Lived Experience Forum

[Jadzia]

Sadgirl, it's an indictment of societies thinking of those who reveal sexual assault within families. Your betrayal is not that you were assaulted but that you have revealed it, tearing down the fragments of their lives and exposing things they don't want to know about or deal with. I used to despise those who stood by and did nothing while I was abused, betrayed by their refusal to stand up and help. Now I realise that it was because they were frightened. They didn't want to be put in the same situation as I, become victims, be ridiculed or lose their jobs so turned their backs and ignored it so Eirynn lives could continue undisturbed. It maybe that your family will live with that elephant in the room, but it's their elephant and not a reflection on you, just their fear.

[CherryBomb]

Hi @BlueBay, @Jadzia raised some really good points in addressing your question. Recovery is very much an individual journey. Everyone has their own jigsaw puzzle with different shaped pieces. There are range of services and treatments available. Some of these were touched on in the webinar that will be made available soon. But I want to emphasize that it is possible to recover from trauma as two of panelists have done.

@BlueBay you may want to get in contact with Blue Knot, which provides a services for survivors of childhood trauma

@Gypzi, perhaps @suzanne can respond to your question about bio-balance, I'm not very familiar with it.

[suzanne]

Hi @BlueBay, I understand that it's an incredibly difficult topic to talk about but I really would encourage you to watch the webinar when Nik posts the link.  Two of the panelists had experienced childhood abuse and talked through some of the impacts and their process for recovery.  They are both highly functional now and very inspiring.  But it was clearly a big and courageous piece of work to get to this place.  It's worth checking out simply for that.

[CherryBomb]

---

@Flower wrote:

Oh and can you explain the royal commission and what they do? Is that just relevant to "Australian cases"?

---

Great question @Former-Member, the Royal Commission, I understand is a body that has been commissioned to inquire and investigate certain public issues on behalf of the state. Here's an article that explains what they do.

[suzanne]

@Gypzi that's one on the list for some research.  I'm happy to post more back here and to tag you once the information is available.  I'll check with Chris for some reading and resources.

[BlueBay]

@CherryBomb i have contact blue knot a few times.  I have emailed them and one of their counsellors called me last Monday. But i found that talking to her made it really hard for me to deal with and it was very triggering.  But they are very experienced in their job and understand childhood abuse.  they are a fantastic organisation.

[BlueBay]

Thanks @suzanne i will have a look tomorrow.

[suzanne]

Sometimes it's about timing @BlueBay.  There might be other aspects of your recovery - like working on achieving more emotionally stability - to be done before you start working on the early trauma.  You need to start this work from a fairly stable place ideally as it's a challenging process.  Perhaps the timing isn't right just yet? 

[Love2Read]

@BlueBay I hadn't heard of Blue Knot before just now. I've tried many times over 20+ years to gain appropriate support in learning to deal with things, but it was never successful in the past.

Recently I started seeing someone through CASA and they have been fabulous - far beyond what I ever expected. Not pushy, not demanding I disclose or get to it... just letting things go at a pace that I can cope with. It's very slow going, but I'm more hopeful of it making a difference than preciously.

[Love2Read]

I have a question...

How, as a parent, can we support children who experience trauma when we ourselves are still trying to deal with our own complex history of multiple traumas?

Sometimes it's like all we do is trigger each other... it makes it really challenging at times.