Rachel Thompson's Blog, page 3

This is How To Find Our Purpose

What is our purpose? Why are we here? Does our purpose change based on our experiences?

One of the most difficult parts of a survivor’s journey is recovery. For a long time, I rejected the entire notion of recovery – what did I need to recover from? I wasn’t addicted to anything.

That was my own ignorance talking. Despite years of therapy for depression and anxiety, I had never really addressed how to recover from the childhood sexual abuse the next door neighbor perpetrated against me when I was eleven, or the aftermath of living with PTSD for decades AND how to live with it now.

It’s the human experience to ask these questions. For survivors, we often find ourselves weighed down by this burden and the desire to move beyond it. Like anyone, we want to find meaning, discover joy, and fill our time on this rock in a way that’s fulfilling. To find our purpose.

The Difference Between Our Jobs and Our Purpose 

Many survivors (and people in general) tie our jobs with our purpose. One does not have to equal the other, though it can. This is a Western way of thinking – we equate what we do for a living with our purpose in life. However, the two can be entirely different.

For example, my neighbor works a day job at a bank and then comes home and coaches soccer, his passion. Soccer gives him immense joy – banking does not.

See the difference?

Then again, many survivors are creatives (in my case, a writer). As a survivor, advocate, and author, my purpose ties fairly seamlessly to my work as an author. The doors open to one another, and create conversation starters and jumping off points.

For example, writing my first Broken book, Broken Pieces, inspired me to start #SexAbuseChat on Twitter, to help other sexual abuse survivors come together once weekly as a community to discuss various issues we face and how to deal with them.

It’s not about me promoting my books (something I don’t do much on Twitter anyway) – it’s about making the most of my visibility to help others and create a place where they feel welcome., aka advocating, which helped me find my own purpose.

Being an author is only one part of publishing – because if you want to sell books, you truly need to see yourself as a publisher, not simply as a writer (but that’s a post for my business blog).

Yet, writing books and advocating for survivors is not my day job. My day job is running my BadRedhead Media business, which pays my bills and provides for me and my kids. As a single mom, it’s important to know I have a steady income coming in. Being a solopreneur is tough, though I’m thrilled to finally be working for myself (I started in 2011) after working in Corporate America for 17 years.

How To Find Your Purpose

As I researched for a Twitter chat on finding our purpose, I came across this wonderful article on Verily Magazine by Jodee Virgo, MFT, with this fabulous list she often uses with clients who are flailing about or stuck.

I suggest working on one or two questions a week (this isn’t a process you must rush) and writing in your journal (if you aren’t journaling yet, start). Journaling can be anything you make it – a word, a sentence, doodles, photos, letters to yourself or others, poetry, thoughts, or just plain what you did that day…whatever works for you.

Work these questions into your journaling if you want to find your purpose:

01. What did you love to do as a child?

02. Where does your mind drift when you daydream?

03. Where and when do you feel the happiest?

04. When do you feel like your best self?

05. What do you value most in other people and yourself?

06. What inspiration, idea, or vision keeps coming to you?

07. Who inspires you with their passion and purpose?

08. If you could do anything in the world without worrying about time, money, or energy restrictions, what would you do?

09. What’s not working in your life?

10. What do you do most naturally, with effortless ease?

11. What would your future self say to the present you?

What Comes Next? 

Now that you’ve identified a few areas you want to focus, you have more of a sense of direction. As I discuss with writers stuck on the concept of author branding, finding your purpose is kind of (well, very) similar.

What topics are you passionate about or an expert in? What are you naturally drawn to or have a talent in? Research them. Write about them. And when you’re ready, share them.

We’re human, which means we’re innately curious about life. We may have a myriad of interests, yet eventually, we find our way. Something slams into us with a huge force and says, this is it, dummy. Whether that’s a positive or negative force, it’s kinda hard to miss.

Purpose doesn’t have to be some lofty, pie-in-the-sky unreachable goal. If your purpose is getting out of bed every day, cool. Your purpose can change and grow as you do.

Here’s what I mean: I in no way thought being sexually abused as a child would ever turn out to be a good thing. Still don’t. However, somehow I’ve been able to merge my writing, strength, resilience, honesty, vulnerability, compassion, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and advocacy all into one big smushy thing I refer to as my purpose.

It’s a mess, but it’s my mess. And when I decided to share my purpose, I did.

