Victory Over Sexual Abuse: Professional Counseling

Friday, January 9, 2009

Professional Counseling

Before we get into the support group lessons, I am going to beat the support person drum a little more. This blog is meant to inform, encourage and support survivors and their loved ones. However, if you are a survivor who has received little to no counseling, this blog could be very upsetting and lead to trauma you are not prepared to handle. I wish to encourage you to seek professional counseling.

Sexual abuse is the most personal and damaging form of betrayal. Recovery from sexual abuse is the most intense and emotionally challenging form of recovery. Survivors of sexual abuse often struggle with powerful issues such as shame, thoughts of suicide, addictions and even dissociation. Most sexual abuse victims experience profound emotional isolation. Virtually all sexual abuse survivors could benefit from professional care.

I saw non-biblical counselors very regularly from the age of 12-20. I learned to cope with my trauma, but never learned to process through it and actually recover from it. There was a lot of pop culture, philosophy and coping involved in my non-biblical therapy, but no love, no real compassion and certainly no God. I experienced a lot of immediate change and healing with biblical counseling. I want to encourage you to contact your church to get connected with a biblical counselor who will be a good fit for you.

When a church gets into the business of helping the hurting, they are honoring God. The bible clearly teaches us to "bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2) We all experience physical, psychological, spiritual and emotional pain as part of the human condition. In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus said "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Only the Lord has the power to fully heal the brokenhearted, deliver you from your prison, and liberate you from your pain. And a biblical counselor is the perfect person to help you discover His healing and deliverance.

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Online recovery study

I lead support groups and have decided to take the information from the support groups and "teach" it here too. I will blog each lesson, give you time to think about it, comment if you'd like, email me privately, whatever works for you. It is always helpful to hear from others who are going through the same thing, so in the interest of supporting and encouraging each other, please consider sharing your experiences in the comments. You may do so anonymously if you'd like.

The workbook we are using is Shelter From The Storm by Cynthia Kubetin-Littlefield and James Mallory.

**Much of the content in the lesson postings is derived from, and even directly quoted at times, Shelter From The Storm. My personal comments are mine, but the process laid out here is from the book. I am merely a fellow survivor and lesson facilitator - NOT the author or creator.**

Why this blog?

I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. The daughter of an absent father who was brutally addicted to drugs and alcohol. The daughter of a woman suffering from diagnosed but untreated mental illnesses.

The "signs" of abuse and neglect started showing around age 8, but even I didn't recognize them until I was in my later 20's. I was very lonely, ashamed and embarrassed. I didn't know how to be in relationships and thought I was destined to be all alone, rejected and unloved. I tried desperately to "earn" people's love and acceptance, but pushed them away at the same time... For so long, so many people brushed aside what I'd been through, wishing I was lower maintenance and not who I really was - someone who'd been neglected and abused by her parents, a person who was completely changed by another person's failures and sin, someone who needed to be rebuilt, not cast aside or taken advantage of because she was broken.

I began to heal when I was finally loved unconditionally - first by my husband, then our firstborn child, then the Lord. My life was turned upside down - in a wonderful way - when I discovered that I am not the "orphan" I had felt like for so very long. I have a heavenly father!

I also discovered that what man means for evil, God will use to glorify him. What devastated me for many years is now something I draw on to help others as I lead support groups, talk to groups, and blog about the realities of sexual abuse and the hope there is for a complete recovery. I consider it a tremendous privilege to be able to share my experiences with you; hopefully encouraging you on your road to recovery. If you are not a survivor of sexual abuse, I invite you to stick around and read on. It is my hope and prayer that through this blog, you will learn more about how you can support a survivor in your life. Thank you for visiting.