Thinking abuse is normal, even how sex and relationships should work, is common with CSA survivors. Most children don’t understand if and/or why sexual abuse is wrong. Kids don’t have a frame of reference of normal sexual interaction and are generally told by their abuser this is normal, this how relationships should go. If the … Continue reading Questions: Can abuse be Traumatic if you were unaware is was abuse at the time?
childhood sexual abuse
Symptom Explainers: Flashbacks
What are Flashbacks? Flashbacks are a psychological phenomena during which a person relives a past event or fragments of a past experience. They generally occur involuntarily, abruptly entering a person’s minds without the aid of premeditation or conscious attempts to recall the memory. They can be extremely intense. As flashbacks involve past events, they may … Continue reading Symptom Explainers: Flashbacks
Symptom Explainers: Body Memories
Also called Somatic Flashbacks Body memories are a kind of flashback specifically of somatic symptoms. It’s a flashback that instead of visual or auditory memories of traumatic events being relived it's the sensations and sensory inputs of your other 3 senses (touch/smell/taste). Flashbacks are usually triggered by reminders of the abuse. These can be mundane … Continue reading Symptom Explainers: Body Memories
Diagnosis Primer: Dissociative Disorders
In this post, I’m going to give an outline of Dissociative identity disorder (DID) and Other Specified Dissociative disorder (OSDD). These two disorders are terribly misunderstood due to horrible representation in media, a lack of education on the topic. Many people still refer DID as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) an outdated term from when DID … Continue reading Diagnosis Primer: Dissociative Disorders
Question: How can I be brave enough to say the terms ‘rape’ and shared details of trauma?
You can write about it put the details on paper. You don’t have to share all of those details with people but it can help it feel less bottled up and more acceptable to say if you have made it real on paper. After writing you can try saying rape and other specifics to yourself. … Continue reading Question: How can I be brave enough to say the terms ‘rape’ and shared details of trauma?
For Loved Ones: Supporting Someone Who is A CSA Survivor
Originally Posted on Tumblr Often times when someone learns someone they care about has gone through CSA it can feel overwhelming. They go through a lot of emotions and can struggle to understand what to do next. If you’re in that situation, or you are a survivor who has someone in your life you want … Continue reading For Loved Ones: Supporting Someone Who is A CSA Survivor
Coping Skills: Healing A Relationship With Sex After Sexual Abuse
This post is going to focus on our relationship mainly with the concept of sex, masturbation and partner sex. Sexual violence at any age will affect the way the victim of the violence relates to sex. This is heightened with trauma at exceptionally young ages as the survivors never developed a relationship to sex in … Continue reading Coping Skills: Healing A Relationship With Sex After Sexual Abuse
Informational Article: Factors In Traumatization, Presentation of Trauma Symptoms, and Development of Mental Illness
This line of thinking can become a bit of a suffering contest putting some conditions, often DID/OSDD as the most traumatized with the only real trauma and the person who might not be suffering from a severe mental health condition didn’t go through anything, that isn’t true either. There is no gold star way to experience trauma and making a hierarchy of suffering helps no one.When looking at experiences of trauma survivors, understanding the way kids develop mental health conditions, and how we can best support healing for kids we need a larger view of all of this.
Informational Article: The Difference between Sexual Abuse & Sexual Harassment
They are used mostly as synonymous in common usage of the terms. Sexual harassment is an umbrella term for a range of inappropriate sexual acts, it can be broken into some common types: verbal harassment includes: using misogynistic or homophobic language (w/sexual undertones), rape jokes, inappropriate/unwanted sexual comments, propositions of sexual interactions, catcalling, or unsolicited sexual stories. … Continue reading Informational Article: The Difference between Sexual Abuse & Sexual Harassment
Symptoms Explainer: What is Hypersexuality?
Hypersexuality is defined as preoccupations with and impulsive acts around sex. To be hypersexuality it must cause discomfort or dysfunction for the person experiencing it. Sometimes incorrectly referred to as sex addiction. Hypersexuality is experienced by those who experience episodes of mania, personality disorders, OCD, and (C)-PTSD. Sexual abuse and other sexual trauma are often … Continue reading Symptoms Explainer: What is Hypersexuality?
Survivors Healing Survivors 