What’s yours?

 

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book,  Broken Pieces.
She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in
Broken Places, available in print everywhere!

 

 

 

 

The post This is How To Find Our Purpose appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

This Is What Abuse Survivors Can Learn From Triggers

Unexpected Triggers 

It was an ordinary exam. Something I’d experienced goodness knows how many times before, considering I’m in my fifties and have had two children. Something you learn just being a woman and especially after having children: your private parts aren’t really private. The medical staff is all up in there, checking this and that. And you learn, as a woman, that that’s just how it is. They’re doing their job.

For most women, these types of yearly exams run from mildly annoying to just get it over with – regardless, it’s something we have to do. For some who are shy, it’s embarrassing, yet they get through it. For others who are pretty comfortable with their bodies and sexuality, no big deal.

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I’ve learned to mentally prep myself: I’ve had babies. All manner of medical staff have been up in my girlie parts. So my prep is: deal with it.

Minimizing and dismissing my own discomfort is my go-to. It’s how I push through.

So, when I recently had to have a vaginal ultrasound (welcome to menopause!), I did my usual prep: just get through it. I wasn’t prepared, however, for how uncomfortable it would be. I didn’t prep for the pain. Don’t get me wrong: the pain wasn’t unbearable, and the tech was as gentle as she could be. In fact, she kept apologizing, “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” When I asked her ‘How many times a day do you say that?’ she chuckled. “About a thousand.” Poor thing. What a job, man.

I didn’t dissociate during the exam. I used my deep breathing. I used my mantras (You are safe. You are good. You are loved.) to help me focus. I didn’t freak out at all. In other words, I coped. 

And I was fine. I’m always fine. Til I got in my car and began shaking and crying. My guy texted me: Are you okay, baby?

Coping With Triggers 

And, of course, then I lost it. I called him crying hysterically. He knows me so well, speaking soothing, quiet words til I was calm enough to drive straight home. The cascade of cortisol and whatever else still coursing through my body, migraine blowing up – I drove carefully home, my love meeting me at the door with cold water and a warm blanket. He walked me to a cozy nest of blankets and tucked me in with my kitty cats.

Where I promptly crashed for several hours. My reaction to stress. Sleep.

Speaking to my therapist a few days later, I told her I was perplexed by my reaction. I’d never reacted that way to an internal exam before, and lord knows how many I’ve had that were uncomfortable, including biopsies and even two births – I mean, talk about pain, right?

And – trigger warning – I was not penetrated when I was abused (one of the reasons my family and even I tended to minimize and dismiss the abuse until we learned later that penetration isn’t the only qualifier to CSA) – so why this one time did I have this reaction?

Talking it through, she said it was likely how vulnerable the exam made me feel.

I couldn’t move, get up or leave (or at least, I felt I couldn’t), which is how I felt when my abuser abused me. So, my parasympathetic nervous system went right back to those memories – it wasn’t conscious on my part. Thanks, PTSD.

My amygdala took over, and that flood of chemicals rushed in. Want to know all about the brain and sexual assault? Read Jim Hopper’s site. Jim is a neuropsychologist and founding board member of 1in6.org.

I logically knew what happened. Yet at that moment, there’s no making sense of it. It’s all chemical.

via The Daily Cardinal

(Aside: I recently read a story in the LA Times about a professional woman who was detained by TSA and strip-searched. Her past abuse came flooding back during the search and she completely broke down. The complete lack of support she’s receiving as a survivor and PTSD sufferer is galling to me, with people calling her a snowflake, etc. The comments enrage me. The ignorance about abuse and its effects on the brain is one of society’s biggest issues.)

My therapist asked: would I have had this reaction if my guy had gone with me? He helps me to feel safe. He’s protective, which is honestly something I’ve never had in a relationship and something I treasure now. I deserve it, after all these years of feeling unsafe. My answer: I would have had him go with me if I thought, knew, imagined I would’ve reacted this way. I never had in the past. He would have gladly gone and held my hand.

Now I know that I was triggered by this situation this one time, I logically know it doesn’t mean I will always react the same way and therefore, must avoid it. My health is too important. This reaction is not one I expected since I’ve always been fine before. (And yes, I’ve shared with my gynecologist that I’m an abuse survivor. It’s in my notes. The tech herself said she was aware and was gentle as she could be. They did nothing wrong.)

