Removing “Should” from your Vocabulary after Child Abuse

One frustration that I used to have in healing from child abuse was all of the “shoulds” that people threw my way. I “should” not still be having flashbacks. After all, nobody could have experienced that much abuse. I “should” be feeling anger toward my abusers. I “should” stop feeling shame and, instead, love myself. [...]

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Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and the Movies

I was flipping through my latest issue of the TV Guide and saw that a remake of the 1976 made-for-TV movie Sybil will be airing on CBS on Saturday, June 7, at 8:00 p.m. EST. That movie starred Sally Field, and it was pretty interesting. Of course, I saw the movie before I recognized that [...]

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Initial Stage of Healing from Child Abuse: Breakthrough Crisis

I believe it is the book The Courage to Heal that labels the initial stage of healing the “breakthrough crisis.” When I was in the early stages of healing, it helped so much to have a label for what I was going through. Learning that what I was experiencing was a normal part of healing [...]

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What is a Body Memory?

Most people are familiar with at least the concept of a visual flashback. A person with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) relives a traumatizing event by “seeing” the event take place again. Fewer are aware that flashbacks come in many other forms, such as emotional flashbacks. I have talked about non-visual flashbacks on my blog, but [...]

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Interesting Article about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

One my readers named Lost Sheep sent me a link to a fascinating article: What is Dissociative Identity Disorder (Formerly Multiple Identity Disorder)? The author(s) have done their homework. This is one of the best overviews I have read about DID from a mental health professional perspective. In this blog entry, I would like to [...]

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Non-Visual Flashbacks after Child Abuse

When I was going through the healing process, a visual flashback was obvious to me. I was suddenly reliving something traumatic. I would “see” and experience the event happening again while, at the same time, knowing that I was safe in my bed. I did not pick up on non-visual flashbacks quite as quickly. I [...]

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More Nightmares after Child Abuse

Okay, this is really getting old. Every night, I keep having nightmares. Fortunately, most are not as graphic as the one I posted about recently, but they are disturbing nonetheless. These dreams are keeping me from feeling rested. I wake up with all of my muscles feeling tense. I can tell that I have been [...]

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Recovering Memories of Child Abuse through Sickening Awareness

Many people think of recovering memories of child abuse as coming through visual flashbacks. This does happen frequently, particularly for people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, that is not the only way that people recover memories. For example, a flashback does not have to be visual. A flashback can come through any of the [...]

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Disconnection from the Body after Child Abuse

Over on my professional blog, I write about adoption topics. My favorite topics to write about are trauma-related. I have several readers who have adopted traumatized children. They appreciate the insights that I can provide into the way their traumatized children’s minds work. I have launched a new feature over there this week called “Trauma [...]

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Disturbing Dream about Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse

I really do want to move on to other topics on my blog, but apparently I am still working through issues related to the mother-daughter sexual abuse. Oh, joy. I had a disturbing dream about the mother-daughter sexual abuse that really shook me up. What is most annoying is that I cannot rest when I [...]

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