CSA Help in Seeking Justice and Healing Journey

30/10/2023

When it comes to telling your story, there are countless reasons that it may feel nearly impossible to do. That weight on your chest, and the tangled web of complicating factors just multiply as a complex trauma survivor. Whether you're trying to share with friends, a partner, or a therapist, deeply ingrained beliefs and heavy emotions have a way of bottlenecking words - trapping them in your throat.
Sometimes, even after you've begun to share, that tightness can return when it's time to speak ill of someone — maybe someone you love deeply but who let you down, a person you've since forgiven, or a person who is adored by everyone else. The latter is often the most silencing. Trying to tell anyone that a person THEY believe to be wonderful has actually done some truly awful things? And, to YOU?! It renders so many voiceless.
Separate from these universal challenges, a symptom many survivors with Complex PTSD face - that most others do not - is the distorted perceptions of one's perpetrator. Ones that can linger long after they've gotten free. These ideas and feelings may fluctuate in huge waves - from good to bad and back again - or remain consistently distorted. It can make sharing one's story rather difficult, especially when at least parts of you believe in, appreciate, or love the redemptive traits of someone who's hurt you. ...even if you can also recognize the harmful, abusive, or dangerous traits, too. That internal warring over what kind of person this makes them, whether or not you see them correctly NOW, or the urges to still convince others of their goodness can thwart the whole endeavor. It's hard and painful. But. For now:
This is YOUR story.
This is YOUR life.
You are telling the things that happened to YOU, because that is who matters most in your story.
You are not telling someone else's story. They can tell their own. And, when they speak, they can tell it all exactly how they saw things.
Your story is what it was like behind YOUR eyes,
in YOUR bones,
in YOUR heart.
You are not responsible for what people think of them. They are. They did that. The only one who can tell your story is you. Let it fully honor your experience. Not contaminated, withheld, or diluted. If what you felt, or the ways you were hurt by another, doesn't make them look very good?
Well...
Maybe they should have behaved better.
💙📝💚
We are here for you as you tell it loud.
Photo quote by Anne Lamott

30/10/2023

Did you know that singing is great for mental health🧠 as it calms our nervous system. 🎶

30/10/2023

Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes in the healing of complex childhood trauma. But, there is an additional average of 7 years that can be lost to *multiple* misdiagnoses before a survivor even gets to begin that healing journey. Thankfully, these last few years have seen a steep and promising increase in the amount of trauma awareness and education on dissociation/dissociative disorders as a whole. The catch to this rapid visibility and eagerness to become "trauma-informed," though, is that not nearly enough are becoming trauma COMPETENT.
Far too often, survivors now lose years to the inexperience and overpromising of professionals who believe they've acquired a skillset they don't yet fully have. While online seminars and weekend training sessions on trauma, dissociation, EMDR, and/or adjunctive therapies are incredibly lucrative and important, they are merely an introduction or supplement to a larger body of knowledge. They do not substitute the full-course training programs, supervision, shadowing, and/or hands-on experience with survivors at different stages of wellness that build a truly safe, qualified clinician.
Knowing what and why extreme dissociation occurs in the mind of a child is not the same as working face-to-face, day in and day out, with a full system who is struggling with unmanaged dissociation, rapid switching, infighting, internal AND external safety issues, passive influence, and/or zero internal communication, co-consciousness, cooperation, or even awareness of one another. Trying to guide a survivor through these sensitive things when you're unequipped is negligent at best, life-threatening at most. And, this doesn't even factor in the actual trauma aspect that each system member is affected by. Memory processing, flashbacks, body memories, insomnia, emotion regulation, and/or co-occuring eating or substance struggles are all very delicate, nuanced issues in single-identitied survivors. How these things present and find resolution within an entire community of identities is something else entirely.
Survivors deserve therapeutic care that is equipped to see them through some of the worst things most can even imagine, not merely someone's best effort or misguided attempt at "making it work" or shoe-horning in what they DO know. The most loving and compassionate action should a clinician find themselves in this space is to admit their inexperience, seek immediate supervision, or refer out to trusted care. "Bad therapy" is not better than no therapy in this case. It can be life-threatening. Further, continuing to allow a survivor to establish a deep connection with someone they love to see, trust, and feel safe with - only to find out they're in so far over their head they're delaying or actively damaging their progress - is devastating. Worse, it forces them to not only have to start all over with someone new, but first process the trauma of this loss and of any additional damage they incurred along the way.
In short, we need more clinicians, treatment centers, and programs to help survivors get diagnosed faster, seeing professionals who are fully qualified, and no longer taking on more trauma in their quest to heal. That journey alone feels long and daunting enough. But, with better education, awareness, and access, we can dramatically reduce the amount of suffering they'll face along the way. And, shortening how long it will take a survivor to live fully out loud is worth every ounce of our energy on this side. It matters. They matter.
💜💛💙

27/11/2022

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27/11/2022

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27/11/2022

When someone tells you they were r***d or sexually assaulted, knowing how to respond is critical. A negative response can worsen the trauma and foster an environment where perpetrators face no consequences for their crimes.

Start by Believing stops this cycle by improving our personal and professional reactions.

It all starts with you. Visit www.startbybelieving.org to learn more.

27/11/2022

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