Healing

  • Sharing – Others Have it Worse

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I think there maybe a couple of reasons why we fall into this. Al mentions one of the big ones, this becomes a way to avoid really facing our own issues. Since our issues are “not as bad” as someone else we can point to, this becomes our excuse to simply accept them instead of trying to work on ourselves and do the hard work of healing. Similarly, I also think this is an example where so many of us don’t see ourselves as worthy of getting better. Our issues aren’t as bad, so we don’t really deserve to get treatment, or get support, or even admit that we need it. The truth, though, is that everyone is worth being supported and getting help when necessary. There is no one in this world who has never needed any support, no matter what kinds of trauma and struggles they are having, or how bad someone else might have it.

  • Sharing – Aly Raisman Talks Healing from Triggering Senate Testimony

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    This makes complete sense, but I fear it’s something we don’t remember when it comes to our own healing. We kind of forget that there are ups and downs, and we also tend to forget just how much energy and effort is involved in talking about it anywhere, let alone in front of a Senate Committee and national audience, and how that’s going to impact us for a time.

    What Aly, and the other gymnasts, did that day in the hearing is brave, but we’d do well to also recognize how much energy that took as well, and the need to recover from that energy expenditure, because we should also be applying that to ourselves, and our own healing.

  • Sometimes Self-Care Isn’t About The Self

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I have heard Shelly Tygielski’s story before. Right at the start of the pandemic, she put together a sort of community-based mutual aid organization that was designed to match people in need with people who could help. She has now written a book about that experience and shared her mindfulness teachings. 

    I caught an interview piece/book review over on the Time website this week and I thought this is something that really makes a lot of sense, and might be something we need to think much more openly about when we encourage people to self-care.

  • Sharing – 5 Powerful Self-Care Tips for Abuse and Trauma Survivors

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    How often do I see survivors talking about being healed as if there’s some end where they are done and never have to think about the trauma again, and berating themselves for not having yet reached this state when it doesn’t really work that way. Self-care and learning never stop. We never reach a point where we know everything and live happily ever after. Real-life does not have a happily ever after, it has ups, downs, twists, and turns, and healing will not be any different.

  • Sharing – Trauma Healing Requires A Certain Amount Of Privilege

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    She lists out things like having insurance, having financial security, having a partner and friends from who she doesn’t have to hide her therapy sessions, etc.

    As we just talked about yesterday, the reason less than half of all people dealing with mental health issues actually get any treatment at all is because they don’t have all of these things.

  • Sharing – Why Healing from Trauma Can Get Harder As We Age

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    As I’ve said before, we were too busy simply surviving the abuse to learn the things we were supposed to learn as children, so we often start out behind in various ways.

    Of course, in order to learn those things we need to do the work as an adult, to first unlearn the things we learned, and then learn the things we didn’t learn to start with. This is, perhaps, one of the real tragedies of so many survivors not even telling anyone, let alone starting this work, for decades.

    That’s so many more years of doing the things we need to unlearn, and undoing that is just going to be more difficult the longer this has been true for us. So, what can we do?