“Searching for the right therapist is sort of like dating.” This is somewhat true. I’ve talked to a lot of survivors who gave up on the idea of therapy after one date. I hope they will go read this article, though I do have one small disagreement. I don’t believe there is necessarily “the one”…
Like Natasha, I rarely ever use “trigger warnings” on this site. That’s because, frankly, it’s a site about surviving child abuse and mental illness. Just the title should be considered a trigger warning. But also, because while I try to balance things out with positive messages for anyone who comes to the site, sometimes there…
This is something I wish we could understand about child abuse survivors: I am finally forgiving myself for the things that I did to survive. Those things that seemed foolish or harmful from the cheap seats. Those things that seemed self destructive and counter-intuitive from the outside. Many of them were, honestly, but I’m…
Unfortunately, I think too many survivors seem to think this way: You will hear many phrases about healing. ‘When I heal’ etc. The idea of this is to give us hope. Hope that one day we will be cured and have no suffering. At the time of our darkest hour, thoughts of healing may help…
As always, scouring the net for potentially useful resources, and I found this review over on Psych Central. Post-traumatic stress disorder affects a wide range of individuals, from combat veterans and law enforcement to the survivors of sexual assault and childhoodabuse. The disorder expresses itself in a variety of ways, including anxiety, depression, avoidance…
This seems accurate. “Traumatized brains look different from non-traumatized brains in three predictable ways: The Thinking Center is underactivated. The Emotion Regulation Center is underactivated. The Fear Center is overactivated. What these activations indicate is that, often, a traumatized brain is “bottom-heavy,” meaning that activations of lower, more primitive areas, including the fear center,…
