Confusing Child with Inner Child after Child Abuse

Last week was not a good week for me. I have a lot going on in my life right now, and I could handle the surface stuff if I was not getting triggered on a regular basis. It feels as if I cannot overcome one trigger before another knocks me off my feet again. My [...]

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How Do You Know You Have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)?

Somebody found my blog by Googling the question, “How do you know you have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)”? I think this is a great topic to cover, although it is not so easy to answer. From a clinical standpoint, you have to meet the criteria outlined here. However, that is for diagnosing DID from an [...]

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Protect Our Children Act Passed!!!!!!!!

Those of you who follow this blog know that I have been advocating heavily for the passage of the Protect Our Children Act, also known as Senate Bills 1738 and 3344. I wrote about the importance of this legislation for abused children in all of these posts: Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2008 Oprah’s Show [...]

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Tips for Working through Flashbacks after Child Abuse

In my last post, PTSD: What Do Flashbacks Feel Like?, I shared what flashbacks felt like for me. In this post, I will share tips to make working through flashbacks more bearable. Let’s start with the physical aspects. When you are experiencing flashbacks, your brain is doing some major restructuring. Because of this, it is [...]

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PTSD: What Do Flashbacks Feel Like?

Somebody found my blog by Googling the question, “What do flashbacks feel like?” This is definitely a subject that I want to cover on my blog. I wrote about what flashbacks felt like for me here. One person responded in the comments that she experiences flashbacks differently and that her siblings describe their flashbacks differently [...]

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Riding Out Suicidal Urges

One of the most difficult parts of healing from child abuse is struggling with suicidal urges. As I moved through the child abuse healing process, I would feel suicidal urges from time to time. The pain ran so deep that I was willing to do anything – A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G – to make the pain stop. Even [...]

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Update on the Protect Our Children Act

I wrote about Senate Bills 1738 and 3344 last week in the following posts: Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2008 Oprah’s Show on Senate Bill 1738: Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2008 Controversy over Senate Bill 1738 and Oprah I was quite blunt about my disgust over the Democrats and the Republicans using abused children [...]

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Triggered by Use of Real Name in Online Setting

I am currently in training for a new job. It is a part-time position that I can do from home on my computer. It is very flexible, which works out nicely with my schedule. So far, training is going well. However (and you knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you?), the training requires me [...]

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Forms of Self-Injury: Pulling Your Hair Out

When people hear the phrase “self-injury,” they generally think about people who cut themselves (cutting). However, cutting is only one type of self-injury. People use numerous other types of self-injury, including… Banging head Breaking bones Burning themselves Picking at skin and/or scabs Pulling out hair and/or eyebrows Pulling out your hair, including your eyebrows, is [...]

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Link Between Child Abuse and Asthma?

Over on my professional blog, one of my colleagues wrote a blog entry about a link between child abuse and asthma. She cites a research study that found that children who were either physically or sexually abused were twice as likely to develop asthma. I am fascinated by this finding. I do not have asthma, [...]

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