Abuse Related Trauma

I posting about this topic because I just talked to a teacher who said she things children in her class were being abused in someway. And wanted to know the signs. This broke my heart. All teachers and principals should have to take a class on recognizing abuse.

Abuse related trauma can develop after a person has been hurt, neglected in childhood. These people may have been:

  • Sexually or physically abused
  • Emotionally abused or neglected.

As a result these people may have overwhelming feeling of distress, fear and helplessness.

Traumatic childhood events can change how the person’s brain and body work. Trauma can affect the person’s emotions, memory, thinking and sense of self. Trauma can affect relationships.

People most often develop the effects of trauma if, as children, they felt helpless and trapped by the abuse. Often the abuser is a family member or a friend.

One in five people have been sexually abused in their childhood. One in two has experienced attempted sexual abuse. Sexual abuse affect people from all backgrounds.

How Do The Effects Of Trauma Develop?

Trauma is a normal response to being abused. Many children survive abuse by developing ways of coping that last Into adulthood.

As a child the symptoms are:

  • Infants excessive crying or developmental delay
  • Fear, anxiety, clinging
  • Phobias
  • Nightmares, sleeping problems
  • Bed wetting
  • Social withdrawal
  • Hyperactivity
  • Poor concentration
  • Detracted easily

Children who are abused may not be able to understand that what is happening to them is wrong. Yet their bodies still hold the memories of abuse.

Many people who have been abused are easily triggered by things that remind them of their abuse. Their bodies may feel as if they are reliving the trauma and they may have flashbacks, sudden vivid and unpleasant memories of the event.

Women cope with painful feelings in different ways. For example they may develop a eating disorder, misuse alcohol or other drugs, or even harm themselves. These behaviors may help women cope for a while. But they often make them feel more isolated and depressed, and can increase anxiety and sleeping problems

I used to go for days without sleeping so I wouldn’t have flashbacks backs in my sleep or have nightmares that my mother was standing by my bed ready to choke me.

Trauma effects can make women feel out of control, or like she’s going crazy. She may feel, either emotionally numb or suddenly alert and panicky. Women may not realize that they are reacting to things that remind her of her abuse. Many people don’t know that abuse can affect their lives for many years and do not connect the common effects of trauma to experiences of the childhood abuse.

Many people in society judge people who have mental illness or child abuse stories. It is devastating to the person that has been abused to live in a world the has stigma towards them because their living out their childhood traumas. I often use the quote “Don’t Judge Me If You Don’t Know My Story.”

Recognizing Abuse Related Trauma

The effects of trauma caused by abused and other common effects of trauma include:

  • Trouble Sleeping
  • Having panic attacks and anxiety
  • Drinking or taking other drugs
  • Binge eating, throwing up or starving
  • Feeling like you don’t can’t go on with your life
  • Repeated experiences of sexual or physical violence
  • The feeling of self-hate and low self esteem
  • Fearing people and relationships

Sometimes when a woman seeks help, the care provider may not link her reactions with abuse-related trauma. Women can e wrongly diagnosed and given unhelpful treatments, including some types of medicines. Often, the care provider sees the effects of the trauma as substance use, depression, or even mood disorders as the problem, rather than as a result of childhood trauma.

Many situations can make a woman’s child worse.

Silencing

A woman may try to talk to friends and family members about the abuse. If a woman is told to just forget it and get on with their life. She can feel isolated and silenced.

Children can feel the same way. When I was in 1st grade. I tried to talk to a teacher about my abuse. My teacher spoke to my mother, who said I just had an active imagination. The teacher left it at that. She stopped trying to help me in class and always put me in the very back of the classroom.

Abusive Relationships

If a woman is in a relationship with someone who is emotionally, sexual, or physically abusive. It worsens the effects of the original trauma. It doesn’t allow woman the safety she needs for healing.

When I was suffering with from the effects my childhood trauma. A doctor diagnosed me with bi-polar disorder. That diagnosed label followed me most of my life. Causing my husband to emotionally abuse me which in turn made me have more trauma.

Like a vicious circle it can go on and on. Causing stress, for the woman who is already traumatized.

Blame And Shame

Without support and understanding, women may continue to feel guilty and ashamed. This can make them become isolated, depressed or harm themselves. Feelings of guilt and shame occur when the person is:

  • Blamed for the abuse
  • Were pressured to keep the abuse a secret
  • Wrongly believed that she wanted the abuse
  • Told others about her abuse and was not believed.

