The Guardian, separate to the NCCL story, also ran a question/problem page article from someone wishing to tell their mother about the historical child abuse they sufffered. That article is here with some interesting comments that follow the counsellor’s answer.
What Rebekah is writing about isn’t finding the meaning that would define why we were abused. That’s toxic. What she is writing about is finding what it means to live with childhood trauma.
The question we often ask ourselves about being abused is the simplest one to answer, but we’ve gotten it twisted.
Why was I abused? Because someone else decided to abuse me.
A new twist in the ever-present Catholic Child Abuse crisis happened around the time of Jerry Sandusky’s conviction. This time a priest was convicted of covering up abuse by failing to report priests to either authorities or the new dioceses where offending priests had been moved. The BBC has the summary here. – CBG
It can be a struggle when so many of our friends and even professionals want to help us overcome abuse to “get back to” ourselves when there is no previous version of ourselves to use as a target. I don’t think this should be the goal anyway. The goal for any child abuse victim should not be to go back to being a younger version of themselves before the abuse, the goal should be to build a life after abuse. I didn’t find much healing in trying to remember my early childhood, but I found a ton of healing in having someone help me design the life I wanted to have as an adult and helping me feel worthy and capable of having that.
July Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse tags: CA Abused as a child, U.S. women’s boxer Queen Underwood refuses to be counted out at Olympics tags: CA Lowcountry Survivors, adult child abuse recovery resource tags: CA Why We Protect Girls Better Than Boys tags: CA The Penn State NCAA Penalties: What About The Boys? tags: CA…
Coping with Depression
We’re all in this together: Pandemic worsens depression, thoughts of suicide
‘Grave Sexual Abuse’: When the Word Rape Doesn’t Apply To Boys
Make Mental Health Your #1 Priority
How Therapy Helped Me Manage Trauma
Listen, Open Up, Connect: A Mental Health Expert’s Advice On Living Through A Crisis
Why You Can’t Think Your Way Out of Trauma
9 Steps to Healing Childhood Trauma as an Adult
The post below is about shame, and Carolyn does a good job in describing what it is like to live with shame. It also, very much, sounds like a lot of abuse survivors who I meet online and in real life: It’s this generalised, endemic sense that I’m not wanted in this world, that…
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Guardian Historical CSA Question: http://t.co/fQdRwNwibc