Being Willing to Try New Strategies after Child Abuse

Some child abuse survivors are so used to believing certain things about themselves that, although they want to heal, they also don’t want to try new strategies to heal. To quote Dr. Phil, If you keep doing the same things that you have always done, you will keep getting the same results that you have [...]

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Battling Self Hate after Child Abuse

Several comments on my blog lately have touched upon the issue of self hate. Self hate is a very common aftereffect of child abuse. In fact, it is so common that Compassion and Self Hate by Theodore I. Rubin is the one book that my therapist strongly urged me to read. It is not the [...]

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Dealing with Floods of Emotions

On my blog entry entitled Controlling the Darker Parts of Ourselves after Child Abuse, a reader posted the following comment: What if [your emotions] don’t come ONE at a time?!? What if its a flood? I might be able to deal with all of the emotions if I could control them, and release them one [...]

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How Can I Speed up the Child Abuse Healing Process?

A reader emailed me to ask how to speed up the process of healing from child abuse. The reader has grown weary of the healing process and wants to fast-track the process to get it over with. I can completely relate to this because I said the same things many times myself. My therapy used [...]

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Controlling the Darker Parts of Ourselves after Child Abuse

On my blog entry entitled Do Sexually Abused Children Enjoy Orgasms from Rape or Sexual Abuse?, a reader posted the following comment: Just so afraid to let go because last time I did I ended up very suicidal and admitted inpatient. I don’t have the skills to “control” those parts. Not quite sure how to [...]

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Is it Possible to Remember Abuses from When You Were a Baby?

A reader wants to know if it is possible to recover flashbacks from when you were a baby. The answer is yes, although those flashbacks are often a bit different from what other flashbacks feels like. From what I have read, memories are categorized in your brain based upon your past experiences. For example, if [...]

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Overprotective Parenting after Child Abuse

On my blog entry entitled Seeing Own Child as Representative of Inner Child, a reader posted the following comment: how do i stop overprotecting my son???and teach him the world is not a horrible dangerous place? ~ Jolson When you were abused as a child, you know firsthand just how dangerous the world can be. [...]

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Crisis Pregnancy after Rape by Abuser

A reader asked if I have ever written a blog about how to deal with having been pregnant by your abuser. The answer is no, so I am going to write about this topic today. I am infertile, so I (obviously) have never gotten pregnant through rape. This means that I cannot talk about what [...]

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I am reading the book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson for my Book Club. I had no idea that sexual assaults would be part of the book, much less such a graphic sexual assault. If you are in a bad place, do not read this book. However, if you are in [...]

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Taking a Deep Breath after Week of Battling Triggers

This past week has been an incredibly intense and empowering week for me. After dealing with feelings of despair in the prior weeks, I decided to fight back. I went to the gym every day this week. I did yoga and meditation four days. (I would have done five days, but my son’s school sent [...]

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