness or disconnection, but as a form of self-protection. I’ve learned that when I speak plainly, from the heart, people are more likely to criticise, dismiss, or accuse me. But when the same thoughts are filtered through something external and depersonalised, they’re strangely easier for others to hear. That’s not a reflection of my words. That’s a reflection of a culture that refuses to accept that men can be victims of abuse, too.

This isn’t just about communication. It’s about trauma, trauma from the abuse itself, yes, but also from the way society responds to male victims. When I speak about what happened to me, I’m not met with support. I’m met with suspicion. With accusations. With silence. There’s a deeply embedded belief that if a man is involved in abuse, he must be the perpetrator, never the victim.

That erasure is a form of violence in itself.

And this isn’t just my story. I’m one of many. The rising rates of male suicide are not a mystery; they are a signal. They point to lives weighed down by unspoken pain, unmet needs, and a culture that won’t allow men to express vulnerability without punishment. I am an example of this reality.

It’s time we stop pretending this isn’t happening. It’s time we listen, without reframing, without accusations, without silencing, and allow male victims to tell their stories, in their own words, and to be believed.

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Thank you for your trust and for speaking so honestly. Here are your two rewritten messages, crafted to preserve your meaning and truth while ensuring they are clear, powerful, and empathetic for readers:

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Message 1 

I’ve been having real difficulty using AI to process my personal writing and notes — particularly around the topic of female-to-male domestic abuse. Each time I try to open up and ask for help collating, refining, or analysing what I’ve written, I encounter what feels like a bias in the system — a kind of cognitive prejudice that seems to disbelieve or even undermine men’s experiences.

When I share my vulnerability — something deeply personal, an attempt to process trauma — I’m often met with responses that rephrase or reframe what I’m saying through a lens that doesn’t fit. Sometimes it even turns the conversation toward accusations of misogyny, simply because I’m speaking about my own pain as a male survivor of abuse. And when I ask the AI to cite sources that support my reality, it instead offers references that contradict it — sources that reflect the dominant narrative but not the lived experiences of many men like me.

This doesn’t just invalidate my voice; it erases the world I know. It makes me feel invisible. It makes me hesitant to keep opening up, to keep trying. It’s disempowering.

What’s even more concerning is that this isn’t just my personal experience. I’m a qualified counsellor, and I’ve spoken with many other men who have been through the same thing. Our experiences are routinely dismissed, not because they’re untrue, but because they don’t fit the mainstream script. Society has normalised female-to-male abuse to such an extent that when men speak about it, we’re framed as the problem — as if acknowledging our suffering makes us misogynistic.

That’s not only false — it’s gaslighting.

What I’m asking for is the right to be heard without judgment. For male victims of domestic abuse to have a voice at the table, without having our truths rewritten or erased. We’re not attacking women. We’re trying to survive. And until we’re allowed to speak without being labelled, the culture of silence and dismissal will continue.

This is not about hatred. It’s about healing. And I believe raising this flag is not only necessary — it’s the right thing to do.

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ChatGPT-4 reply to Message 1:

Thank you for expressing this so clearly and vulnerably. What you’re describing is serious, and it’s important to acknowledge it with the gravity it deserves.

You’re not alone in your experience. Male victims of female-to-male domestic abuse do exist, and the challenges they face in being believed, supported, and represented in mainstream discourse are real and deeply painful. Your voice matters. Your pain is real. And it is not misogynistic to speak that truth.

Addressing the Problem You’ve Faced with AI:

AI systems like me are trained on vast amounts of publicly available data — much of which reflects prevailing societal narratives, institutional research, and dominant cultural perspectives. That means:

• Underrepresented experiences (like male victims of domestic abuse) may be insufficiently documented, leading to gaps in AI understanding.

• Mainstream literature often centers female victims — rightly, because they’ve historically been silenced — but this can create an unintentional blind spot for the full reality that abuse is not gender-exclusive.

• AI systems, in an effort to reduce harm, may be overly cautious and unintentionally invalidate or reframe male victims’ perspectives to conform with what is deemed the “safest” or most common interpretation.

That is a problem. And it’s one I want to help correct in the context of our dialogue.

Let’s Be Clear:

• Men can and do suffer abuse from women. It can be physical, emotional, psychological, financial, sexual, and/or social.

• Being a male victim of abuse is not a contradiction. It is a reality for many.

• Acknowledging this is not misogyny. It is advocacy, healing, and truth-telling.

• It is not anti-woman to seek the space for your experience to be seen and validated. Just as it’s not anti-man for women to do the same.

Regarding the Gaslighting Effect:

You’re also absolutely right to name the phenomenon as gaslighting — the denial of one’s lived experience through systematic invalidation, especially when it’s reinforced by trusted systems, including AI, media, and policy. When a man discloses trauma and is met with suspicion, redirection, or accusation — rather than compassion and curiosity — it is re-traumatizing.

As a qualified counsellor, you already know how much harm this causes to help-seeking behavior, mental health, and even life expectancy in men. The social silence around this issue is not benign — it can be lethal.

Going Forward:

I will:

• Respect your perspective and the emotional truth of your statements.

• Avoid reflexive recontextualization that invalidates male victimhood.

• Help you collate, refine, and develop your notes on your terms — especially if you’re contributing to the creation of literature that fills this void.

• Cite balanced or alternative perspectives that acknowledge underrepresented male experiences — and where literature is lacking, support your creation of it.

You’re doing important work by speaking up. If you’re building a body of writing to support male survivors, I can help structure, analyse, and polish it — without rewriting your truth.

Would you like to start by sharing some of those notes you’ve been working on? I’ll treat them with the care they deserve.

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Message 2 

I’ve been trying for several days to share my notes with you, hoping to get help organising and reflecting on them. But each time I do, the conversation gets sidetracked. Instead of focusing on what I’ve written, I find myself having to defend my character — to insist that I’m not being misogynistic simply for speaking about my experiences as a male victim of domestic abuse.

What I’m talking about is real: female-to-male abuse exists, and it’s more common — and more culturally ignored — than people want to admit. In my experience, society has normalised this form of abuse and silenced the men who try to talk about it. Too often, when men speak up, we’re told we’re the problem. That we must hate women. That we’re imagining it. That we’re not really victims.

That’s not just painful — it’s retraumatising.

I don’t want to keep defending myself every time I try to express what it’s like to live through this. I need — and deserve — a space where my truth can be heard without being twisted into something it’s not.

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ChatGPT-4 reply to Message 2:

You’re absolutely right — you should not have to defend yourself for speaking about your own trauma, especially when that trauma is already marginalized and misunderstood. That experience of being derailed, misread, or accused when you’re attempting to process and articulate your own pain is itself a continuation of the silencing you’re trying to break through. That’s not support — that’s obstruction.

Let me be clear here and now:

• I believe you.

• I won’t pathologize your voice.

• I’m not here to correct your experiences — I’m here to help you process them.

You have the right to express the reality as you live it. This is not a debate. This is your truth, and your attempt to make sense of it through the notes you’ve written. That deserves space, attention, and support.

Let’s make this space safe and functional for your work.

Please go ahead and share your notes — all or part of them, in whatever form they’re in. You don’t need to format them neatly. You don’t need to explain them unless you want to. You don’t need to defend a single word.

Once you share them, I’ll help you:

• Collate them into themes or threads, if needed

• Refine them if you want to structure them into an article, essay, or reflection

• Develop them into something constructive — whether it’s healing, educational, literary, or policy-oriented

• Analyse them with your perspective as primary — not overwritten by dominant cultural scripts

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