Link – Helplines for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, rape and sexual violence
With all the attention on sexual abuse in the UK lately, this resource from iTV might be a good things to share with all of our readers in the UK.
Similar Posts
Sharing – Sexual violence against boys is far more common than we think
These are the stories we don’t hear about often enough, and that leaves a whole lot of victims out on their own when it comes to finding support.
“What do you think you know about boys and sexual violence? I thought I knew that boys are victims only rarely, and I automatically equated “child sexual abuse” with adults preying on kids. But I was wrong on both counts.
Sharing – Better Mental Health May Not Mean Exactly What You Think It Does
I will say that his discussion around what people come into therapy for in terms of defining good mental health is often an issue. When I started therapy I wanted to not dissociate, because the dissociative states were proving to be more and more dangerous. But, it wasn’t like we could sit and discuss plans to simply stop, we had to dig into what happens right before I dissociate and learn better ways of dealing with that. (In my case, stress)
Even then, the desire to simply feel less stress is not always possible. It would have solved the immediate reason why I was in therapy, less stress would make me less likely to dissociate, right? But it also wasn’t sustainable because at some point life is going to be stressful. The key was not to avoid stress but to learn how to recognize it, acknowledge it, feel it, and deal with it in a healthier way.
So yes, I agree our definition of good mental health needs to incorporate much, much more than “not feeling sad, anxious, depressed, etc.” because we will feel those things again at some point. They are unavoidable, but succumbing to them without a proper response is not. We can, and should, learn how to do that.
Sharing – Strange Healing is Still Healing
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.
Link – The Double Standard of Mental Illness
This is something we should all take a minute and think about: If a family member walked into your living room, bent over in pain and screaming for help, what would you do? You would help, of course. And generally, you’d know what to do. If you saw blood, you’d try to stop it. If…
Link – Protecting children from abuse in organisations needs leadership and cultural change
This seems important- “There is an important message we should be hearing from the research published by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: leaders play a vital role in keeping children safe in their organisations. But this message isn’t getting the attention it deserves, from the media or organisational leaders. Instead,…