Strength And Healing

If you have experienced childhood abuse, it can be overwhelming and upsetting to learn how it effected your life. Remind yourself that you are a survivor. No matter how hard your life has been, you have found the strength to go on.

It is also important to respect the way of coping that has allowed you to protect yourself, and to survive emotionally and physically. This same strength can be used in your work toward healing from the abuse. Healing starts with learning to identify and understand what has happened to you, and how it affects your life today. That way you can find the kind of help you need to recover.

You can recover and begin to heal when you understand why your life turned out the way it did.

Never ever abuse a child in anyway. You could ruin them and their entire life.

Who Are You Really?

At eighteen we think we all know what’s best for us. Just out of high school and ready to take on the world.

Thinking we all have a plan for our lives. But sometimes we really don’t have a clue who we are, or even where we want to start.

At nineteen I was a drug addict, knowing that no-one else cared about me, why should I attitude. I worked a small job to help pay for my habit as I got into a bigger habit. I learned that beauty took me a long way.

I didn’t know how far this life would take me. But I knew I didn’t have to feel anything and I was happy. The two things I didn’t have growing up.

Four years later, I had met the love of my life and was getting married. While I slowed down on the drugs. It was still a part of my life. With a week to go to the wedding. I was in shock my life had taken me this far.

A month later I was having a baby. While I thought things were going way to fast. I had someone that actually loved me for who I was.

The first ten months were great.

After having my baby with an emergency c-section because I had developed pre-eclampsia. Waking up in the critical care center was not. I was in the most extreme pain I ever felt.

Getting home two weeks later I finally was able to see my daughter. I was an exciting time.

Moving into a normal life as a homemaker. Was the only life I ever wanted so I thought.

We bought a house, and the bills came rolling in. I was not ready to have all the responsibility that came with being happy.

Another child came fifteen months later and more responsibilities.

I had everything I thought I ever wanted. A great family, I husband to take care of me. Children to raise.

That’s when it all came crashing down like a ton of bricks. I began to get really sick. I was having severe depression and panic attacks. I couldn’t function at anything anymore. I couldn’t give my children the kind of life they deserved or my husband the love he needed.

The doctor’s had me on so much medication. I was barely am to take care of myself. As they kept giving me pills I kept getting larger and larger. I was a fat useless mother and wife.

With my husband beginning to cheat on me.

After twenty year’s had passed. I had decided something had to change. The kids being adults. I finally realized what a horrible life they had been through as well as my husband.

I found a doctor out of town. And things began to finally look up.realizing I didn’t know myself at all.

Who was I? What do I believe in? What was my purpose? What fills me with Joy.

The hardest part was knowing where to begin. While I knew I didn’t have to be on all the pills. I didn’t know where to start.

I had finally begun the process of truly understanding who I was meant to be.

If your starting the process of truly understanding who you are. Start here:

What or who would you be if you knew you could never fail?

The risk of failure terrifies most people. How many times have you wanted to change your life, or your job, or your environment. Think about it no risk of failure.

If you are 💯 percent sure that you be or do anything you wanted and not fail. Do you know the Answer?

If you were in a job interview, or meeting someone for the first time. How would you describe yourself so that person would truly understand who you are, and what is important to you?

What are your core personal values?

Personal values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live. They give you a reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, desirable, and constructive. Once you are able to determine exactly what values are most important to you, you can better determine your priorities.

In fact, having this information about yourself is the key to making sure your daily life is aligned with those values.

What makes you genuinely happy?

This is closely related to your core values, Will a job that involves tons of travel make you happy? Take it a step further and really condemn yours dreams you had when you were younger or currently have about what will truly make you happy.

If money were no object, how would you live your life differently?

Some people equate happinesses d success directly to the amount of money they have. How many times have to heard someone say, “If I won the lottery, I’d…”

But remember, this question isn’t really about money at all. It’s about thinking outside the box we tend to put on our aspirations and actions because things seem out of reach financially.

You may not be able to do those exact things, but once you know what you’re true desires are, you can expand your thinking and begin to develop a plan to work towards goals you never thought possible.

These are some tough questions and don’t come easy and you might find yourself rethinking them. And it is necessary in order to really understand yourself at a deeper level.

Allow yourself a quiet place and have plenty of time to think about each question and then go for it.

Choose direction, create new dreams or rediscover the dreams you have left behind.

The Power Of Your Mind

The Mind Of Power

Mind power is one of the strongest and must useful powers you possess.