Learning From Triggers 

Here’s what I learned about myself as a survivor: triggers happen, and I don’t always know when or if they’ll happen again in a similar situation. It doesn’t mean I run away from them or avoid all situations where they’re likely to happen again. It’s good to be aware of what causes us to have triggers, and it’s also okay to avoid situations that can trigger us for awhile if we need to.

I won’t ignore my health, though.

Lesson: Going forward, I will remind the tech or nurse or doc again, and again if I need to, that I’m a survivor. As an advocate and someone who is vocal about my past abuse, it’s not always easy for me to have these conversations, either. But we MUST advocate for ourselves, survivor friends.

And it’s okay to take someone with us! It’s okay to admit that we can be triggered by vulnerable situations. If you know that these exams can be difficult for you and you don’t have someone to go with you, ask for a nurse or assistant to hold your hand.

It’s okay. 

Example: I dissociated last summer at a hot, crowded event. So I avoid hot, crowded events. That’s a logical reaction to a past trigger. Will I always and forever avoid hot, crowded events? Not sure. For now, that’s the best self-care option for me. However, if I do go to an event like that again, I’ll have a plan in place.

That’s not feasible in every life situation. I got through my reaction. I’ll get through it again.

I’ve survived worse.

 

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book,  Broken Pieces.
She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in
Broken Places, available now on Amazon.

The post This Is What Abuse Survivors Can Learn From Triggers appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

This Is Why Peopling Is Hard

Know how some days you just don’t want to people? Peopling is a verb, you see. As in:

Peopling is hard. 

I don’t want to people today. 

I’ve reached my peopling quotient for the day.

I’m pretty sure that’s how my cats go through life, once their humans have fed, watered, and pet them.

Online Peopling 

Like the other day, when I shared some tips on how to make blogging easier and someone told me I was being ‘ableist’ because my tips didn’t take into account their personal inability to market books due to pain (which granted, totally sucks). I feel bad for them and shared that I have chronic pain issues also and don’t give as much attention to this blog as I want to.

Or when I explained what exactly #MondayBlogs is all about and a lady told me that by not sharing her repeated quotes about the wonders of Trump, I’m discriminating against her (never mind that the hashtag is for blog posts, not quotes — lady, it’s right there IN the hashtag — and as I spell out right on the @MondayBlogs bio, pinned tweet, blog post right in the bio, various visuals, and throughout the day each week).

Or when a darling survivor friend of mine finally shared in a post that she is a survivor and some guy trashes her immediately about one aspect of the piece he disagreed with. In fact, she was ready to pull the piece, even though it’s beautiful, honest, and wonderfully insightful, all because his #NotAllMen ego doesn’t like her perspective. (A bunch of us talked her out of that, thank goodness.)

The good news about peopling online is that you can shut off all that mental noise and walk away, open up a program and write a blog post about how annoying people are.

We like being able to turn off interactions and it’s healthy to do so. You can calm down, breathe, remove yourself from that virtual world and get back to your real one.

But what about those people who can’t? Who stay on and argue online for hours and hours? Who can’t differentiate their online world from their real one? Who believe their online world IS their real world? What if the only company people have is online (a real issue for many people)?

An interesting study shows how our brains react differently to real-life interactions versus online interactions. While we may think we are emotionally invested in these online connections, the areas in our brain that control emotion show otherwise.

“Interaction with human partners requires more emotional involvement, and thus more cognitive effort, than interacting with a computer. (Rilling, Sanfey, Aronson, Nystrom, & Cohen, 2004‏). The study also shows a difference in activation strength between our reactions to human beings and computers. This is because when we interact with another human being, we cannot control our emotional involvement invested in the interaction process. The activation of specific brain areas is automatic once our mental radar detects another person.” (Source: Psychology Today 2014)

What’s Missing When Peopling Online 

This begs the question my friend asked and what many of us experience with online interactions that go south: why are people often so mean online?

Pretty basic: non-verbal communication.

When we interact in real life, our brains interpret non-verbal clues (unless one is autistic). For example, if the #NotAllMen dude saw my friend’s distress in response to his brutally mean commentary, how would he feel? Would he have been as likely to say those things to her face? No way. Perhaps he would have asked her about her motivations, experiences, and why she felt the way she did (totally hypothetical and idealistic on my part), opening a dialogue to understanding.

