By sexual development, I'm discussing the development of children's relationship to sex, sexual behaviors, relationship to their body, and relationships with others. This will help you to understand what is normal for children to do when it comes to sex and how parents can best guide them.
The cycle of abuse needs to be understood as it really is, not as a fate for all victims, an excuse for perpetrators or catch-all explanations of the culture of abuse we live in.
Survivors of abuse and IPV may miss it after it ends or crave acts of sexual violence. Those of us who may miss aspects of our abuse often feel like we wanted the abuse, deserved it or will only ever be abused. But we never deserved to be abused, we never wanted it, there are … Continue reading Informational Article: Why Survivors Miss Abuse
Our culture has a huge problem with separating and atomizing us. This has a huge effect on the general world and an outsized effect on the recovery trauma, I also see a huge impact of eating disorder recovery (there is a high overlap in trauma survivors and disordered eating). We are told that our body … Continue reading Informational Article: Being Our Whole Selves Brain & Body
Intrusive thoughts are not things we actually want to do. If you do not actively want to sexually act on children and don’t experience sexual attraction to children. Intrusive thoughts are a mental health issue that are upsetting, other thoughts like murder, driving the car off the road, or other forms of sexual violence happen … Continue reading Question: Does having intrusive thoughts about children make me an abuser?
What is Gaslighting? Gaslighting is a common form of emotional/psychological abuse and can be used as a tactic in grooming children for abuse. The term comes from Gaslight (1944) a movie where the technique is used by the characters. Gaslighting is sometimes also called "crazy making". Gaslighting is used to make the victim feel as … Continue reading Informational Article: What is Gaslighting
Grooming is when someone builds a connection with someone to gain their trust for the purposes of sexual abuse, child porn production or sex trafficking. Grooming can be done in person and online.
Signs in Children: Anger and aggressivenessAny extreme changes of behaviour or moodsAn unhealthy attachment to a single personAnxiety and hypervigilanceAvoiding changing in front of people, dressing out for gym class, swimming or other activities where more than normal skin is exposedBeing overly compliant with requests, directions and physical contact. Or a “fawn” responseBleeding in the … Continue reading Informational Article: Signs of Sexual Abuse
Trauma bonding is a way to understand patterns of abusive behaviour and how that affects the neurochemistry of the victims, and how that, in turn, relates to how the people in the relationship bond with the abuser. This helps survivors understand why they can miss abusive relationships and why they continued to love their abusers … Continue reading Informational Article: Trauma Bonding
We’ve all heard of the “Fight or Flight Response”. When looking at the physiology this is the sympathetic nervous system response. The sympathetic nervous system is part of the autonomic nervous system, the involuntary functions of the nervous system. It is the way our bodies handle input that we read as fighting and/or a threat.
Survivors Healing Survivors 