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The most helpful paragraph I've read in a long time...

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Rid of my disgrace is a book by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb about sexual assault. It is a hugely helpful, compassionate and informative book that I would encourage survivors of sexual assault to read. I'll post a review on this book in a later post, but for now, I just want to focus on one paragraph. I wanted to share it here in full and then take some time to consider it sentence by sentence in the next few posts. I think that Justin and Lindsey have managed to get to the heart of the lies that sexual assault survivors believe and expose their lies with true, moving, important words.   These words are things that I struggle to believe. I struggle to accept them. I sometimes say them, but struggle to really internalise them. I find myself grappling with feelings of worthlessness and confusion over what happened to me. This paragraph helps me to silence the lies. It helps me to set my eyes on the truth. I hope you find it as helpful as I have: What happened to you was not you
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Two Tips To Help You Not Give Up

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Something I've come to realise about myself as a survivor of sexual assault is that I give up easily. I didn't realise that this was a result of my assault, a response to feeling worthless and unworthy. For many years I thought I was being logical. I thought I was rightly responding to situations, so I kept going in the same vain. I have continued to look at my circumstances and, if they are negative, read them as personal judgements on my character and then.. give up. Let me share an example... writing this blog! I started this blog as a way to chart my healing journey, but I also thought that I'd love to help others if I could. I had a passion to encourage other sexual assault survivors and help them to see how brave, strong and valuable they were. But, I thought, no-one will ever read it! Surely no-one would ever want to read anything I wrote! And then if I didn't see anyone reading it, I'd conclude: I'm rubbish. I should give up. I have nothing to contr
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2 reasons why kindness transforms

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As a sexual assault survivor, there have been responses that have helped me so much and others that have hindered me in my healing journey. Kindness has been one of the former. It has helped me to heal. It has helped me to thrive. Here’s why in two very simple points: silence damages, but kindness heals. 1. Silence damages Sometimes people assume that people know what they think of them. They don’t feel that they need to spell it out. They don't feel that they need to speak out. “She/he knows that I love her,” they may say. But, those unspoken words are often filled in by those hearing them as, “you don’t care.” Unspoken words are never silent. They speak volumes.  So, please say those words. Speak those kind sentiments. Help someone to heal. Give them courage to keep going. Help build them up when so many pull them down. It will have such a positive effect. It has for me.   I've often been surprised when people have spoken their mind. What I feared that th
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Your unique healing journey

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Often I wonder, 'Am I doing okay?' Not just okay in life, but okay in my healing journey. I wonder if I am doing it 'right,' if I am moving forwards and not backwards. If I'm overcoming the hurdles rather than being crushed and overcome by them. Am I doing okay? Well, as I continue on this journey I've realised some important things that have helped me immensely: 1. You are unique It has struck me that as much as each person is a unique, valued human being, our journeys are also unique. There is no right or wrong in how we do it. A lot has been said about the healing journey and there are countless books that talk about the steps to take. These may be helpful, but only as a guide, as we are all different. We are not robots. We are all unique. This has really helped me stop questioning myself. It has helped me to stop worrying that I'm not doing okay. This has been really important as it's given me the ability to concentrate on my healing. Conce
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Self care during lockdown

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As lockdown has continued, I have been surprised at how it has affected me. This has meant that I've needed to practice self care more than ever, (see past blog posts on self care here and here ). As time is passing, I've spent time thinking about what is really bothering me about the lockdown and why I'm struggling.  This has helped me to consider how I can best practice self care and consider the best coping mechanisms at this time. I hope that these thoughts may help others and some of the suggestions may help start a conversation about how we can all be caring for ourselves and one another in this strange time. Feeling out of control I am someone who is used to being indoors. I've studied a lot and my work has been based at home for most of my career. Now I have a little girl, I'm at home with her. So when lockdown was announced, I didn't think that it would affect me too much. I was surprised that one of the first things that hit me was that I felt
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The first step to healing

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For years, I struggled to accept that I was a victim of child sexual abuse and assault. I couldn’t bear to think the words, never mind say them. I remember trying to read various books and I’d block them out. I couldn’t bring myself to take that step. Even now, I struggle to accept, not what happened as much, but the pain and hurt that goes with it. The pain is immense at times. It takes over my whole being. My body cries out in pain for the betrayal and hurt I suffered. I carry it with me in every fibre of my being. It's more than memories. It's more than remembering an event.  The turning point was reading (or tried to read) Holcomb’s book ‘Rid of my Disgrace’ and a key element that they propose in the journey towards healing and recovery is defining and naming your assault. I didn’t understand why at first. I didn't want to define it. I didn't want to name it. I didn't want to accept it.  But now I get why it's so crucial: understanding what happe
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Responding to the heroes

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This is a subject that's very close to my heart: how to helpfully respond to a survivor of sexual assault. RAINN currently have a great acronym to help support survivors - TALK . I wanted to add my own thoughts to this and share my experience in telling others... This may be a post that you could share with friends or those in your church. It's something you may want to add your own thoughts to... I'd love to hear what you think. My experience of telling people has been hard. After I was abused as a child, I made a promise with myself that I would never tell anyone about the abuse. I kept that promise for over 10 years and in that time I was still being abused regularly. As an adult, I began to realise that what had happened to me was wrong and so I wanted to tell people. I didn't want to carry the pain alone. I hated the feeling that I had a dark cloud hanging over me with no relief. I believed that telling people would help. But I was also petrified. I was a
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Why it's worth speaking out

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Was it worth speaking out? Is it worth speaking out? I ask myself this often. I have broken the silence. Sometimes I'm glad. At other times I wish that I could turn back time and erase the day I did it as it is sometimes hard. People don't respond well. They don't respond as you expect and it's painful. But, they are my darker moments. And, I know that it was a good thing to speak out. I would do it again. That isn't because it's easy. It isn't because it's magically made everything better. Far from it. Breaking the silence, in some ways, has made things harder. It has caused me to think about things I didn't want to deal with. It's caused me to accept some difficult things. It has also produced some really unexpected fruit - helping others and being part of a community of survivors. They give me such strength and love. So, these are the reasons that I'm so glad that I broke the silence and spoke out about my abuse and assault: It&#
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