Without those non-verbal clues, online communication fails to meet these emotional needs and is ripe to become tit for tat, back and forth, and mean-spirited. People can become whoever they want to be, projecting an image (often toxic).

“Hence, it is easier to hide our emotions behind an email, a Facebook post or a tweet. These platforms help people project any image they want; they can be whoever and whatever they want to be. Without the ability to receive nonverbal cues, their audiences are none the wiser.”

The emotions we feel during these interactions feel quite real, and can negatively affect our mental health, self-esteem, and overall well-being.

The other phenomenon that takes place online which freaks us out is the lack of control.

Humans have a need for control – this is built into our evolutionary psyche. We need to know what’s going to happen next. We’re planners. Online communications provides constant surprises – we have no idea what someone we are communicating with is going to say, when they’re going to say it, or how they’re going to say it (if at all).

Plus, the communication is unsynchronized (people respond whenever they want), whereas real-life comms are synchronized (you speak, then I speak, etc). There’s a flow.

Positive Online Peopling 

Not all communications online are negative, clearly. I’ve met some of my best friends in real life online. I even met my guy that way!

Online groups and chats are incredible ways to form meaningful, helpful relationships that can benefit all kinds of folks. As a writer and businessperson, I can attest to this – social media is a crucial part of any author’s platform. Support groups are often the only thing keeping many people alive and can be incredibly validating, particularly for survivors.

Virtual comms can be a relationship surrogate for many people, full of satisfaction and enjoyment and for some, that may be enough.

I’ll share a little story with you: at one point, back before I published my Broken books, a writing mentor suggested I join her online critique group, so of course, I jumped at the chance! I greatly admired her and figured this would improve my craft. After a few sessions, however, I felt so defeated by her feedback and also critical attacks by other members of her group, I not only quit, I fell into a deep depression.

Was my writing that bad? Would nobody read it, as she said? Was I really “not ready for publication?”

After wallowing in their hurtful comments for a few weeks, I sent my manuscript off to my former screenwriting brother-in-law who gave it to a screenwriter friend who had done some script-doctoring for Spielberg. Yea, I know. She read through Broken Pieces and emailed me, “Honey, this is the real deal. You even made me cry and I never fucking cry. Publish it.”

Which I did.

Peopling Is What You Make It 

As I always say with social media, blogging, and any other online media, it’s what you make it. To grow your social, you must interact and build relationships. However, you don’t need to engage with trolls or negative people unless you feel it’s somehow helpful or necessary to your well-being.

Ask yourself this question before you begin to madly respond to someone:

Is talking with this person good for you? If the answer is yes, do it. If the answer is no, don’t. Simple.

Besides, how else could you be spending that time?

Part of my own personal growth is to choose a yearly watchword (or focus word, as some people call it). This year my word is Power. The power to enforce my boundaries is a big one for me. Do I need to respond to people simply because they engage me online? I do not. I’ll be writing my next post all about how to go about using your watchword.

For now, what I want to express to you is that while peopling can be hard for some of us online, we wouldn’t have social media without each other. Make it work for you. And if it isn’t working, take a break. Take a break anyway – we spend too much time online, don’t we?

Be the people you are. Be you, wonderful, messy, you. Write, read, kiss your lover, play with your kids, get crafty, sing, dance, cook (well, not me because you know, I burn everything), pet your cats, dogs or stroke a furry wall, watch a movie, sleep (oh, how I love to sleep), exercise…be the you that you want to see in the world.

Non-verbal that shit.

 

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book,  Broken Pieces.
She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in
Broken Places,  available now on Amazon.

The post This Is Why Peopling Is Hard appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

5 Mistakes People Make When Discussing Sexual Violence

As a survivor, writer, and sexual abuse survivor activist, I participate in and observe real life and online daily conversations on the topic of sexual violence. Hmmm, the topic of sexual violence — like it’s just a topic, not crimes that affect people for the rest of our lives. That change the very structure of our cells, of our brains. Simply a topic of conversation.

Not a polite dinner conversation topic, of course. Yet, still a topic people bring up regularly, because you see, everyone is an expert (I call them the ‘Should Have Dones) on what a victim of a horrific sexual crime Should Have Done after she was brutally raped, sexually molested, abused, or harassed (unless you’re in the political arena and then it’s referred to as ‘sexual misconduct,’ that vague, gray area that cannot be defined, making it easy for politicians to talk in their circles and loopholes, as they are wont to do).

