Reading – #NoShame in Mental Illness: A Reading List
A good list of recent articles!
Emotional intelligence is something that I struggled with while I was healing, and as I look around the child abuse survivor community, I think that struggle is common. All too often we never really learned these skills as kids, and are also usually really good at masking our emotions, even from ourselves. But, this can…
Schools in poor areas where students are likely to be dealing with instability at home and poverty all around them have different mental health needs than kids living in a wealthy suburb. Programs designed to help families in poverty should be part of school mental health programs. As I’ve said many times, you can’t meditate or exercise your way out of poverty. A full-service mental health program would recognize the impact that something like poverty has on kids.
My biggest epiphany in therapy was the freedom to make my own life moving forward, because I had never felt I was allowed to do so. Going back to the person I was before I was abused would not have been that.
After all, everyone is changing all the time. Trauma or not, people move forward in their lives and change. Going back isn’t a solution.
There’s no real difference. I should know. I was sexually abused by an older minor. There was no creepy old man, only an older and bigger kid who threatened me. Someone in my own family. Mall parking lots, school, and our neighborhood park weren’t the places where I was not safe, my family was.
And I had no way to tell anyone, because I wasn’t taught about that being child abuse. Only strange men in white vans giving out candy abused children. Whatever was happening in my family wasn’t to be discussed with anyone. It wasn’t, and it went on for years.
Maybe we should do better with understanding the ways kids abuse other kids, and talking openly about it. The link below can help.
Whenever anyone asks me about blogging, especially about child abuse and mental health, I tell them that they need to decide two things, and always stick to them.
1. Decide what you will share about your own story, and what is off the table. Don’t share so much of yourself that you wind up becoming overwhelmed and find yourself dealing with the fallout. Remember, once you share it, you no longer control how other people respond. If you’re not ready for that, there’s no shame in it. Just know before you start.
2. The second one, is to decide what you’re willing and able, to give to your readers. This is the hardest one, as the article below mentions:
There is a lot to love about Melissa’s story. Her encouragement to take care of yourself, to recognize when the stress is too much, and when you need to stop. But this is one of the things about her story that frustrates me as an advocate: https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/health/be-good-to-yourself-489996411.html “What this means: if you are an employer,…
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
@SurvivorNetwork Thx u 4 sharing this. Logged on & signed up. I know it will b helpful in my own healing journey from child sexual abuse.
RT @SurvivorNetwork: Reading – #NoShame in Mental Illness: A Reading List: A good list of recent articles!
#NoShame in Mental Illnes… ht…
Jo Jones liked this on Facebook.
Sharon Hoyt liked this on Facebook.