What little things do you find useful? Looking over the list below, a few of them work for me, time with people who care about me, humor, and finding things I can do or look forward to are among the ways I try to find the light when things look dark to me. Some others aren’t that helpful to me often. I know people who swear by some of those, though.
Whatever your light is, please keep your eyes out for it.
I stumbled across this review from Verushka on Twitter yesterday. (Hey, it’s still good for something, sometimes!) Her description got my attention, and I thought it might also interest some of you:
What is this about?
Burn out; the different types — from carers to COVID and more. And some straightforward advice you probably already know, but might need a reminder of. I know I did.
What else is this about?
Mental health in today’s COVID, online, WFH world.
We’ve spent so much time looking at lists like this one, looking for the bad people, and that is absolutely part of abuse prevention. Still, we’ve missed the boat on what might be the most significant tool in our prevention toolkit, taking the target off kids by connecting with them as parents and with other trusted adults—helping them be less vulnerable.
Kids who don’t have secrets make terrible targets for abusers. Kids with support and secure relationships aren’t easily manipulated and aren’t too eager to please adults.
We need our kids to be more of that, starting with having close relationships with the safe adults in their lives.
Understanding this is one of the hardest things about being in a relationship, of any kind, with an abuse survivor. As a sexual abuse survivor, it has been paramount in my romantic relationships to talk openly about my experience and what things can be very difficult for me. These discussions are important because there can be things that seem very simple and routine to you that your partner does not see the same way. (For example, I don’t like to be touched until I can see the person touching me and know they are someone safe. Approaching me from behind and touching me before I’ve had a chance to “see” who I am with can be very startling to me.)
I like to think that survivors are worth the effort, and my wife has confirmed that at least our relationship is worth it. It requires honesty and openness that may be new to survivors, but it’s the only way forward.
So, someone like me, a middle-aged, professional, white male, can talk about struggling and get encouragement, pointed to good resources that are affordable for me, and there’s hope that I’ll get better. Someone living near poverty will say the same thing, and we start looking at whether they should have their kids removed from the home or how we can keep them away from a “safe” society.
It gets worse if they are not white and/or have a more serious mental health issue.
That’s not right. Everyone deserves quality mental health care. We shouldn’t divide who gets the care and who doesn’t based on what kind of mental health issue they have or who they are. That’s no way to solve this issue.
I stumbled upon this post from Psych Central today that I hadn’t seen before. As I read it, I considered sharing it and pulling out a quote to focus on, like I sometimes do, but I decided not to. I decided that because there are multiple things you should go read. The article talks about the signs of childhood trauma, the causes of trauma, and some suggestions for treatment.
Then the author, Melissa Gooden, suggests books for parents, caregivers, and kids, links to places where they can learn more or get help, etc.
