Imagine Hope Counseling Group Blog
Inspiring Hope for Life & Relationships
Now that you’ve made the decision to heal and you have a trained professional to guide you thru the process, many people ask, “What next?”. This is a great question. It’s important to know what it will look like.
HEALING FROM WITHIN
Understanding That It Wasn’t Your Fault
Usually people convince themselves, especially children, that the abuse was their fault. “If I hadn’t of been in the wrong place.” Or “If I had screamed loud and ran away they would have stopped!” It’s important to know that the blame needs to be placed on the shoulders of the abuser. There is NOTHING you could have done to cause this! It’s important to work thru these thoughts with your Therapist. They can guide you thru this.
Making Contact With the Child Within
Getting in touch with your child within that was wounded will help you feel more compassion for yourself. Understanding you were just a child and you now wouldn’t expect a child to “figure something out” to get out of it, will help you move thru and feel more whole. It helps you get in touch with the anger you have towards the abuser, placing it where it belongs. This in turn will help you let down the walls of protection that you no longer need in your relationships, thus helping you develop greater intimacy with others.
Feeling the Anger!
Get angry!!! It’s in there, bottled up inside. It’s usually just turned inward and now looks like Depression, Anxiety, or Marital Problems. With a Therapist, allow yourself to direct your anger at that person. Say what you would have said back then if you would have felt powerful. Directing your anger at the abuser and those that didn’t protect you will help you let go of the anger at yourself and them. This will help you move into feeling the real feelings underneath- sadness.
Grieving and Mourning
When you are abused, you are forced to shut everything down and not feel it. Therefore, the many losses that take place aren’t properly grieved. This can cause depression, anxiety, and lead to addictions. It’s important to acknowledge all the losses, feel the pain, and let it go.
Trusting Yourself
As children who are abused, you have a hard time knowing what’s real and what’s not. If you were manipulated (which undoubtably you were if you were abused), you start questioning yourself and not trusting your own feelings. It is so important to learn to trust yourself again. Learning to trust your own perceptions, feelings, and intuitions forms a new basis for you to be all that you were created to be. Not someone imprisoned by doubts and insecurity.
I know this is a difficult topic. It’s so hard to face this- especially when it’s hard to see how our struggles now are connected to our pain from abuse. But if you could see the healing that takes place within the walls of Imagine Hope, you would understand why it’s important to slay this giant.
If you are on this journey, our hearts go out to you. We list all the steps and give all these tips- making it sound so clinical. But we recognize how difficult they are! Don’t give up! There is hope at the end of this process!
Tomorrow Joleen will discuss forgiveness, spirituality, and moving on. Thank you for reading. God bless you on this journey.
Written by Natalie Chandler
Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville
Tags: Healing from Sexual Abuse, sexual abuse
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This week Teri and Tamara have helped us understand what Sexual Abuse is and how to begin to heal. Healing from wounds can happen at various times and at different rates for many people. The most important part is knowing what you are healing from. Healing from Sexual Abuse takes time, the desire to want to heal, hope, patience, and the ability to ask for help. Sexual Abuse creates deep wounds that are often ignored, masked, or buried. But they will be there until they are addressed and properly healed.
Breaking the Silence:
Many adult survivors kept the abuse a secret during childhood. Telling another human being about what happened to you is a powerful healing force that can dispel the shame of being a victim. Most counselors are trained in helping heal with sexual abuse, so counseling is a good place to start. Understand that your journey of healing will include learning how to “get the words out”. If you are ready to tell close friends or family members, choose the ones you expect to be supportive. As you choose who to tell, make your choices wisely by asking yourself the following questions:
- Does this person care for and respect me?
- Does this person have my well-being in mind?
- Is it someone I have talked about my feelings with before?
- Do I trust this person?
- Do I feel safe with this person?
When you tell, make sure that it is an optimal time with few distractions and plenty of time to discuss what you want. Also, let the person know how you want him or her to respond. Let them know if you do not want questions right then, or if you are not interested in a lot of advice at the time. A good friend will listen to and respect your wishes. Lastly, if you want your revelation to be kept confidential, you need to tell them. This is your healing journey, you get to choose with whom to include in your travel.
Remembering Abuse:
Many survivors of sexual abuse suppress all memories of what happened to them as children. This is a natural defense mechanism, or survival skill. Sometimes the abuse happened at such a young age, the child cannot put the feelings or events into words. Even if there are some memories of the actual incident, often survivors forget how they felt at the time. Sometimes, the memory is in flashes of sights, or sounds, or smells, or sensations; especially if the abuse was not painful or traumatic at the time. Remembering is the process of getting back both memory and feeling together.
