Posts Tagged ‘sexual abuse’

Fear? Or Intuition?

May 7th, 2015

PTSD treatment“Trust your intuition.” We’ve all been told this. It’s nice to be able to trust yourself and your internal compass. However, a yoga teacher recently reminded me that trusting your intuition isn’t always that straightforward.

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Sexual Trauma and Men – A Path to Thriving

July 11th, 2014

Talking about sexual assault, sexual abuse, and rape is difficult for anyone. For men, it has it’s own unique challenges – often putting to question a man’s sense of his own masculinity. Men, some think more then women, are quiet about this experience. They often don’t know what path to take in dealing with such challenging memories. And we know that when people don’t talk about the hard stuff, when they hold it in, that they often get depressed, angry, sad, and feel alone and misunderstood.

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The Tricky Part

February 23rd, 2011

Have you read Martin Moran’s memoir “The Tricky Part“?  It’s his story of being sexually abused as achildhood sexual abuse  child and his journey to recovery.   It’s a wonderful, yet harrowing read for many reasons.  The part that stands out to me is his conflicting thoughts of hating the abuse, but also liking the attention.  It’s a confusing thought that many people – men and women – who were abused by someone they know experience.

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A Decision to Heal

February 24th, 2010

PTSD treatmentHow does it feel to heal from sexual abuse?  What efforts do people make to once again feel healthy & strong, to regain trust?  A terrific resource is the book “Strong at the Heart” by Carolyn Lehman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).  She makes space for eleven survivors of sexual abuse to tell their stories of healing and hope.

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Escaping Trauma (Examples from the movie “Precious”)

November 23rd, 2009

traumaHave you seen the movie “Precious”?  I found it to be very moving, upsetting and enlightening.  I thought that the main character, Precious, gave us some excellent examples of the negative effects of trauma and abuse – be it physical, sexual, or emotional.

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The Shame Trap

April 19th, 2009

So many things can happen in life that trap us is shame.   Being raped or in a violent relationship, childhood sexual exploitation, having an addiction or dealing with sexuality issues, or even a mental illness are just a few of the things of which folks feel ashamed.  There are many more.  Most of them are not our fault.  But “The Shame Trap” catches you.

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Practicing Forgiveness…

March 17th, 2009

Forgiveness is a tough concept.  Especially if you’ve been abused, neglected or molested.  It’s hard to even think about forgiveness if you’ve been mistreated by lovers, bosses, so-called friends, or even society (especially if you’re a Person of Color or LGBT).  How can you forgive someone who hurt you so badly?

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Men Confronting Sexual Abuse and Rape

January 9th, 2009

Confronting a history of sexual abuse and rape is difficult for anyone.  It is uniquely difficult for men, as our culture has so many myths about male sexuality.  One is that men can’t be raped.  A second is that males always enjoy any kind of sexual attention.  It’s deemed a inherent part of our make-up.

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