July 2009 Archives

Therapy can help you as a partner because you will have a place to talk about the things going on in your life as a couple without violating the trust of the survivor.  It will help you to depersonalize things that may have nothing to do with you and at the same time it is essential that your partner not be the identified problem and patient.  Not everything is about your partner's abuse; therapy can help clarify that.  Because issues arise for anyone in a relationship, therapy will also give you a safe place to work on these issues.

Sexual abuse happens in silence. In contrast, traumas in functional and non- abusive families are discussed and shared.  Death, divorce, illness are validated by conversation, comfort, and just being in the open.  No one is talking about what goes on in an abusive family.  A skilled therapist can help label things for you, stop normalizing what you have been calling dysfunction and name it as abuse, help you clarify the aftermath of what you have been left with and help you understand that no matter what you have told, it could never, ever, have been your fault and that you never deserved any of it.  Therapy, just by the act of talking is an antidote for the years of silence.