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If I can share a positive message with you, it would be that the worst is behind us, we survived and we can thrive. We are NOT alone, and our stories are all uniquely similar. There is someone out there (like me) who knows what it's like. We can begin our healing journey together with love and kindness to ourselves and others.
What healing means to me is, learning to detach her name from my pain so I don't get a rise in my chest when it's mentioned. So I can have a real connection with my cousins (her brother) daughter who I call my niece. Healing to me is not defaulting to remembering painful thoughts when im alone. I've just started my path on this, but I hope I can achieve these goals someday.
When I was around 7-8 years old I was being molested and raped by my older cousin. She was around 11-12 at the time. We grew up in the same home together with mine and her brothers and sisters, we grew up kind of rough. Lots of drugs and drug dealing/using going on around us. As well as violence. We played together alot and I looked up to her as a big sister and she took care of us younger ones. I'm not sure if this is the first instance of abuse, but it's the first one I remember; we were upstairs at night and it was just us two. I remember her taking off her clothes and telling me to put my fingers inside her, I didn't know what it was so I did. She told me to keep it secret 'because family keeps secrets'. After that I can remember us playing 'games' like hide and seek, doctor, and house. All of it was to get me alone with her looking back with hindsight. We would build blanket forts and that is where I was first raped and was told 'this is what daddies do to mommies'. I'm not sure how long this went on, but for me the most shameful part was that I eventually came to expect these games and actually sought out that attention, I was part of my own abuse. I have still kept this secret, I want to talk to someone about it but I can't. Her father took her and my other cousins away, and that was the last time I saw her. She died shortly after she was taken. It really messed me up because on one hand she took care of me in my broken home, but at the same time she was sexually abusing me and set me up for a life time 'prison' sentence. I will get no resolution or confrontation. I just have to cope. It's affected my whole way of thinking my whole life. I'm happy now days but I often wonder what I would be like if I was subjected to that abuse.
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Grounding activity
Find a comfortable place to sit. Gently close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths - in through your nose (count to 3), out through your mouth (count of 3). Now open your eyes and look around you. Name the following out loud:
5 – things you can see (you can look within the room and out of the window)
4 – things you can feel (what is in front of you that you can touch?)
3 – things you can hear
2 – things you can smell
1 – thing you like about yourself.
Take a deep breath to end.
From where you are sitting, look around for things that have a texture or are nice or interesting to look at.
Hold an object in your hand and bring your full focus to it. Look at where shadows fall on parts of it or maybe where there are shapes that form within the object. Feel how heavy or light it is in your hand and what the surface texture feels like under your fingers (This can also be done with a pet if you have one).
Take a deep breath to end.
Ask yourself the following questions and answer them out loud:
1. Where am I?
2. What day of the week is today?
3. What is today’s date?
4. What is the current month?
5. What is the current year?
6. How old am I?
7. What season is it?
Take a deep breath to end.
Put your right hand palm down on your left shoulder. Put your left hand palm down on your right shoulder. Choose a sentence that will strengthen you. For example: “I am powerful.” Say the sentence out loud first and pat your right hand on your left shoulder, then your left hand on your right shoulder.
Alternate the patting. Do ten pats altogether, five on each side, each time repeating your sentences aloud.
Take a deep breath to end.
Cross your arms in front of you and draw them towards your chest. With your right hand, hold your left upper arm. With your left hand, hold your right upper arm. Squeeze gently, and pull your arms inwards. Hold the squeeze for a little while, finding the right amount of squeeze for you in this moment. Hold the tension and release. Then squeeze for a little while again and release. Stay like that for a moment.
Take a deep breath to end.