Revue newsletter for Child Abuse Survivor - Issue #2
New Posts
Sharing - We Need More Comprehensive Suicide Prevention — www.childabusesurvivor.net I, obviously, agree. Awareness is great. Ending stigma, and having a crisis resource is great. It's also not enough. What are we doing after the immediate crisis to prevent the next one, or to provide treatment and resources for all of the people who aren't getting any now? What are we doing to accommodate people in the workplace who need to see a therapist on the regular, or need to be medicated and have some accommodation made? What are insurance companies doing to make sure mental health coverage is on par with physical health coverage, and who is enforcing the law when it isn't? What are we doing to support families and loved ones who are doing their best to support people dealing with mental health issues? As long as there are still so many not getting the help they need, the obvious answer to all of these questions is, not enough.… Read More
World Suicide Prevention Day 2021 — www.childabusesurvivor.net So, the thing I want us to talk about this year is not just encouragement to call a hotline or to reach out to a friend for help, or even to tell our stories and erase the stigma around mental health issues. I want us to consider doing more than that. I want us, as a society, to figure out how to provide hope. As much value as there is in all of those other things if I can't provide some hope that things will get better, that we are working and advocating for things to get better across all areas of our culture, then I can't honestly say that there is a reason for someone to hope, and at the end of the day, the thing that truly prevented me from taking my own life when I was at my worst, was the hope that life wouldn't always be that painful. As it turned out, my life wasn't always that painful, and even in times of pain, I can look back and remember that. How do we provide that hope for others who have been beaten down and worn out with life right now? Where does their hope come from?
Sharing - I Feel Nothing: Emotional Numbness and How to Cope — www.childabusesurvivor.net In my experience all of that is true. The trauma of my childhood left me numb in early adulthood. The current pandemic and all of the other things going on around us every day have left me numb from time to time now. It's the overwhelming stress that just living every day can bring right now. So, I find myself doing some of the things recommended in the article below to help in the short term, while also knowing that if that doesn't work, I need to consider the long-term options as well.… Read More
Seattle Times Launching Mental Health Project — www.childabusesurvivor.net I'm not in the Pacific Northwest any longer, but if you are, or if you're interested in learning about the issues surrounding mental health in Washington State, which I assume are going to be similar to everywhere else in the US, they will be launching a two-year project to look at mental health.… Read More
Sharing - Trauma-Related Dissociation: Symptoms, Treatment, Coping, and More — www.childabusesurvivor.net Of course, using this same defense mechanism in later life can be a problem, and when your brain has used this as a sort of "last resort" choice to survive, that might also mean that your memory of the event isn't what others would like it to be. That's OK, it helped you survive, that is the important thing. The rest is irrelevant if you don't survive, so we are glad about that. Once you've survived, we can work on the rest of it. Read more about the what, why, and how of dissociation at the link below.… Read More
Older Posts
Survivors Trust List of Books and Memoirs — www.childabusesurvivor.net Over on the Survivor Trust website, in addition to all of the other information and resources they share for survivors, they have a special section for books and memoirs written by, and for survivors. They are also open to sharing other books on the site as well.… Read More
Have You Been Labeled? — www.childabusesurvivor.net 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!… Read More
Talking About World Suicide Prevention Day — www.childabusesurvivor.net In between work conference calls today, I had the opportunity to spend my lunch hour talking to Tiffany Werhner and the Moments of Clarity audience about
It's All So Toxic — www.childabusesurvivor.net Of course, one of the tell-tale signs of depression, and unhealthy responses to trauma, like abuse, is overly black and white thinking. Going to extremes, if you will. So, it's easy for many of us to fall into these toxic traps. It's easy to think that we should feel shame about what happened to us, or that we can somehow rid ourselves of that shame, and anger, by simply refusing to do anything but be positive. But neither one of these is real healing. Real healing, like real emotions, and real people, are messier than that. It's still worth it though, as are a lot of those messy emotions and people too. If you let yourself get out of the black and white thinking, you just might see that too.
Sharing - COVID-19 stress is making America increasingly irritable. But what is all this rage hiding? — www.childabusesurvivor.net I don’t know anyone that isn’t more irritable now than they were a year ago, but do we know why? And what do we do about it? This seems like a fairly accurate picture of our current situation: “In fact, … Read More
Sharing - 5 Amazing Benefits of Blogging about Mental Health — www.childabusesurvivor.net I've had people refer to me as someone who is surprisingly self-aware. I don't really think of myself that way, but what I do know is that reading and writing about mental health topics, as well as my own experience in therapy, provides me with constant reminders about the importance of mental health, and how that information either resonates with me, or doesn't, and why. I don't think our current culture really encourages that kind of behavior. We are encouraged to be busy, productive, constantly hustling and then showing it off on social media. Self-reflection? Ha! No time for that. But there should be time for that. Without knowing ourselves, how can we even start to care for our own mental health?… Read More
Why Suicide Prevention Week Is Important for Child Abuse Survivors — www.childabusesurvivor.net I've survived both childhood abuse, and a suicide attempt. I know what it feels like to believe that it will never get better, just as much as I know that it can get better because it has. Truthfully, you are a survivor, and the world needs you and your story. How else will the other survivors around you know what is possible?… Read More
Shared From Elsewhere
Everything to Know About Inner Child Work to Heal Past Trauma and Emotional Wounds — www.wellandgood.com Childhood bullying, abuse, and neglect affect mental health in adults if unprocessed. Here's what inner child work is like.
PTSD and Trauma: Not Just for Veterans
How to Deal With Your Childhood Trauma As an Adult — lifehacker.com
The Importance of Setting Boundaries | HealthyPlace — www.healthyplace.com It's important to set boundaries for yourself and for others. Find out why at HealthyPlace.