Healing Sex Gives Survivors the Confidence to Open Up

A great deal of survivors tend to have a difficult time with closeness with another person, finding themselves having to teach themselves boundaries and when any of us run into a little trouble and need help, there are shelves full of psychological insight, self help books, audio books, films and so on at our disposal. Healing Sex is a DVD that at first glance, you would think is just like the rest of the “self help” market, but once you watch it, it has the potential to really change your life and the way you look at intimacy.

Staci Haines has vast experience as a workshop leader and somatic practitioner and presents hands on exercises for you to practice either alone or with your partner for battling a lot of hurdles that survivors deal with when it comes to intimacy, such as disassociating during sex which I, as well as a great deal of survivors I speak with now have had problems with in our adult lives. Haines welcomes you into her workshops and one-on-one sessions and works with people to help them set boundaries in relationships and intimacy and teaches them how to express their desires, likes and dislikes. She gives us so much knowledge and draws upon her extensive experience to present educational and often triggering material in a comfortable and accessible way that will make you actually want to open up to your partner, now that you know how.

This DVD did wonders for me. I absolutely loved the way in which the material was presented and I especially loved that Haines doesn’t think, act or teach with the sense of false hope that she is a miracle worker. Healing from any kind of trauma takes a long time and a great deal of dedicated, hard work and the effects of childhood sexual assault have a tendency to follow survivors throughout their entire lives. This film shows you realistic ways to cope with your past and your present in terms of intimacy and overall relationships.

There is Justice Somewhere in the World...

**THIS MAY BE TRIGGERING TO SOME. PLEASE USE DISCRETION AND SAFETY PLANS WHEN READING THIS*****

I've always wanted to go to South Africa.....


The Grahamstown High Court sentenced a man who raped a seven-year-old girl last year to life in prison on Friday.

Judge Bonisile Sandi told Nonkwenke Sothuko 55, of Klipfontein farm, Jamestown, that he could find no substantial or compelling circumstances that would allow him to deviate from the prescribed life sentence.

"A life sentence would be both a just sentence and an appropriate one in this matter," said Sandi.
Sothuko had earlier pleaded guilty raping the girl on a neighbouring farm on July 12, 2007.

In his plea explanation he claimed he "was overcome by his sexual urges, grabbed the girl, threw her onto the ground next to a fowl run and raped her.

"I am extremely remorseful for my actions and I don't know what came over me. I have never before transgressed the law," he said.

But Sandi said the case had extremely aggravating features.

"She was only seven years old and the accused was known to her as 'Oupa' and she trusted him. Her injuries were serious and the evidence of the clinical psychologist is the girl has been severely damaged by the rape incident.

"State advocate Thembela Jikela has said he (the accused) had no option but to plead guilty, because members of the community saw him on top of the girl and pulled him off her."

Isi-Xhosa-speaking clinical psychologist Karen Andrews earlier told the court the girl "had developed an overwhelming fear of all men and ran away in terror whenever one approached her".

"The girl now suffers from enuresis (bedwetting) and has been further confused by the beating she was given by a woman after she had been raped.

"She displays symptoms of hyperarousal, intrusion and constriction (powerlessness), as a result of the psychological and emotional trauma of being raped.

"These are highly consistent with symptoms typically found in children who are traumatised as a consequence of sexual assault. [S]he is likely to experience the long-term symptoms of constriction which will have a pervasive and negative life-changing impact on her," said Andrews.

Sothuko's Legal Aid Board-appointed lawyer Alan de Jager said he would appeal the sentence on the grounds that it was "harsh and unjust" and the accused could be rehabilitated. - Sapa

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How Acupuncture Can Help Survivors

Hello everyone!
My name is Krisztina Samu and I'm a student of Oriental Medicine on the Big Island of Hawaii. I've prepared a video interview for this blog that I hope you find helpful.

How Acupuncture Can Help Survivors

Oriental Medicine was so amazing in helping me and many others I know in regaining balance and harmony in our bodies and emotions that I've decided to study it and get the message out about how it can be particularly helpful in cases of trauma.

My website is still in the works, but you can email me from the website
Project AcuHope and keep checking back for more juicy, helpful info!
Many blessings to you all!
Krisztina

Survivor Manual TV!

Now we have a place where the videos pertaining to Survivor Manual are collected!
Survivor Manual TV!

Watch the video called Healing the Human Spirit and the one about Sam MacArthur. Those are awesome!

Report Sexual abuse! Report IT!

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http://reportitnow.org/

Please fill out our ONLINE FORM. You can expose the sexual violence that happened to yourself or a friend or loved one if they are deceased or cannot speak for themselves. You can fill out the form anytime on or before April 29th. Thank you!

This IS NOT an official police report! We are using this form to show the vast numbers and want you to show up in person on Feb 19th and April 29th to your county courthouses!

Go to your country courthouse on Feb. 19th, 2008 for the Victims Rights Rally to launch the Report IT Campaign.

On April 1st, 2008 go to your local Barnes and Noble and meet other survivors when you buy Angela Shelton's book Finding Angela Shelton. Read the book, be inspired, and Report sexual violence that has happened to you or a loved one on our online form and get your friends to do that same. Start conversations! It is very likely that you know someone who has experienced sexual violence.

Go to your country courthouse on Angela Shelton Day, April 29th with everyone else to show that you are not alone!

Contact PAVE to get involved!! http://pavingtheway.net/

Think You've Had a Bad Day?

I've considered myself to have had a more challenging....well, lets just say rough start to the new year. Now don't worry---The Joy Campaign has been both a great kick in the pants, and a wonderful medicine for trying times. For that I am truly thankful. But the "message" I received this morning was unexpected jolt to reality.

