Healing From Sexual Violence
I’m pretty glad to say I’ve broken many of my “emotional bad habits” and am working on many others. Some I’m not working on yet because the bad habit still serves me. Emotional bad habits are just that: Using my emotions in unhealthy, compulsive or even destructive ways. Like most …
I wonder if we are trained to talk about our traumas, from micro-traumas to full-blown PTSD. We start young by telling little kids to “use your words” and some of us spend years (lifetimes) talking to counselors or friends about what’s happening to us. It’s a lot of talking, a …
Writing down the pain is an act of courage for trauma survivors. Writing is so courageous it’s impossible to talk about all the layers in a short blog post. Writing externalizes the pain, starting the process of getting it out of the brain and body. Writing can help survivors work …
Checking Out for Secondary Survivors is second to anger in how we attempt to deal with the sexual violence that has happened to our loved ones. This is part of our brain’s automatic responses to protect ourselves. In the Fight/Flight/Freeze reactions, checking out is a “Flight” reaction. Our brains, as …
Some days I just get tired of working on myself, you know? Tired of working so hard for so long and still not being perfect. Tired of always being on my toes so I can apply my skills to challenging situations. (The mindfulness people call that “being in awareness” I …
I’m thinking more about stories and how when we tell our stories, we reinforce and amplify our memories and our neurochemistry. In our brains, this works both positively and negatively–positive storytelling boosts healthy brain chemistry, and negative storytelling boosts unhealthy brain chemistry. I overheard a woman tell her friends that …
I am a sexual assault advocate, and I’ve learned an interesting thing from my work with clients in crisis. Trauma survivors memorize what happened to them. Sometimes these memories are overwhelming and detailed. Sometimes people don’t remember the details and struggle for years to fill in the blanks. They are …
Memory and how memory is recorded and recalled has always fascinated me. From an early age, I realized I don’t remember things the way other people do. I remember in circles. Other people remember in lines. Here’s how that goes for me. My husband Jake and I are finishing a …