It is important for the survivor to remember so they can acknowledge the event and heal. It is natural to be hesitant and self-protective in the remembering process. That is why it is imperative that you proceed with this phase with the help of a trained professional. Survivors need all the pieces of the puzzle so they can see the whole picture. Then, as an adult, they can see the abuse for what it is, and how it could not have been their fault.
Believing it happened:
Survivors often doubt their own perceptions. Not wanting to believe that you may have been sexually abused is understandable. It can take a long time for a survivor to say for sure that they know they were sexually abused. After all, it can be a painful experience acknowledging that a trusted adult or another child hurt you in this way. But just because it is hard to believe or you do not want to believe, does not mean it did not happen.
Even if you do not have a conscious memory of the abuse, you may have body memories, or implicit memories. Your body may have memories and respond in ways that you may not understand. You may cringe at the smell of alcohol on someone’s breath because your abuser was drunk when he abused you. Body memories are very reliable and common among trauma victims and should be used as further evidence that you can trust your memories.
Coming to believe that the abuse really happened and really hurt you is a vital part of the healing process. Believe in yourself, in your memories, so you can give yourself a chance to heal. You deserve to heal.
All therapists at Imagine Hope Counseling Group have training and experience counseling survivors of sexual abuse. If you are reading this and feel you are ready to begin recovering from your experience, please call to set up an appointment. Keep reading this week as Natalie and Joleen share more information about continued stages of healing.
Alexa Griffith, LMHC, LCAC, NCC, RPT is a licensed therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Alexa enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Alexa also does play therapy, family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield
Tags: Healing from Sexual Abuse, sexual abuse, sexual abuse stages
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As we talk about healing from sexual abuse this week, if this starts to stir up emotions for you, please talk to someone with whom you trust and feel safe. Beginning to deal with memories and suppressed feelings can throw your life into chaos. Remember this is only a stage and it won’t last forever. This emergency stage is a natural part of the healing process and there will be a time when the sexual abuse isn’t what you think about all the time (we promise!!!).
Here’s what you can do to survive the Emergency Stage:
- Don’t hurt or try to kill yourself. You deserve to live. If you feel suicidal or want to hurt yourself, call or reach out to someone. If you’re saying to yourself, “I don’t have anyone”, then call 911. They will get you to safety.
- Understand you’re NOT going crazy. The panic that you’re feeling is natural. Breathe. Breathe.
- Get skilled professional support. You need to be surrounded by friends who are helpful, but you also need a professional who can help you heal through this process too. Search for someone who specializes in sexual abuse too. Many professionals are well-intentioned, but ill-equipped.
- Get support from other survivors. Other survivors know exactly what you need. No one else other than a survivor will be able to listen as much as you need them to.
- Allow yourself to obsess. Accept your circumstances for where you are. Don’t beat yourself up for the natural things you’re doing.
- Do nice things for yourself. Nurture yourself, love yourself, give yourself grace and patience.
- Drop what isn’t essential in your life. This can be part of doing nice things for yourself. Drop unsupportive people, quit activities that are too stressful, lighten your workload. Only do the necessary things during this emergency healing stage.
- Create a safe area in your home. Make one room in your home your safe haven. One room that you can go to release the steam and pressure of the day & of the circumstances.
- Eat healthy and watch your intake of drugs and alcohol. Numbing your feelings with food or drugs and alcohol will not solve the problem and will only prolong the crisis.
- Develop a belief in something greater than yourself. Spirituality often gives people strength when they feel as though they’ve hit the end of the road for themselves. Reminding yourself that “Something Greater” is watching over you will allow you to stay focused and remind yourself that the way you feel right now will not be the same one year from now.
Again, as Teri mentioned yesterday, if you are a survivor of 20 years, or if you just recently experienced sexual abuse, you can make the choice to heal. Find someone who is emotionally safe and caring to be supportive and there with you through the ups and downs. We have alot of information to share with you throughout the rest of the week. Tomorrow Alexa is going to discuss trusting your own perceptions of the abuse & why it’s important to remember what happened. Thank you for reading.
Written by: Tamara Wilhelm MA, LMHC
*Tamara enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, & couples counseling at Imagine Hope. We also specialize in family counseling, child & adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield & Fishers.
Tags: sexual abuse, sexual abuse stages, What is sexual abuse?
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Sexual Abuse unfortunately is an issue that is more common than most think. Here at Imagine Hope we help people heal through the pain to get to a place of freedom from this horrible victimization. This week we will educate our readers on the stages of the healing process so that you or a loved one knows what to expect when embarking on this journey. Please make sure you get help for yourself or a loved one if you have been a victim. Getting professional help to guide you is important even if it has been 20 years since the abuse occurred. We see clients often who experience healing at all points in life. You deserve to heal from this pain- it wasn’t your fault.
What is Sexual Abuse?
