Haven’t we been talking over and over again about the lack of human connection and the impacts on our mental health? Maybe if we spent a little more time complimenting each other when a job is well done, or on a new look, or a trait that we admire, we’d have more human connection in our days.
The more I see research like this, the more I become convinced that one of the most significant losses many sexual abuse survivors suffer has to do with how complicated touch becomes for us as adults.
The impact of what you weren’t given as a child can be just as real as the impacts of physical and sexual abuse. The struggle to navigate relationships and work, emotional immaturity, the lack of trust, the inability to be vulnerable, etc. Those are all things we should be learning throughout life, and they are all something we can learn throughout life. It sure would have been nice to have been able to start that process in childhood, though.
We talk a lot in the advocate community about not being alone with mental health issues. I try to encourage anyone to see others who are dealing with the same issues around mental health and childhood abuse and recognize that they are not in this alone. There are many of us out here dealing with the same thing. Many in the US and other countries are alone in accessing care. That should shame us all.
This is why I look for the definition when I read anything about being fully healed. What does being healed mean to you? Is your definition possible? A definition that includes the abuse having zero impact on who you are today? Because that’s not realistic. But it also doesn’t mean you can’t go on to have a healed life while acknowledging that it is still part of who you are.
It was a traumatic event; they became part of us. They don’t have to rule us, though. That’s healed.