I refer to victims of sexual crimes (including myself) as survivors. Personal choice. We are, and have every right to refer to ourselves as, victims. Society loves to call us victims, in the negative sense of the word. That’s mistake number one so let’s start there.

Mistake #1: Victim Blaming Sexual Violence Survivors

‘Don’t be a victim,’ people spew at us. ‘Just get over it.’ ‘You just want the attention.’ Or my favorite (from a guy): ‘Why didn’t you just call 911? Seems easy enough.” (Well, I was only eleven at the time, and gosh well, 911 didn’t exist in 1975. Plus you know, the whole thing about how my abuser, the military dad next door, had a gun and had threatened to kill me and my baby sister if I told. So there’s that.)

Soooo easy.

One person on Twitter the other day said, ‘I’m not sure if I want to read your books. Are they an endless loop of hopeless reality, victim-mentality, woe-is-me? I prefer stories of go-getters!’

Funny thing is, I am a go-getter. I am ambitious. I’m pretty chill most days. I am also a victim of a serial child molester when I was eleven. Whether I ‘get over it,’ or talk about what happened and how I’ve dealt with it doesn’t change that he sexually abused me. I deal with that reality every day. It doesn’t define me — I don’t wear a label across my forehead, however, I don’t hide it anymore either. Shame no longer owns me.

If you look at the language people use, the focus is on the victim (I’m purposely using the word victim here so stay with me). Don’t be a victim. Get over it. Move on. As if we, the victims of crimes, have Done Something Wrong. As if discussing it means I’m still in victim-mode — which I’m not (because people do want to know); yet people assume that any victim of a sexual crime who discusses their harrowing real-life experience must be looking for attention because why else would we discuss something so private?

Here’s the bigger question: Why do you suppose people focus so much on the victim instead of the perpetrator? I’ve had years to observe this and here’s my completely non-scientific, non-random, non-controlled, non-trial, half-opinion, half-experience-based conclusion:

There’s more than one conclusion, depending on the person’s most treasured belief system. It’s uncomfortable. People don’t know what to say. They don’t want to get into the mind of an abuser, so to avoid that, they pick on the victim. They bully us. We’re accessible, easy targets. Defensive attacks are easier than compassion.

Victims are easy to blame because it’s harder and scarier to connect in any way with the mind of a criminal rapist or child molester — there might be something lurking there they don’t want to see — themselves.

There’s another school of thought (much more scientific):

“Our tendency to blame the victim is ultimately self-protective. It allows us to maintain our rosy worldview and reassure ourselves that nothing bad will happen to us. The problem is that it sacrifices another person’s well-being for our own. It overlooks the reality that perpetrators are to blame for acts of crime and violence, not victims.” (Source: Psychology Today)

I’d really love to see that paradigm shift. Instead of asking victims of sexual crime anything — because we the public are entitled to know nothing about the victim — let’s ask perpetrators why they perpetrate crimes against others. Is it anger? Is it hormonal? Is it societal? Is it mental? How can we fix this?

We know it’s not about sex. We know it’s about power and control. Examining power and patriarchal structures and how we break these down is a start. According to the latest studies, here’s what we do know about men who rape and sexually assault women:

Heavy drinking, perceived pressure to have sex,
a belief in “rape myths” — such as the idea that no means yes
A peer group that uses hostile language to describe women.
Men who are highly aroused by rape porn.
Narcissism magnifies odds that men will commit sexual assault and rape.
What about the idea that rape is about power over women? Some experts feel that research into hostile attitudes toward women supports this idea.
Rejection in high school and of looking on as “jocks and the football players got all the attractive women.”As these once-unpopular, often narcissistic men become more successful, [he] suspects that “getting back at these women, having power over them, seems to have become a source of arousal.” (Source: New York Times )

In the wake of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and the sexual assault revelation by Dr. Blasey Ford:

“This is what we will expect from the congressional committee:

She will likely be asked to detail every moment of the alleged attack. How much she had to drink. Why she went upstairs. What she was wearing.” (Source: Washington Post )

And she was. That’s exactly what happened.

People feel righteous and justified, as if her drinking or clothing gives Kavanaugh a pass for his (alleged) ‘misconduct.’

