self care

Friday Question – Self-Care, Expanded Conceptions

By | 2015-11-28T20:14:47-05:00 November 27th, 2015|Categories: Questions, Self Care|Tags: , , |

What are some forms of self-care for you that people don't typically suggest/encourage or think of as self-care? - Are there things that you do to take care of yourself that you've had a hard time recognizing as a form of self-care? Have any of your needs gone unmet because of this? - Are there things that others often suggest as self-care that just don't work for you? What are they, and do you know why it is they don't work for you? If you can articulate that, it may help with explaining to those people why they should stop suggesting that to you, or possibly help you figure out what it is that you need instead. - Is it helpful for you to, as Miri put it, "distinguish between the self-care we do to replenish and sustain ourselves, and the self-care we do to prevent ourselves from falling to pieces completely"—in other words, to think about self-care very differently depending on what you need in the moment? What kinds of self-care work better when you need to replenish/sustain, and which work better when your goal is to just keep yourself together?

Friday Question: Toxic Communities

By | 2015-08-21T16:03:34-04:00 August 8th, 2015|Categories: Questions|Tags: , , |

How do you deal with a toxic atmosphere in your communities? - How does it affect you? Where do you feel it in your body? What emotions come up for you? - What sort of strategy to deal with it makes the most sense for you right now, in your current situation? Is it better for you to avoid the conflict right now, or tackle it head-on?

When Sexual Abuse Comes in the Form of Words

By | 2018-04-10T00:09:55-04:00 July 28th, 2015|Categories: By & For Ace Survivors, Child Sexual Abuse, Coping Strategies, Personal Narratives, Self Care, Sexual Harassment, Verbal Abuse|Tags: , , , , , , , |

One aspect of CSA that I don't see discussed very often is sexually charged verbal abuse. My experience with this is as a CSA survivor specifically, but I could also see where it could potentially be an issue for adult survivors of sexual violence well. In my own experience, the sexualized verbal abuse I was subjected to has actually been one of the hardest aspects to recover from long term.

When there never was any “before”

By | 2018-04-10T00:43:20-04:00 July 9th, 2015|Categories: By & For Ace Survivors, Coping Strategies, Recovery, Self Care|Tags: , , , , , , |

Not every trauma survivour has had a life before the trauma/s. It can have happened/started in early childhood and/or there may be no memories of a life before or independent of trauma. Even for people where there was a “before”, recovery is not about going back to that state, especially not if the “before” was a long time ago, in childhood or in a completely different stage of life. We know it’s hard. Having to figure out everything new, what is a healthy coping mechanism and what’s not doing me good, how does a healthy relationship work/feel, what are my likes, interests, needs, skills, beliefs. What is my personality, who am I and what is really me and what is “just” due to trauma. This is hard to figure out and painful to even have to adress in the first place. But it’s possible.