Abuse

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    Sharing – How to Develop a Strong Sense of Self

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    One of the struggles that I had as an abuse survivor, and one that I know other survivors have talked about, is defining who we are. Take everyone else away, remove all the ways we define ourselves based on our relationships with others – son, daughter, spouse, brother, sister, parent, coworker, friend, employee, boss, etc.

    Who are you? As I often say, when you’re too busy trying to survive the chaos of an abusive childhood, you don’t get the guidance that would help figure this out. So we exist in these relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners, and we don’t know who we are outside of how they see us.

  • The Truth About Trafficking From A 20-year Veteran of the Child Exploitation Task Force

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 4 minutes

    I think she’s right about that last point. I’ve written many times about the stories I hear, over and over again, where people don’t want to hear about child abuse and sexual abuse. It’s too sad and dirty. It isn’t very pleasant. People don’t want to know about how much sex trafficking goes on right around us every day and the hard work we could do to solve the problem. They’d rather believe conspiracy theories and look to their “heroes,” who are nothing but con artists, to fix it for them by going on rescue missions or attacking the “elites” who are supposedly controlling all sex trafficking around the world. That seems simpler than solving the problems that make kids vulnerable to trafficking: poverty, abuse, racism, a lack of support for kids transitioning out of foster care, or LGBTQ kids whom their own families do not accept.

    Those are real problems that create vulnerable kids who go on to become real victims. Fixing them will require hard work and resources from all of us.

  • Sharing – Know Your Partner’s Trauma

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Once I was public about my abuse, it became obvious to me that anyone I was going to be involved with romantically probably needed to know about my past sooner rather than later. Maybe not all the details upfront, but the fact that I am a survivor usually came out early. There was no reason not to share that information with someone who I was going to be in a romantic relationship with because that trauma impacted so many little things about me and how I acted in that relationship.

  • Mental Health and Elections

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    We have to address societal issues that cause harm. Politicians who don’t address both the lack of mental health resources and the various political issues that actively harm the mental health of all of us don’t deserve our vote. If you consider yourself a mental health advocate, consider how your representatives have voted and where they stand on these issues. Have they cut mental health funding, opposed mental health support in schools, or supported laws that cause active mental harm to some segments of the population?

    Consider that before you go to the voting booth this year.