Meet Nick Middaugh

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nick Middaugh. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Nick, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I’m currently a blog writer for a brand called “REBELs RAIDERs,” juggling that with being a full-time college student in an online Human Services program (finally graduating this year, thank God). I’ve got three kids under seven, wrote and self-published a book all on my own, run my own Substack, and I’m always chasing down ways to grow, market, and sharpen my business—whether that’s mixing up my writing portfolio or hitting the public speaking circuit. In a few weeks, I’ve got my first keynote speaking gig lined up. Did I mention I work full-time too?

Oh, and when I’ve got a spare minute, I write fiction. Welcome to the Fall is my spin on the Zombie Apocalypse genre, digging into the messy human emotions and instincts that bubble up in that level of societal collapse. Creating universes is something I really enjoy and all the varying fiction projects, including Fall, stem from some actual dreams I woke up from and then scribbled into a journal. It’s out there on Wattpad, free for anyone who wants it. So yeah, saying I’ve got a lot going on is putting it mildly. I’m a very driven individual, which is not to be misconstrued as me saying I have all my ducks in a row. I’m accepting coffee donations and I’m not picky: it just needs to have some zip to it.

That fire I’ve got? It got lit under some brutal conditions—childhood sexual abuse (CSA), service related trauma, alcoholism, being born with degenerative hearing loss + tinnitus, money struggles, and the parade of dumbass choices I made as a young guy. My wife and I had our first kid when I was 22 and she was 21. We leaned on welfare for years. But once I clawed my way to sobriety and started flipping the script, I locked onto the two things that forged my work ethic into steel. First, the suffocating pressure to drag my family above the poverty line. I’m going to give them a life free of need. Second, waking up to the fact that there are millions of guys like me—male survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA)—still out there, Suffering in Silence. A purpose I once clung to was the idea of running down uniforms and causes. That’s a great purpose to identify with, but I feel called to help those like me with my story now, especially because we need to destigmatize mental health in those fields. Regarding this path into being a male CSA survivor who advocates and raises awareness to the issue, I see an endless amount of work in front of me before our society makes adequate change. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, and I’ve dedicated my life to this work. The entry fee in this arena, among a whole lot of other things, is being someone who has the work ethic to grind all day every day.

Now, between that relentless push to rewrite my family’s story and devoting my life to serving other dudes like me (CSA, PTSD, civil service, alcoholism—turning your demons into fuel in general), I’ve become a force that doesn’t stop. Unbreakable, no. Unstoppable, maybe.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Now, if you’d like to hear more specifics regarding my story of overcoming CSA and everything else, there are some interviews of me out there. I appeared on Episode #378 of Cleared Hot hosted by Andy Stumpf, and most recently, “Suffering in Silence-Nick” is the episode of Soft White Underbelly that I am featured on. My book is available on Amazon in both eBook and paperback formats. You can find a link to where to buy the book, as well as everything else related to my story, on my website: www.nickmiddaugh.com. Make sure you follow me on social media for updates about everything I’ve got going on!

Onward we go.

My earliest childhood memories are flooded with traumatic sexual abuse. I never repressed the bulk of those memories, and my parents didn’t find out until roughly twenty-three years later. Without getting too into the weeds regarding the nature of the sexual abuse, it was profoundly disruptive to me as a little boy, and it changed the course of my upbringing. For context, I’d love to give you some data specific to the issue of Male Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) (from my research proposal):

-The suspected ratio of boys who experience some form of sexual abuse varies from one in six to as high as one in four by the age of eighteen (Weiss, 2019).

-Despite society’s acknowledgement of the prevalence of this issue, the average length of time between male sexual abuse and disclosure is twenty years, not accounting for abuses that never get reported (Weiss, 2019).

-A sizeable opponent to male survivors of childhood sexual trauma speaking up or reporting the abuse(s) is the stigma society holds regarding men and masculinity in general. There is a particular discernment in American society’s overall perspective, acceptance, and treatment of female versus male survivors of sexual trauma. Male survivors tend to, because of this deeply ingrained social tenet or via their own intense internal challenges to their heteronormative masculinity, remain reticent to their own detriment (Schane, 2022).

-When male survivors do end up disclosing their sexual trauma, they face a society that disregards, disbelieves, shames, emotionally abuses, or even physically harms them (Schane, 2022). You can see this last bullet point in action if you go and look at the comment section of my Soft White Underbelly episode. It’s mostly positive, and I don’t let the negative comments bother me, but it is an interesting opportunity to showcase why male CSA survivors stay reticent.

If you take the literature I included just a few lines up and compare it against the current U.S. population, you begin to understand the true scope of the issue. We aren’t talking about hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of male CSA victims. No, we’re dealing in potential millions.

