Healing

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

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    This was written on the website for the Domestic Violence hotline, but the tips are relevant to anyone who has been abused or gone through trauma. This, for example, is similar to many things I’ve written about child abuse too:

    “Throughout this journey of healing from trauma and abuse, make sure that you are being compassionate towards yourself. A great deal of trauma survivors suffer from toxic shame and self-blame. It’s important that we are gentle towards ourselves during this journey, that we acknowledge that we are doing our very best, and that we ask ourselves every day, “What would be the most loving thing I can do for myself in this moment?” in any circumstance. There is no time limit to learning and healing, there is only the power of transforming our adversity into victory, one small step at a time.”

    Check out the article below to read more about how, exactly, to be gentle towards ourselves while still taking those small steps.

  • What is the Justice System For, Anyway?

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    I found myself reading this interview with Dr. Mary Koss recently, and while I’m not 100% sure about the prospect of “Restorative Justice”, as she refers to it, I think that often, when we think about child sexual abuse, we fall into the same misconceptions about the legal system that she refers to when talking more broadly about sexual assault.

    Namely, that the legal system is not really designed to assist with the healing of a victim.

  • Links I’m Sharing (weekly) Sept. 27, 2020

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    Coping with Depression

    We’re all in this together: Pandemic worsens depression, thoughts of suicide

    ‘Grave Sexual Abuse’: When the Word Rape Doesn’t Apply To Boys

    Make Mental Health Your #1 Priority

    How Therapy Helped Me Manage Trauma

    Listen, Open Up, Connect: A Mental Health Expert’s Advice On Living Through A Crisis

    Why You Can’t Think Your Way Out of Trauma

    9 Steps to Healing Childhood Trauma as an Adult

  • Sharing – Toxic Childhood? 10 Lessons You Must Unlearn in Adulthood

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    I found this entire article to be really interesting, because what child abuse survivor doesn’t struggle with this exact thing in one form or another? “The hardest part of recovering from a toxic childhood isn’t just coping with the fact that your emotional needs weren’t met or that you were actively neglected or even marginalized,…

  • Have You Been Labeled?

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The thing I suspect many people worry about, and something that makes me crazy to be honest, is when people see “abuse victim”, or especially “sexual abuse victim”, and their brain immediately takes the shortcut to everything society says about that label. Being a survivor of childhood abuse is not “one” thing, but having your identity boiled down to that “one” thing, is dehumanizing. This is especially true when the stereotypes that we believe about survivors, don’t match who we really are!

  • Links I’m Sharing (weekly) Aug 9, 2020

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    10 Simple Ways to Love Yourself a Little More Each Day

    Can Childhood Trauma Make the Body and Brain Age Faster?

    6 Ways to Survive Survivor Guilt |

    Mental Health in the Digital Realm

    Childhood Trauma: Types, Causes, Signs, and Treatments

    Self-Care Sounds Simple, So Why Is It So Hard to Practice?

    Study Confirms Asking Directly About Suicide Doesn’t Cause More Harm

    What People Want to Hear When They’re Struggling

    Stopping the Cycle of Trauma: Parents Need Help for Trauma Too

    Mental health website for people with intellectual disability created with help of those with lived experience – ABC News

    – Good, it’s not often that we think about how our sites work for those with disabilities, I’m glad there are folks working to be more inclusive.

    How to Ask if Everything Is OK When It’s Clearly Not

    4 Reasons Taking Things Personally Prevents Healing