Many people believe that sexual abuse always involves intercourse, but it can be many different things too. Sexual abuse is defined as : “The forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another.” The definition does not say “intercourse”; it says “behavior”.
Some of those behaviors could be one of the following:
- Touching or fondling of genitalia or touching in a sexual way on non-genitalia
- Forcing someone to take clothes off in front of you
- Taking clothes off in front of a child when not age- appropriate
- Watching pornography or looking at pornography when children are present or forcing the child to look at it too
- Tickling or wrestling inappropriately
- Being forced to touch another adult or child’s genitalia
- Oral sex performed on a child or forcing the child to perform it
- Making sexual comments to a child
- A child being exposed to adults having sex (not accidentally walking in, but actually hearing and/ or seeing it purposefully)
- Intercourse
- Date Rape or being black mailed to be sexual with someone
Remember that many times sexual abuse is not just from an adult to a child, but also from a child to another child. When this happens, the abuse still has similar affects on a child feeling victimized.
For more information about signs when a child is abused, please read my blog at: http://www.imaginehopecounseling.com/tcblog/?p=464
Keep reading this week to learn more about the next stage in the healing process. Once you recognize how your sexual abuse affects your life, you must make a decision to heal. Deep healing happens only when you choose it and are willing to change yourself.
Written by Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW, LCAC
Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW, LCAC is a licensed therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Teri enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Teri also does family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield.
Tags: sexual abuse, What is sexual abuse?
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So far this week, we have heard several characteristics of bad communication. Today we will finish up with three more:
13. Defensiveness is where you refuse to admit any wrong-doing or imperfection. Defensiveness usually comes out in the form of reacting to what someone is saying by explaining yourself in a manner that is trying to prove why what the other person said is inaccurate. When working with clients, I have them picture their words as a physical entity with shape and form. Each time we share our feelings and needs with someone in a healthy way, it’s like we are gently handing them this entity to look at. I picture defensiveness as the person on the receiving end as throwing those words back at the person speaking– which means that the message is lost and no one feels heard. In counseling, we encourage people to “sit with” a persons words before responding. This can help with preventing defensiveness in communication.
14. Counterattack is where, instead of acknowledging how the other person feels, you respond to their criticism by criticizing them. This usually sounds like “Well… Talk about being inconsiderate! I might have forgotten to get you a card for our anniversary, but YOU never got me a card for my birthday, and that is even MORE inconsiderate!”. It’s a lot like defensiveness, where each person is keeping score, and neither person ends up feeling heard or validated.
15. Diversionhappens when instead of dealing with how you both feel in the here-and-now, you list grievances about past injustices. In therapy, we call this “gunny-sacking”– where each time something happens in the relationship that causes disappointment or hurt feelings, the issue isn’t address directly, but rather stuffed away in this invisible gunnysack that you carry around with you. Then, once it becomes full of unresolved complaints, in the middle of an argument, you reach into the gunnysack and start pulling out old complaints and use them as weapons. If you can’t stay on topic, and resolve each complaint as they arise, little will get accomplished.
So, do you recognize any of the signs of bad communication from this week’s blog? If so, how are they impacting your relationships with others? Do you feel closer and intimate, or more misunderstood and unheard as a result of them? Of course, we encourage you to look closely at them and make a commitment to work on resolving them!
As always, thank you for reading this week. We hope to see you next week!
Joleen Watson, MS, NCC, is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. She enjoys doing marriage counseling, relationship counseling, couples counseling, and individual counseling. Imagine Hope also specializes in family, child and adolescent counseling and serves Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield, and Fishers.
Posted in anger management, communication, marriage counseling | No Comments »
Communication can be so difficult. You put all our experiences (childhood, past relationships etc) + our current mood and that can = a disaster! We all struggle with particular ways we do not like for people to communicate with us. It’s easy to focus on them. I like that we are focusing on what WE might be doing this week to harbor difficulty in relationships in regards to communication. Here are a few more characteristics of bad communication:
Helping:
This is one of my biggest annoyances- when you are sharing a challenge or difficulty with someone and they start trying to solve your problems. I know it is usually out of concern. But many times it is also people feeling uncomfortable with negative feelings. They want to fix it because they don’t know what to say or do. We don’t always have to say or do something for people. Sometimes just having a presence and letting them know you care by listening and affirming is enough.
Sarcasm
This often comes out in couples when there is some anger or hostility that isn’t being talked about. The person uses words or tone of voice to convey tension or hostility which no one is acknowledging. I know none of you know what I am talking about! 
Scapegoating
This is when one person refuses to look at their responsibility in a conflict and sees everyone else as “having the problem”. This person feels they are sane, happy, and uninvolved with the problem. Usually, that IS part of the problem- their denial about their responsibility in the relationship or problem! If you idenitify yourself as someone who never has problems in a relationship, it’s always everyone else- YOU may be the common denominator!
