recovery-from-abuse

Society gives the image of sexual violators as weird, ugly, anti-social, alcoholics. Society gives the impression that violators kidnap children are out of their homes and take them to some wooded area and abandon them after the violation. Society gives the impression that everyone hates people who violate children. If all of these myths were true, healing would not be as challenging as it is. Half of our healing is about the actual abuse. The other half is about how survivors fit into society in the face of the myths that people hold in order to make themselves feel safe. The truth is that 80% of childhood sexual abuse is perpetrated by family members. Yet we rarely hear the word __ncest_. The word is too ugly and the truth is too scary. Think about what would happen if we ran a campaign to end incest instead of childhood sexual abuse. The number one place that children should know they are safe is in their homes. As it stands, as long as violators keep sexual abuse within the family, the chances of repercussion by anyone is pretty low. Wives won__ leave violating husbands, mothers won__ kick their violating children out of the home, and violating grandparents still get invited to holiday dinners. It is time to start cleaning house. If we stop incest first, then we will strengthen our cause against all sexual abuse.

One way [to recovery] would be by creating the best possible romance book or happy ending scenario for you ... out od your own experience. Another way would be to look at it as it is: a wake-up call to action to create a more humane world, without discrimination and sexism.

Someone once asked me how I hold my head up so high after all I have been through. I said it's because no matter what, I am a survivor NOT a victim.

I have gained wisdom from leaning into my pain, in not allowing the hounds of hell to snap at my heels anymore. Now I turn around, call them by name, and let them know I am prepared to fight.

Traumatic events destroy the sustaining bonds between individual and community. Those who have survived learn that their sense of self, of worth, of humanity, depends upon a feeling of connection with others. The solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair, and the strongest antidote to traumatic experience. Trauma isolates; the group re-creates a sense of belonging. Trauma shames and stigmatizes; the group bears witness and affirms. Trauma degrades the victim; the group exalts her. Trauma dehumanizes the victim; the group restores her humanity.Repeatedly in the testimony of survivors there comes a moment when a sense of connection is restored by another person__ unaffected display of generosity. Something in herself that the victim believes to be irretrievably destroyed---faith, decency, courage---is reawakened by an example of common altruism. Mirrored in the actions of others, the survivor recognizes and reclaims a lost part of herself. At that moment, the survivor begins to rejoin the human commonality...

For change to occur in us, we must be willing to enter the wilderness of the unknown and to wander in unfamiliar territory, directionless and often in the darkness....We do not need to keep every little thing under control. In fact, we find ourselves only by allowing some falling apart to happen.

When shame is met with compassion and not received as con_mation of our guilt, we can begin to see how slant a lens it has had us looking through. That awareness lets us step back far enough to see that if we can let it go, we will see ourselves as clean where we once thought we were dirty. We will remember our innocence. We will see how our shame supported a system in which the perpetrators were protected and we bore the brunt of their offense _ first in its actuality, then again in carrying their shame for it.If the method we chose to try to beat out shame was perfectionism, we can relax now, shake the burden off our shoulders, and give ourselves a chance to loosen up and make some errors. Hallelujah! Our freedom will not come from tireless effort and getting it all exactly right.

no one can recover if they won__ admit the wrongdoings. i won__ recover if i pretend it was all sunshine. i have to remember his vindictive temper and realize that sheltering the house from the storm wasn__ actually going to make a difference if i still got damaged in the process. because then it__ just another broken house with no one to tell its story.

Denial protected us, screening out certain experiences & feelings until we grew strong enough to relate to them...Yet it also dropped a curtain over our experience, obscuring it, leaving us with a sense of missing pieces. For instance, when we achieved something, we felt like an imposter. Or, though we had a relationship with a significant other, we often felt alone and unrelated to anyone.

To heal from child sexual abuse you must believe that you were a victim, that the abuse really did take place. This is often difficult for survivors. When you__e spent your life denying the reality of your abuse, when you don__ want it to be true, or when your family repeatedly calls you crazy or a liar, it can be hard to remain firm in the knowledge that you were abused.

Many of us learned that keeping busy_kept us at a distance from our feelings...Some of us took the ways we busied ourselves__ecoming overachievers & workaholics__s self esteem_But whenever our inner feeling did not match our outer surface, we were doing ourselves a disservice_If stopping to rest meant being barraged with this discrepancy, no wonder we were reluctant to cease our obsessive activity.

You__e too sensitive_ victims of sexual abuse are told over and over by those whose reality depends on being insensitive. Most adults who have been in the victim role cringe when anyone tells them they are sensitive. In fact, sensitivity is a lovely trait and one to be cherished in any human being.

(a quote from a survivor)Read up on the psychology of abuse. Listen to music. Being alone to process without chatter. Usually outside doing something physical, doing these things helps you believe you CAN do anything. Share my story without shame.

As survivors, we__e been conditioned to be victims sexually. Many of us have never learned to say no or to set limits on our sexual activities...To heal, it__ important that we take control, that we make active choices concerning if, when, and how we want to explore sexuality. Especially in the beginning, you need to put your own needs about sex ahead of anyone else__.

Adversity is neither friend nor foe. It is a common acquaintance that is desired less and rewarded most when embraced.

In spite of the horror, in spite of the tragedy, in spite of the weeks of sleepless nights, I'm finally alive. I'm not pretending. I feel real. I'm not playing charades anymore. I wouldn't go back to the way I was for anything. I'm really like a different person. I'm where I am, and I'm making the most of it. I know I'm courageous now. I found out I had it in me to face this. _ Barbara

There's always something in it for the person who is allowing to be taken advantage of." Psychotherapist David in Type 1 Sociopath

Your instincts may tell you that you can__ survive if you experience feelings. But they are leftover child instincts. They__e the ones that first told you to freeze your feelings. They themselves are frozen and haven__ grown with the rest of you. These instincts don__ know that you__e far more capable of learning to cope with overwhelming emotion now than when you were a [child].