Every survivor of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) that I know has a lot of enormously difficult days when they struggle desperately with feeling bad, feeling lousy, feeling at fault, feeling pain. Those struggles can last for years. Healing does come, but on those difficult days, remember what is true. When the hard days come, it might be hard to remember.... It was not okay that anyone touched your … [Read more...]
Can the Horrors of Halloween Drain Away, Leaving Room for Fun?
For most dissociative trauma survivors, Halloween is a difficult time. Halloween is an expansion filled with horrific memories, vivid flashbacks, overwhelming darkness, and uncomforted fear. Internal systems flip and change, with those typically lodged in the back finding their way to the front, making the usual everyday feel completely different from before. Working with these dark parts is essential for healing. … [Read more...]
Turning Self-Injury into Self-Soothing
Self-injury is a problem all too common for trauma survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID / MPD) or Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). For that matter, self-injury (SI) is an issue for other populations of people as well. This discussion will focus more on the effects of trauma and abuse and how self-injury can be addressed effectively. However, because self-injury is actually a very … [Read more...]
A Real Unicorn?!! Really?
This article is written for the child parts of the DID survivors that read this blog. Hey Kids, did you see the news yesterday? Hmmmm…. probably not, because most kids don’t watch the news. And because of that, I wanted to make sure to let you know about something I saw in the news that might interest you. Look! Look! They found something that looks like a real unicorn!! If you look … [Read more...]
What Did Your Mother Teach You?
Mother’s Day. Mother's Day is a hard day for a lot of dissociative trauma survivors. It’s a day full of mixed emotions, painful longings, unhealed heartbreak. Mother's Day hurts the people who were hurt so much by their mothers. Mothers are a complicated subject, to say the least, and the impact a mother can have on her children can and does change their lives. Abusive or neglectful mothers can teach some … [Read more...]