Surviving low self esteem
Our survivor story features surviving low self-esteem. Discovering what you want to do with your life, and moving on to happiness.
Generational abuse torch-passing
Are you the Cinderella or a stepsister in your family’s story of generational abuse? How will you pass on the generational abuse torch?
Strength in brokenness
The world breaks everyone and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.”— Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms. Broken doesn’t mean beyond repair.
5 tips for friends of survivors
Your friend has just told you that they have been sexually assaulted, abused, stalked or raped and you want to support them but you’re not sure what they need. Maybe it happened to them decades ago, in childhood, or maybe it was as recent as today. You want to help your friend in any way you can. Situations may vary, but here are 5 tips for friends of survivors.
How to cope with anxiety
Having anxiety is difficult to explain to people. Sometimes, you feel like everything is falling into place, and the next, your world feels like it’s crashing down on you. Stress, feelings of neglect, worries about the future, all of these can combine into an anxiety episode or attack.
9 things to know about consent
The word “consent” gets thrown around as if everyone understands it. The basics are easy, but the nuances of consent can get complicated.
10 signs of a toxic relationship
No relationship is perfect, be it familial, a friendship, romantic relationship, or a marriage, yet any of these can be a toxic relationship
What a rape kit is (and isn’t)
Using these rape kits, evidence can be collected from a crime scene and when it comes to assault, that crime scene is the survivor’s body.
The Language of Abuse
How to lose the language of abuse and achieve the miracle of actually being able to think in the new language. Emotional language is everything.
How to Break the Cycle of Abusive Parenting
Are you a victim of abusive parenting and now a parent yourself? Wonder how to break the cycle of abusive parenting? Here are some ways.
Everyone needs a co-pilot
Trusting someone with your story of abuse is a huge hurdle to overcome if you have been sexually abused. You need a sexual abuse co-pilot.
Hierarchy of abuse
Society has ranked types of abuse in a hierarchy it considers most to least bad, and even buckets abuse into legitimate and illegitimate categories.
Maternal home visiting services prevent childhood trauma, saving lives, and money
20 years ago CDC research on childhood trauma, called ACEs, showed survivors lead shorter sicker lives. Why aren’t we preventing it?
Spending the holidays with your abuser
Many have the choice of attending holiday parties with their child sex abuser, or avoiding family at the holidays. Not an easy choice.
Survivors Surviving the Holidays
The holidays tend to be a tough time of year for survivors of child abuse. But common decency and thoughtfulness can help you survive the holidays.
Incest: Why I keep talking about it
It’s never easy to talk about being raped. It’s never easy to use words like “incest” and “victim” about yourself. I still do it, and I have my reasons why.
We have more control over our feelings and responses than we thought.
Feeling happy, content, comfortable or satisfied when things go well? What determines whether you feel good or bad? Control over our feelings and responses.
The man who raped me is dead
The man who raped me is dead. The start of an emotional roller coaster. Because every day we are surviving…even the day our rapist dies.
The other kind of motherless mother
Being a motherless mother is hard, the impact of a mother who has mental illness becomes clear when you become a mother yourself
Child sex abuse: How much was I worth?
“As a 13 year old I didn’t use all the right labels, but words like “rape” and “incest” were the first.” We must protect children from child sex abuse