childhood sexual abuse

Identifying Feelings and Knowing How You Feel

Identifying our feelings can be difficult and confusing. For a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, it can seem daunting. If you are a survivor, like myself, you have been successful in avoiding sensations in your body through dissociation, which is a very skillful way to separate from yourself. To further disconnect, you may have turned to addiction, such as being a workaholic, food, drugs, alcohol, shopping, sex, or relationships. Your body is at war with itself . . . to feel is frightening. Often when a survivor is asked what he/she is feeling, the survivor … Read more

When Teens Cry for Help: Teen Suicide and Self Harm

Recently on Instagram, a teen saw graphic images of suicide and self harm and was found dead in her bedroom after committing suicide. Her parents reported “no obvious signs” were seen. I am a Psychotherapist. One of my specialties is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder related to trauma and abuse. I am a recovering addict for 32 years in twelve step programs as well as an incest survivor. In 1977, when I was twenty seven, I tried to commit suicide by taking an overdose of pills. Luckily I was found and hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital … Read more

Healing the Shame Within

HUNGERING SOUL … HEALING THE SHAME WITHIN My shame is a cloud prison My soul cries for something it cannot see It hungers to suck love’s milk and drink music A longing too deep to fill I want to cut thru these black and red clouds And breathe every bit of life lost God, open your blue and green door Let me rest my darkness in your open fields let me rock in your ocean’s cradle let me leap with your grey dolphins Let your sun burn my shame to whiteness By Lori Golden, self … Read more

The Secrecy of Sexual Abuse Creates a Hidden Wall… Telling Breaks it Down

For a long time, I have wanted to write a book about growing up in my family with incest, my father my perpetrator.  Because I am a Psychotherapist and work with survivors of abuse and trauma, I felt it was important to do this. I recently wrote my book, My House of Lies, which is going to be completed in 2019.  In it I reveal my terrifying childhood and the painful and rewarding road to recovery. I started my sexual abuse memories six months after I entered Narcotics Anonymous in 1987 and was no longer … Read more