As a survivor, there are a couple of things I honestly believe to be true of all survivors, and how we all decide to deal with our stories. One, is that every single survivor has the right to tell, or not tell, their story in any way they want. Some do it anonymously, some don’t…
A lot of trauma survivors, talk about how they miss who they used to be. They miss their ‘pre-trauma’ self/identity. For many of us, however, who were severely abused from a very young age, we don’t have a ‘pre-trauma’ identity. This is something people will not fully comprehend, unless they have personally endured this. Part…
“You may be a survivor of child sexual abuse who is now in your late thirties, forties, fifties or beyond, and you may be finding that your feelings around what you experienced are worse than they have ever been, or at any rate worse that they’ve been for a long time. You may be confused as to why this…
“Childhood experiences are crucial to our emotional development. Our parents, who are our primary attachment figures, play an important role in how we experience the world because they lay the foundation of what the world is going to look like for us. Is it a safe place to explore and take emotional risks? Are all…
Unless you live with post-traumatic stress disorder, it can be hard to understand why an event from the past can still affect someone now. You may wonder why they just can’t “forget about it,” or get confused when seemingly low-stress situations evoke a strong reaction. But for people with post-traumatic stress disorder, their brain actually…
“In the midst of a sexually abusive experience, we disappear. We become invisible. We retreat so far into ourselves that sometimes, we even dissociate. It is our best coping strategy for avoiding the pain, horror and trauma of the abuse. However, even if it occurred decades ago, past abuse may still be haunting you in…