This power along with your imagination can create success or failure, happiness or unhappiness, opportunities or obstacles. It all depends on your mind set.

Your thoughts are the main ingredient of this power, when you add to them focus and emotions, your thoughts are powerful and can affect your reality.

The thoughts that pass through your mind are responsible for almost everything that happens in your life.

But all thoughts are not equal. The stray ones make you think once or twice cannot do much, but your principal thoughts are the ones you repeat often influence your actions and reaction, and shape your reality.

As your thoughts are so is life. Weak thoughts hardly have any effect, but power thoughts can create great changes.

It all begins in your mind. What you give power to has power over you. If you focus on negative things your life will be. If you focus on positive things your life will be positive. It’s as simple as that.

Thoughts are energy. They are subtle and invisible but they can affect your reality.

Our thoughts are like a movie that plays on the screen in our minds. What you play there determines the kind of life you will live and the experiences you have.

We can train and strengthen this power. We can use it to make changes in your life and you can also influence other people’s mind.

There is a sudden change in people when you see the positive instead of the negative.

Have you ever heard the saying You reap what you sow. Planting seeds, watering them, and give them fertilizer and they will grow into stronger healthy plants.

Our thoughts are like seeds. They have a natural tendency to grow, get powerful and manifest in our lives. We feed them with our attention and allow them to grow.

You attention, interest and enthusiasm is what makes them powerful. If you show lack of interest in your thoughts, will not gain strength and will not be powerful.

Your thoughts affect your subconscious mind, this in turn influences your actions in accordance with these thoughts.

When you focus on your dreams and goals, you will attract people in your life who are in the position to help you achieve your dreams.

Powerful thoughts affect your life and can affect the life of others.

If you analyzed your thoughts you think and the kind of life you are living, you will discover interesting things. There is correlation between your thoughts and your life conditions.

Your mind is a manifestation of the Universal mind. The power of your mind is the creative power of the universe, which means that your thoughts work together with it.

The best proof you can have that this works by using mental methods to make changes in your life.

Wake up tomorrow and start thinking positive. The easiest way this can work.

Is every time you have a negative thought tell yourself stop “I’m not thinking that and change your thought to a positive one: example if your thought is today is going to be terrible “I am mad because I cannot exercise today because the gym is closed. Change that thought- I am going to exercise at home today I have a workout video.

The Mountains Of Life

Sometimes the immensity of what stands before us takes our breath away as we often question our ability.

I’m not doing anything fantastic or extraordinary, I’m simply taking on a different and unknown path. This path can seem foreshadowing when I am unprepared and yet I know it’s part of life. The challenge and the allure keeps me going.

The fascination of the somewhat outlined idea of how life should be and still I know tomorrow I will wake up, put my feet on the ground, and start the day of expectation. Our life has a way of shifting gears so I have to hold that shift and the vigil and say thank you. It keeps me humble, grounded and rooted.

The pull of the other side seems intriguing. It may be dangerous but it is very much alive in me, and all of us I’m sure.

To be honest I let it all pour out of me. I don’t really care what others think and the mountain of massive proportions. It’s all about climbing my mountain. The transforming of my thoughts to purpose and strengthening the raw emotion.

I have climbed so many mountains in my life time. I’m good at just pushing through it and learning as I go.

We have become a society of drama queens and kings all fighting for the spotlight. All the world has become a stage and for what? We need to pay more attention to our core that is bigger that the theatrics we impose in our life.

There is always another mountain when we get to the other side of the one we’re climbing. We will always get better when we acquaint ourselves with it. But, we must be mindful because in acquaintance there is comfort and comfort can be scary.

To chase the highs and the lows is part of the life climb.

Struggling, stretching and reaching for something better is my scourgeand yet when I fall, it’s hard and I always forget that is part of the grand design. And down is just as important as up. The low only has one way to go and every step we take to better ourselves has its own time and place.

I repeat in my head, don’t forget what happened last time. But it’s always in the back of my mind “would if I make it to the top and too the other side. I try not to forget the blessings that stand on the other side. We must conquer the mundane and make it magnificent, purposeful and end up being another goal I wanted to achieve. It is a life of long pursuit gratitude and inner peace if we make it to the other side.

We all have to climb mountains in this life and fall. It’s all about passing the test of life.

Being Offended Is Not A Virtue

It seems like people are more offended in the world today, everything we say or do offends people.

