Child Abuse Survivor Blog

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    Child Abuse Advocacy Groups Caught up in Facebook QAnon Purge?

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Am I sad that there are fewer child abuse advocacy groups on Facebook overall? Sure. But, what makes me sadder is how many legitimate advocacy groups fell massively short of their duty to tell the truth to their followers. How many continued to share these theories well after they were disproved in some bizarre effort to show how much more they cared about children, while diverting attention and resources from real victims and organizations trying to help them.

    So no. I don’t feel sorry for you if your page was taken down by Facebook for violating their terms of service around spreading disinformation. You owed real survivors, and the people who followed you to learn more about true child abuse stories, more than that. You are right about one thing, child abuse and child trafficking is an incredibly important issue. Spreading lies doesn’t help that message, it provides the rest of the world an excuse to ignore it. If you truly want to advocate for children, stick to the truth, or suffer the consequences.

  • One Small Thing You Can Do to Help Others

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I’ve talked often about the small things we can do for each other, that may make a much bigger difference than we know. Things like texting a friend, checking in on them, simply sitting with them when they’re struggling etc. I’ve talked about how these small acts keep people connected, let them know that they are not alone, and allow us to get outside of our own anxiety about everything going on in the world, and take control of one small thing we can do to make a positive difference.

    Well, as we start of 2021, here’s something you can do that would help not only me, but potential people in your social circles who are feeling alone right now.

    Would you share this website with them?

  • Still Here, 2020 Edition

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Recently, a friend on Facebook decided to ask us all to share one thing that happened this year that was a positive, to try and collect any and all good news in one place. It was a good idea, and as I thought about how I would respond to something like that, I thought of some of the good things that have happened this year. I’ve had some pretty nice successes at work. I’ve connected on a deeper level with my wife, and managed to stay connected to a close group of friends and family. Those were good things, but at the end of it all, I kept coming back to something I talked about at the end of 2019 on the Find Your Voice Podcast, and then again on this very blog on January 1 of 2020.

    “I’m Still Here”

  • When People Show You Who They Really Are…

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Now, as many of you know, I’m not big on politics, and never really have been. I am pretty accepting of most political views, and don’t really find that many extreme political views, one way or the other, are useful at all. This year though, this one has gotten to me. There are definitely some folks who I’m not really going to go out of my way to stay in touch with, and really it’s not the politics of the pandemic as much as it’s the fact that these views exposed something else that makes it obvious that these may not be great friends.

    It’s because these views are often expressed with so much selfishness.

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    The Extreme Things Toxic Positivity Forces You To Believe

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 4 minutes

    I feel fairly certain I have never read a worse example of how certain worldviews will have to end up blaming the victim for their own suffering than this quote from an article about how we can fetishize “surviving” during difficult times, often taking more interest in things like the Holocaust:

    Recently, a textbook required for the UNC minicourse “21st Century Wellness” was skewered for suggesting—as a headline read—“Holocaust victims who died failed to find their inner strength.” The actual text included: “The people in the camps who did not tap into the strength that comes from their intrinsic worth succumbed to the brutality to which they were subjected.”

    I realize that this seems shocking that anyone would believe this, but I have a different take on it. Why wouldn’t some people believe this?