The mission is this: if one male CSA survivor picks up my book or hears my story elsewhere and decides to engage resources, then I am accomplishing the mission. If I can get an alcoholic to embark on the journey of recovery through my own story of alcoholism, then I am accomplishing the mission. I believe quite firmly in the notion that it takes survivors speaking up in order to effect change. So far, some survivors have left comments on the varying platforms I’ve been on with their stories of how I influenced some change or helped them in some way. I’ve also had some people reach out via the contact methods listed on my website. That is what I get most excited about, and it is what gives me the exact fuel I need in order to continue this path of mass disclosure, advocacy, and love.

That’s everything I have going on, and awareness via sharing my story is my biggest pursuit at present. I’m still looking for more work, oddly enough. Whether it is writing fiction, nonfiction, or advocacy, I am always looking for different ways to diversify and strengthen what I do. If you’re a nonprofit looking for a male CSA champion, feel free to reach out. I’ve collaborated with some pretty awesome ones to include MaleSurvivor, Enough Abuse, 1in6, and Sleep In Heavenly Peace. Each brings their own expertise and resource brokering powers to the issue of male CSA and more, and each are worthy of supporting. A big part of my brand is authenticity. I don’t list non-profits or causes I don’t personally believe in, and none of the orgs/non-profits you see on my website are giving me money to have them on there. At most, they’ve graciously listed my book on their site for other survivors to enjoy.

Regarding some local work, I’m involved with the Tuscola County Child Advocacy Center as well as the Tuscola County Great Start Collaborative.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I’m not an expert, and I consider myself to still be pretty new on this journey. With that being said, here’s three things that have helped me along the path:

-You can’t be scared of asking for help! There are people out there ahead of you on the path. I have been fortunate to be able to make some serious connections (Andy Stumpf, Mark Laita, Seth Gehle, Kegan Gill, and more) who were willing to invest their time and advice into me. That doesn’t come by being scared of asking for help, and it certainly doesn’t seem to come by acting like you’re some kind of expert who doesn’t need advice. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. You have to be humble enough to recognize where you are in your journey relative to where you want to be while also understanding that no one gets there alone. I’m a product of some grit, sure, but I wouldn’t be here without the people I have asked for help.

-Thick skin: you won’t survive this environment unless you’ve got some. Even though I am a male CSA survivor who is sharing some profoundly traumatic stuff, it doesn’t mean I am free from scrutiny. You have to belief in yourself and recognize the difference between constructive criticism and people dunking on you. Both require humility, both require reflection, and you can’t get overly emotional. Be cognizant enough to differentiate between your rational and emotional thoughts.

-Self-belief. I wrote to an audience of nine people for years. Seriously, go look at my Wattpad, I think I still have only like nine followers. Wattpad was the ground floor of my dreams related to becoming an author. I think I initially created the account back in like 2019. If I stopped believing in myself, then I wouldn’t have ever self-published, gone on Cleared Hot or Soft White Underbelly, and I certainly wouldn’t be here writing to you about all of it. You have to believe in yourself when it feels like everyone around you doesn’t and you’re against the odds. If you look in the mirror and tell yourself you’ll never be great, then you’ll never be great. Not because you’re not, but because you lack the self-belief required to propel yourself forward against the odds.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Lief Babin.

This played an important role in my development because it gave me the principles associated with this idea of Extreme Ownership. Taking ownership over who I was as an alcoholic has been hugely beneficial in my recovery process. On a technical basis, yes, I am a victim of childhood sexual abuse. But that’s different from allowing yourself to use your trauma or victim status to subscribe to a victim mentality. I spent most of my adult life using my CSA, my disability, and the traumatic experiences I volunteered for as an adult as excuses to keep drinking and living this “woe is me” lifestyle. Taking ownership over everything you possibly can in your life will allow you, in my opinion, to break free of that victim mentality and start making some positive changes.

Taking Extreme Ownership over my circumstances allowed me to really change for the better. Instead of making excuses, I started owning my mistakes. Man, I ballooned up to 275lbs and I’m seriously out of shape (seriously, that was me). Okay, I made the choices required to get here, I can make the choices required to get out of here. Let’s take ownership and start working out.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Mark Laita – Soft White Underbelly (Episode Card) | https://youtu.be/38tO0cT5M7g?feature=shared
Andy Stumpf – Cleared Hot Podcast (Episode Card) | https://youtu.be/daV1jiC9mCs?feature=shared
Nick Middaugh brand logos: collaboration between Nick Middaugh Brand + @artisticdisruptionagency (instagram — dude makes killer edits)

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