It’s Halloween weekend again -- a season full of flashbacks and trauma for many dissociative trauma survivors. It feels dark. It feels scary. In some ways, it's the worst time of the year, and if this is the case, the flashbacks are pretty horrific. So......... let's do a less scary flashback with this article. Think back to 2010. That year, back in 2010, I was reminded of the dichotomy our society … [Read more...]
Externalizing Responsibility vs. Internalizing Responsibility
Externalizing Responsibility What an interesting phrase. Externalizing responsibility is when someone fails to accept personal responsibility for the messes they make or for the problems they cause. It is also failing to accept personal responsibility for the situations they find themselves in. Internalizing responsibility is personally taking on the responsibility for what happens (in the past, present, … [Read more...]
Remembering Annemaria
There is a young woman who will always be precious to me. I haven’t spoken to her in years, but she forever changed my life. Just in being herself, Annemaria gave me my very first introduction to Dissociative Disorders. She changed my life. Absolutely and completely. This date – October 23rd -- had specific meaning for her. And every year on this date, I specifically think of her. The story … [Read more...]
12 Tips for Reducing Shame
One of the hardest areas of healing work in trauma disorders is dealing with shame. For many survivors of sexual abuse, healing work involves learning about a lot of intense memories that leave them feeling a great deal of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment. These are difficult emotions to process, and the memory material is typically very overwhelming. Some survivors feel immersed in shame from the … [Read more...]
Current Day Abuse – When Dissociative Survivors are Trapped, Owned, and Exploited as Adults
Dissociative Identity Disorder is created from severe, chronic child abuse, but does that abuse automatically stop in childhood? Unfortunately, no, it does not. All too many survivors continue to be trapped in abusive environments long after their childhood has ended. Sometimes this abuse continues with the same family-related perpetrators that abused the survivor all throughout the childhood … [Read more...]