If you’ve ever wondered about the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, and wanted more information about what it is, and how you can participate, head over to From Tracie and take a look at the page she has describing what it is. It should provided answers to your questions, as well as links to the entire carnival archives!
Thanks to Kate1975 for pointing me to it!
Late last week, and over the weekend, I was having an email discussion with an online acquaintance about child abuse, and dissociative disorders when she said something that sparked further conversation. She mentioned that “everyone dissociates and for good reasons, it’s just a matter of degrees”. That got me thinking about the coping skills we…
This afternoon, one of the folks I follow on Twitter regularly, Jennifer Leggio, wrote a blog post about the loss of her father. Even though she hadn’t seen him in 30 years, his death was hard on her: Because over the last year I’ve had one too many people say to me, “If you hadn’t…
One of the “suggested topics” Lisa has for this month’s carnival against child abuse is “What inspires you to heal?”. I found that an interesting topic, not so much because I think there’s any great inspiring thing out there, but because really the answer for me was a simple one. I hit rock bottom in…
It’s holiday time here in the US again. We’ll be traveling later today and spending Thanksgiving with the in-laws. Should be nice to spend some time down there with them. But being with family isn’t what I want to talk about today, it’s being thankful. It may not seem like, as an abuse survivor, there’s…
Just some random thoughts about “victimization” on a Friday afternoon.. Being victimized as a child isn’t really a valid excuse for your behavior as an adult. Yes it’s true we all have issues, but we all also have a responsibility to work at overcoming them, instead of using them as an excuse for our own…
Pin Just like in sports though, sometimes it’s not about how the world works, or what mistakes we made, it’s about the other team. In our case, it’s the abuser. They did this. Healing is understanding that, and coming to grips with the fact that our lens is wrong. We’re looking at someone else’s actions and choices through a lens that only sees ourselves. We were abused, maybe when we told someone, we weren’t believed, or maybe even as adults, when we share our experiences we make others uncomfortable. But it’s not us. Other people get to make their own choices, have their own reactions, and choose who, and what, to believe.
What we need to do, is start untying other people actions and reactions, from ourselves. The abuser chose to abuse. The people who refused to help, made that choice, and the people who still don’t believe us, have their own reasons for doing that. None of it has anything to do with us, those are other people making their own choices, playing their own game. We can do everything right, live our life to the best of our abilities and still “lose” in these interactions. It happens. It doesn’t lessen us, it shows us who these other people are, and tells us about their agendas.
We learn from that, and move on. We do not blame ourselves for their agendas.
It does take developing a more mature lens to view life through, and that takes time, and work. Are you up for it? Or maybe the better question, are you tired of blaming yourself?
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