Part of the problem is how good it feels to be the offended party. Expressing your offense let’s you feel heard and powerful. It makes it clear that you and everyone else around that you are righteous and that your opinion is the proper one. When someone tries to counter your offense by explaining the reasonableness of their position, our default mode kicks in to feel all the more validated in our offense. If they need to defend themselves then we must be right.

The problem with being offended

Expressing your offended ness doesn’t change anything. It just sets in stone both parties more firmly in their view points. On top of that being the offended party tends to put you in the position to be a victim, which is overly contrary to how Jesus demonstrated his people to operate.

Let’s not be people who are easily offended. Let’s be “quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends

Proverbs 17:9

Proverbs 19 goes on to say that it’s a person’s glory to overlook an offense. If you want to be a loving, glorious person, stop being so offended.

We need to be a people who operate with humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.

Hate does not add up to Love. Hate creates hate. I cannot phantom the idea that anyone thinks like this.

It will always be like John Dickerson said “United We Stand, divided we fall.

Good will always Triumph over Evil.

Light overcomes darkness.

It is very disturbing to me that parents don’t teach their children this. And teachers don’t teach this in their class.

Secrets To Getting Along With People You Can’t Stand.

No matter where your at getting along with people you’re surrounded by can be challenging at best. The inability to get along with others we may not like can have a huge impact on our future. It might be a co-worker or it might be the tension with an in-law (or three) that adds undue stress to your important relationships.

In business it may be that you aren’t getting along with your boss. At best, this can make your day-to-day work unpleasant, but this could also have a negative impact on your career as a whole. Learning to communicate and get along with others is vital to our success.

Even though I don’t get along with my mother-in-law. She has completely different views and value system than me. I have to be around her sometime. sometimes.

Getting along with people you don’t like doesn’t imply defeat, giving in or compromise, it’s a ways getting through life without constantly banging your head against the wall and being miserable in situations where you could, at the very least, be at ease.

There are three ways you can along with people you don’t like. Here they are:

Take a look in the mirror

The first step to getting along with others is knowing that you can’t change anyone but yourself. It doesn’t do any good to try and change anyone. The fact is that you will most likely make things worse. And trying to make someone change their behavior is nothing less than manipulation; and who likes being manipulated?

If there is something that someone does on a regular basis that gets on your last nerve, take a look in the mirror and consider that this behavior might be something that you engage I. And aren’t particularly proud of. We’ve all done things or act in ways that we’re not happy with. When we see others act similarly this might cause for us to lash out or contend with this person. It’s been found that one of the main reasons people lash out is to renew a sense of confidence.

Next time that person does something to tick you off, pause and ask yourself if what they did is really that bad or just something that hits close to home regarding your own patterns.

The Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.

Bob Marley

Avoid trigger topics

There’s a good reason that you don’t discuss politics or religion at a dinner party. These are sensitive topics and people tend to have very strong opinions about them. I’ve seen people get into bitter arguments because they sit on opposite sides of the fence politically speaking. (Actually I’ve been in some bitter arguments about this.) suddenly one’s accusing the other of lacking sensitivity because they voted for someone because they voted for someone they didn’t like.

Five minutes earlier they were laughing and joking together and now they’re making comments they can never can take back.

But it’s not just politics or religion that might set someone off. Anything from how to raise kids to what you should be eating and anything in between that can start an argument. Especially when tension already exists in a relationship.

We’ve all been guilty of intentionally pushing someone’s buttons and we know what it’s like for someone to push ours. You know exactly what to say to get someone’s goat. It might even be amusing but, it’s only creating more and more tension in the relationship.

If you want to start getting along with someone you usually can’t stand being around, consider the topics you argue over and avoid them if possible. Start taking note of some common ground you have and focus there instead.

Never above you. Never below you. Always beside you.

Walter Winchell

Stay clear of social media

There are certainly benefits to social media, but social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter can be breeding grounds for intense debates. I’ve seen people display their worst side on social media. Maybe it’s because they feel isolated since they aren’t engaging in face to face conversations. It’s easy to share your political views or lash out at someone because of theirs when you’re sitting behind a computer or mobile device. And it just breeds anger in to your life. And Lord knows we don’t need anymore of that.

If you have someone in your life you’re rather not be around, then why are you following them on social media? It’s simple to block content and unfollow someone on any social media platform. Continuing to tweet and comment with or about people you don’t like only adds to stress.

So, if you’re ready to get along better with people you don’t like then follow these three steps. Not on,y will you have a better time being around them, you might even find enough common ground to enjoy their company. You can at least start by tolerating them, but it will never happen without effort on your part.