The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

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Because sexual abuse is just one of many factors that shaped your development, it isn’t always possible to isolate its effects from the other influences on your life. If you have trouble trusting people, is it because you were molested when you were nine, because your mother was an alcoholic, or because you were left alone for hours every day as a small child? It’s the interplay of hundreds of factors that make us who we are today.

The Courage to Heal Workbook: A Guide for Women and Men… The Courage to Heal Workbook: A Guide for Women and Men…

Loftus, E (1993). "The Reality of Repressed Memories". The American Psychologist. 48 (5): 518–537. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.48.5.518. PMID 8507050 . Retrieved 2009-08-17. I had no friends. I knew only a small handful of people. I remember thinking if I died, the first person to know it would be the landlady when I didn’t pay my rent on the first of the month. There was really nobody in my life. No one I cared about. I was incredibly isolated. And I continued to feel that way until I went to Alcoholics Anonymous. The Courage to Heal is a wise and gentle book that should be read by all people trying to recover from having been sexually misused as a child, and by all friends, family members, and professionals with a genuine desire to understand both the experience of being a victim of sexual abuse and the arduous path to recovery. The Courage to Heal has helped countless survivors of sexual abuse in their efforts to confront the realities of their lives and to take charge of them in the present." I became 100 percent work. I got into graduate school and just turned off to sharing or closeness with anyone. I was in a really intense MBA program, and I was determined to be perfect. If I wasn’t at work with my job, I was working on school, which was supposed to get me further ahead in my job. It was all that mattered. It was the only place left where I could prove I was worth anything.Some survivors go to great lengths to limit intimacy. One woman said, I can stop being friends with someone and never think twice about it. Another had relationships only with men who lived a great distance from her: One of them was a plane ride away. The other one didn’t have a car. That was really good. Lewis, JR (2004-01-15). The Oxford handbook of new religious movements. Oxford University Press. pp. 235–6. ISBN 0-19-514986-6. Contratto, Susan (September 1995). "Transforming Oppression: Fighting Sexual Violence". Psychology of Women Quarterly. 19 (3): 429–430. doi: 10.1177/036168439501900301. S2CID 147099935. Archived from the original on 2013-12-16.

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Although it is terrifying to say yes to yourself, it is also a tremendous relief when you finally stop and face your own demons. An increasing number of books and resources on dissociation are now available. We have many of these listed in the Resource Guide. See Trauma, Memory, and the Brain on p. 546. Diane Hugs, one of the women profiled in Courageous Women, describes her experience with multiple personalities on p. 455. Some survivors avoid intimacy in less overt ways, seeming open and friendly on the surface but hiding real feelings inside. One survivor had a Ten Official Secrets List that she freely shared: When children are sexually abused, their natural sexual unfolding is stolen. They are introduced to sex on an adult’s timetable, according to an adult’s needs. They may not have a chance to explore naturally, to experience their own desires from the inside. Sexual arousal becomes linked to feelings of shame, disgust, pain, and humiliation. Pleasure is tainted as well. And desire (the abuser’s desire) is dangerous, an out-of-control force used to hurt them.a b c "Victoria, Australia Health Services Commissioner: Inquiry into the Practice of Recovered Memory Therapy" (PDF). Australia Health Services Commissioner. 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-08-31 . Retrieved 2006-12-11. Showalter E (1997). Hystories: hysterical epidemics and modern media, 149–154, New York: Columbia University Press. I know you're in a world of pain, but that pain will lessen. At the beginning you can't see that. You can only see your pain and you think it will never go away. I never was a partygoer. I rarely went to bars. I did my drinking alone at home. I drank until I passed out, or until the bottle was empty. It was always the last time I was going to do it, so why not finish it off?