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.
emotional abuse
Informational Article: Why Survivors Miss Abuse
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
Informational Article: Attachment Theory (Pt 2)
Understanding attachment can help people understand why they are dealing with what they are and to make sense of specific experiences with our caregivers and abusers (for many of us these are the same person) Attachment theory can help people know what is making relationships so hard and begin to address what it is and form better relationships going forward. Knowing it's a piece of other mental health struggles can also help be a piece in recovering from DID, BPD, or C-PTSD. It gives us words to explain our struggles and find others dealing with similar.
Informational Article: Attachment Theory (Pt 1)
Attachment theory is a bedrock of our current understanding of child development in their ability to form relationships, have a stable affect, understand emotions and self-sooth. It is one of the earliest and most important stages of development when talking about emotions and relationships.
Diagnosis Primer: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Post Traumatic Disorder (PTSD) is a relatively common disorder in those who have experienced trauma. It includes much of the cultural assumptions of what trauma causes like flashbacks and reactions to reminders of the trauma. The depictions are often done with some real misinformation so hopefully, this will help flesh out how PTSD is understood … Continue reading Diagnosis Primer: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Informational Article: What is Gaslighting
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
Informational Article: Grooming, What is it?
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.
Question: How do you Stop Mourning a Lost Childhood?
You don’t, not really. In complete honesty, the reason your grieving is because you have too. What is going to help you get over the pain is to let yourself feel sad, angry, scared, hurt,lost, depressed and so confused. It hurts like hell but healing is never pretty. It's good to think about someone who … Continue reading Question: How do you Stop Mourning a Lost Childhood?
Informational Article: Signs of Sexual Abuse
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
Informational Article: Trauma Bonding
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
Survivors Healing Survivors 