The Friday Question: How it works
Every Friday we will pose a question for you all to discuss or privately consider. You can engage with it publicly here on the RFAS blog, or you can join our forum (details below) for a more private discussion. You can write it down to think about later, journal about it, or bring it in to a therapy session with you.
If you would like to volunteer to become a moderator and host future Questions, please email us at volunteer@asexualsurvivors.org—or join our forum and post in the moderator volunteer thread. If you just have an idea for a future Question that you want to share, we have a brainstorming topic on our forum.
Something to Ponder Today
It is completely normal, and in fact almost universal, to go through a lot of feelings of guilt or self-blame after trauma. Our brains don’t want to accept that the assault was out of our control, so instead of doing so, they concoct a lot of “what if” scenarios in which we could have prevented it, in order to try to convince us that we can prevent it from happening again in the future. Sometimes, it almost feels better to feel like it was your own fault than to accept what really happened. But that’s not good for us in the long run. So let’s examine the thoughts and feelings we get stuck on, so that maybe we can help them dissipate.
What are the things you need to/have had to let go of, to stop blaming yourself or feeling guilty?
- To those of you who have managed to stop blaming yourself for what happened to you: what was most helpful? Was there something in particular that helped you realize that it wasn’t your fault?
- To those of you who still struggle with self-blame: What is it that you tend to get most stuck on? Sometimes, if we talk about these thoughts and feelings, it can help to combat them with logic, and to hear validation from an outside perspective.
As always, you can share as much or as little as you like.
On the Forum
- You can discuss this question privately after registering at the forum
- Here are instructions for how to join the forum
- Here’s the invite request form
- You can also still discuss previous questions as well. There is no time limit for joining the discussion.
- Please abide by our rules in both comments and forum posts.
Please note that we are still working things out in the forum, especially technical issues. We are gradually letting people in now who are not moderators or volunteers, but it can basically be considered “in beta” for now. So if you do join, please excuse our forum being a bit of a mess while we get everything tested. There may also be a little bit of a wait time for sending out invites.
Here are a couple of things you should know about posting to the forum:
- All posts are private, and can only be viewed by members
- It is against forum rules to discuss any personal stories shared on the forum with anyone who is not a member without permission of the person who shared it
- You can post as anonymous, once you are a member
The Spoiler Tag
You can hide especially triggering details behind a spoiler tag—which also works in blog comments. Here’s an example:
[spoiler title=’Triggering stuff’ collapse_link=’true’]Explicit/triggering material would go here.[/spoiler]
To make one, just type…
[ spoiler ] ... [ /spoiler ]
…without the spaces. I hope that this helps everyone safely navigate this conversation.
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