How to Survive the Childhood Abuse Healing Process

The process of healing from childhood abuse is extremely painful. After a lifetime of feeling numb, the abuse survivor must choose to feel all of the anger, grief, terror and pain that he repressed throughout his traumatic childhood. These feelings can explode out of an abuse survivor, causing him to question if he has the strength to endure the healing process. Many adult survivors of childhood abuse wonder whether the process is even survivable. They also wonder if the end result is worth the pain they are feeling today. Here is how to survive the intensity of the healing process, which leads to a new you freed from your past.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Strong desire to heal
• Patience
• Courage

1. Educate yourself about the healing process. Learning that what you are feeling is normal goes a long way toward maintaining your sanity. Also, having a roadmap of what to expect will calm your fears about what lies ahead.

2. Find a qualified therapist with experience in counseling people with your abuse history. The healing process is much too strenuous to endure without professional help. If you try to go through the healing process alone, you may be vulnerable to suicidal urges.

3. Build a support system. Confide in a trusted friend, affiliate with a local support group or become active on a message board for adult survivors of childhood abuse. Lean on these people when you are in crisis.

4. Nurture your body. Eat nutritious meals and make sure you get enough sleep each night. Exercise your body and take time to rest daily.

5. Simplify your life. You will need large blocks of time to focus on healing your pain. Pare down your life to the bare essentials. You will have the rest of your life to engage in multiple activities. Now is the time to rest.

6. Follow your intuition. Each of us has an internal guide that leads us through the healing process. Listen to that inner voice. If you feel the need to focus on grief, anger or taking a break from the healing process, then do it.

Tips & Warnings

• You already survived the abuse, so you can survive the healing process.
• Be patient with your progress. You are healing gaping emotional wounds into scars. You cannot fully heal years of abuse in a few short weeks.
• While the healing process might take a long time, view the process as an investment in the rest of your life. On the other side of this process, you will have the payoff of a life free from the past.

Resources

• Isurvive

[wendys-msw]

on 10/1/2009 Thank you for sharing your story of healing. Your words will help others.

[FaithAllen]

on 3/7/2008 You can make it. If I could do it, then you can, too.

Please visit www.isurvive.org. You will meet many people who are in various stages of healing from child abuse. It is a message board for child abuse survivors -- kind of like an on-line support group.

You are not alone.

- Faith

[vineyardgirl]

on 3/5/2008 this is horribly difficult, i do feel like i dont know if i can make it.....