I was pushing my shopping cart down the aisle at the Grocery Market down the street from my home. Most have probably been in the situation I was in themselves at one point. Where you aere making calculations in your head if you can afford everything in your basket, and what you can convince yourself you don't really want or need so you can put it back.

Then on the opposite end of the aisle from me, I saw her. A woman and her young daughter, probably about nine years old. Maybe because I am wired as a human, and that's what we do---or for some other more spiritual reason, I glanced at the woman's face. A fresh and painful looking bruise over her left eye.

Now, I believe it's the victim-mentality that lives in nearly all of us (and if it isn't now, it used to!) that has this dialouge with the logic in your head:

"Well, that doesn't mean she was beat up! She could have been smacked in the face by a door, or maybe has been in an automobile accident."

It was when I eavesdropped on the chatter of the child to her mother, that "its not what it looks like" idea was evicted.

"...When we get away from [Joe] and get our new apartment.."

Saying here that my heart sank just sounds poetic. I wish there was some way I could prove in my writing that my heart truly sank. Of course I fought the natural rescuer tendency in myself to want to approach her and say,

"Ma'am do you need help? Are you okay?

As Angela has shared, by and large we can't "rescue" people. Often it gets messy and people end up feeling violated, even though they so desperately wanted out of the desperate situation they were in in the first place. So, for natural "helpers" and "healers" like myself, it's a discipline in impulse control.

But we can allow our hearts to be broken for the pain of others. For many of us, this isn't far away from the same pain we felt at one point. We can be voices and speak for those that aren't strong enough yet to break their silence.

And when we think we are having a bad day, or "how will I ever get out of this mess?" Realize as I did, that in my case no one has beaten me today, yesterday or this month. I wasn't raped last night in my own bed. I don't have to walk around in public with the badge of others violence against me on my face. Almost more of an insult to my personhood that the first thing people will see of me is "victim".

Countless numbers of men and women woke up this morning not being able to claim that. It is sad that it seems to be a privilege to be a human being and not be victimized or abused. But sometimes that knowledge is the start that is needed to dig out of the pit of despair and that things will never change.

So, I know the next time I get caught in the negativity of a bad day, I am going to remember that anonymous woman and her child in the grocery store.

Break the Silence. Live Joyfully, Love Yourself, Love Others.

Dear Jane,

I got your message and yes, it is okay to be angry. You live in hell, of course you can be angry. There are many in your situation being held in prison by their family - literally. I spoke to another one of them online. But it was her dad poising as her - soooo creepy. He revealed himself pretty early on that it was really him. He's so dumb that he didn't even realize that I figured out I was talking to him and not his daughter. Creep. When you think about it, it makes sense that he was on there pretending to by his young girl and talking to her friends. Gross. Yet another way to control the one you are abusing and get your rocks off talking to their friends! Perps have all kinds of ways to stop an escape. They watch your every move.

You have to be smarter than them.

When your own family abuses you many times (like yourself) you made an agreement that in order to survive you were going to split. The problem is that you can forget that you made that agreement and have a really hard time putting all the pieces of yourself back together. You are not crazy. You abusers are crazy and they try to make you think you are crazy.

As far as getting out goes, you have to save money. It is very good that you got a job. I suggest you have them pay you through paypal and start a new account that no one knows about - don't use the account you already have that they know about! Hide and save your money even if you have to open a safety deposit box somewhere.

Express your anger away from them. Practice sports. Learn to fight. If you express yourself around them they will only put down the fortress walls quicker and heavier. You've got to think ninja-style and be smarter than them in order to escape. You and I both know that if you stay he will get your pregnant and then rape your children. That is the cold hard fact.



Jane History:
http://survivormanual.blogspot.com/2007/11/dear-jane.html
http://survivormanual.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-it-okay-to-express-myself-and-get.html
If you were following my old blog on angelashelton.com/weblog - this is the girl who we tried to save. http://www.angelashelton.com/weblog/2007/03/16/the-past-two-weeks/
I call her Jane now instead of Katie. So when you see Dear Jane, I am talking to her as well as a few just like her. There are many in this situation - just take the roof off of family courts nationwide and you will find a boatload of horror!

Fighting for Jessica

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I thought many of you may like to see this. This is a story I know well and an example of how you can move on, fight, and take back your Light. Check out her bat!

Fight for Jessica.

RAINN's Online Hotline

RAINN's Online Hotline has just won the 2007 Technology Innovation Award from NPower. The award annually recognizes a nonprofit that has created the most innovative use of technology to more effectively fulfill its mission.

Nearly half of all sexual assault victims are under 18, so they had to find a way to provide this younger age group with the services they need using the technology they embrace.

Check out the new video about the Online Hotline at www.rainn.org

Choose the Light!

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This is a video that I cut together with footage from Searching for Angela Shelton. Ophelia from (Wo)Men Speak Out wrote the song. This movie helps a lot of people and this song is genius, I love it!

Dear Jane...

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This is to a girl I love. You know who you are. There are quite a few of you out there and this is for all of you but especially Jane.

Awareness Ribbon for DID and other dissociative disorders

This just came in from a friend and activist:

To be shared with people out there who have DID or other dissociative disorders. The voting is taking place and can be viewed and voted on at this website:
http://www.copingincrazyville.com/iconvoting.php

It's an awareness ribbon that will be ordered the first of the year and then on sale. Vote!

Male Sexual Abuse

This is a great video from (Wo)Men Speak Out www.menspeakoutnow.com