Seeing anything familiar? Again, all of us need improvement in communication. I encourage you to pick out a couple that have stuck out to you this week and work on those. Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful week!
Written by Natalie Chandler
Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.
Tags: bad communication
Posted in communication, Marriage, Relationships | No Comments »
Hopefully you’re getting a solid idea of bad communication. These characteristics need to be eliminated as much as possible when talking with others. Let’s look at some more unhealthy communication habits:
- Put-downs – This happens in a conversation when you imply that the person you’re speaking with is “lazy” or “stupid” because he or she “always” or “never” does certain things. Notice that you don’t have to come out and call someone a name for it to be a put-down. Just implicating or hinting you believe a certain way about someone gives off the same vibe. Anytime you suggest something negative about another person in a conversation, that person is going to feel defensive and attacked, and the conversation will not go well.
- Hopelessness – We all feel hopeless at times. When hopelessness occurs in conversations, a person gives up in the discussion, insisting nothing will work and there’s “no point in trying”. This makes it very difficult to find out what the problem is, let alone problem solve! Instead, try to keep an open-mind. It may feel as though nothing will work, but that may not be fact. Go on and discuss it through with another person…they may have great feedback and ideas that you might not have considered.
- Demandingness – This occurs in conversations when you believe you deserve better treatment, but you refuse to ask for what you want in a direct manner. Too often we hear clients say, “I’m not going to tell them what I want, it should be obvious!”. It would be great if we could all read minds, but that’s not the case. Yes, you do deserve the best treatment in the world, and I bet the other person would like to give it to you if they knew what it was that you wanted. Being direct and straightforward minimizes confusion & miscommunication.
If you notice yourself in any of these, don’t worry. Be conscious about it and ask loved ones in your life to gently hold you accountable to work on it. Thanks for reading. We’ve got plenty more “bad” characteristics coming your way!
Written by: Tamara Wilhelm MA, LMHC
*Tamara enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, & couples counseling at Imagine Hope. We also specialize in family counseling, child & adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield & Fishers.
Tags: characteristics of bad communication
Posted in communication, Healthy Living | No Comments »
Communication tricks can trip up any relationship, including friends, parents, children, coworkers, and romantic partners. Communication is important in how we present ourselves to the world and how we show understanding of the world around us. Here are a few more unhealthy communication types:
*Denial- It’s not a river in Egypt! Denial is when you insist that you do not feel hurt, angry, or sad when you really do. Many women have been raised with the notion that it is bad manners to show anger. Many men are taught that showing sadness is showing weakness. We learn to deny our feelings at an early age. Sometimes we deny our true feelings to avoid a fight or save someone else’s feelings in reaction to our own feelings. To have open communication, you have to be honest with yourself and your partner about your true feelings.
*Passive Aggression- This characteristic goes hand in hand with denial. When you pout, or withdraw or say nothing, you are being passive aggressive. Storming out of a room and slamming doors are also passive aggressive behaviors. Partners use these actions to communicate without owning their feelings. Notice in this instances no words are used, but here the user of this form of communication is saying plenty. The biggest problem with passive aggression is that it short circuits continued honest communication between partners.
*Self-Blame- This is another way to avoid an honest conversation, even though you may not know it. Instead of dealing with the problem, you act as if you are an awful, terrible person. Often coupled with sarcasm, this form of communication leaves much room for misunderstanding and frustration for both partners. This kind of bad communication shuts down the conversation and stops a healthy disagreement in its tracks. No one is “all bad”. “Awful-izing” a disagreement is not helpful to reaching the end of an argument in a healthy way.
I hope that you are recognizing some of the bad communication traits you have read so far. Noticing them in yourself or friends, family, or partners is healthy start to improving your own communication. Change them to honest healthy communication forms for better outcomes. Come back tomorrow when Natalie continues to share more forms of bad communication.
Alexa Griffith, LMHC, LCAC, NCC, RPT is a licensed therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Alexa enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Alexa also does play therapy, family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield
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Imagine Hope BlogosphereBlogs by Imagine Hope Counselors
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Teri Claassen's Blog
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Grief Counseling, Codependency, Marriage/Couples Counseling, Individual Counseling, Sexual Addiction, Group Counseling.
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Natalie Chandler's Blog
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Grief Counseling, Codependency, Marriage/Couples Counseling, Individual Counseling, Sexual Addiction, Group Counseling.
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Joleen Watson's Blog
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Grief Counseling, Codependency, Marriage/Couples Counseling, Individual Counseling, Sexual Addiction, Group Counseling.
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Tamara Wilhelm's Blog
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Grief Counseling, Codependency, Marriage/Couples Counseling, Individual Counseling, Sexual Addiction, Group Counseling.
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