**Postscript: we all know the result of that entire situation.

How does what any woman/person wears or drinks justify someone else’s criminal behavior? It doesn’t. In any situation. It simply doesn’t.

Mistake #2: The Language We Use

As I mentioned above, in Western society we focus on the victim:

Mary is a battered woman.
Rachel is a CSA (childhood sexual abuse) survivor.
Joe was raped.

Where are the perpetrators (usually men) who did the abusing in these sentences?

(For the purpose of this discussion, I’ll use men as the perpetrator, though I acknowledge #NotAllMen are abusers so please, let’s not go down that road. It is a well-known and researched fact that men do the majority of abusing (please read the full linked report for more data*) — of women, children, and other men. My point here is not to bash men; simply provide an example. I’m not in any way condemning men exclusively and I acknowledge that women can be abusers too, so everyone breathe.)

*Sex of Perpetrator in Lifetime Reports of Sexual Violence:

Most perpetrators of all forms of sexual violence against women were male. For female rape victims, 98.1% reported only male perpetrators. Additionally, 92.5% of female victims of sexual violence other than rape reported only male perpetrators. For male victims, the sex of the perpetrator varied by the type of sexual violence experienced. The majority of male rape victims (93.3%) reported only male perpetrators. For three of the other forms of sexual violence, a majority of male victims reported only female perpetrators: being made to penetrate (79.2%), sexual coercion (83.6%), and unwanted sexual contact (53.1%). For non-contact unwanted sexual experiences, approximately half of male victims (49.0%) reported only male perpetrators and more than one-third (37.7%) reported only female perpetrators (data not shown).

**For an in-depth discussion on gender symmetry, look at the work of Sherry Hamby, Ph.D.

(“Violence against women, men, and children is a men’s issue, not a women’s issue” — it’s not even a gender issue, according to Jackson Katz. Watch his TEDTalk — an excellent summary of how gendered language is endemic in our society and how we view violence against women and others, perpetuated primarily by men.)

There’s also an assumption (never a good thing) that survivors, especially female survivors, are liars. We must somehow want attention. Women must have ulterior motives for reporting sexual crimes (which violate our civil rights).

Look at the language people use when describing the multitudes of women who accused Bill Cosby in a criminal trial — they must want money or fame — misunderstanding there’s no money or fame to be had, as many of them remained anonymous, he was only convicted for the crimes against one woman, and a criminal trial does not award money.

This is especially true if the victim was drinking or drugged (more on that below). As Jim Hopper mentions in his work, our brains are flooded with chemicals during any kind of intense, traumatic situation, in particular during a sexual assault:

This part of our brain is responsible for executive functions, including focusing attention where we choose, rational thought process and inhibiting impulses. You are using your prefrontal cortex to read this article and absorb what we’ve written, rather than getting distracted by other thoughts in your head or things going on around you. But in states of high stress, fear or terror like combat and sexual assault, the prefrontal cortex is impaired–sometimes even effectively shut down–by a surge of stress chemicals. (Source: Lisak & Hopper, TIME Ideas, 2014)

Mistake #3: Expecting/Demanding a Hero Story

Like the reader above who expected my book to be about a woman who pulls herself up by the bootstraps and conquers the world, we are conditioned, particularly here in the West, to expect and might I even say demand, a mythic hero’s journey. From sitcoms to TV movies to series to Marvel and DC Universe to epics to The Olympics every two years — we are spoonfed heroes journeys at every turn.

Look at Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter — classic if clichéd examples of The Hero’s Journey (with male protagonists and male best friend side-kicks…plus the the oh-so-important scrappy, brilliant yet with not enough screen time female secondary character, who was never completely fleshed out as well as the guys and oh, always became prettier as the series wore on. Think Hermione — whom I love, yet still.). We do love a flawed underdog who grows to a champion!, finds the strength within themselves despite difficult circumstances, defeats the bad guy (ta-da!), and ultimately gets the girl…and, of course, yes, and they lived happily ever after.

Survivors of sexual violence are my heroes. We get up and live each and every day despite living with some combo of anxiety, depression, flashbacks, dissociation, nightmares, insomnia, triggers, hypersensitivity, hypervigilance, migraines, any number of immune disorders, addiction, and all kinds of other shit we are at higher risk for solely because we were a victim of sexual violence at some point in our lives.

PTSD is common in anywhere from one-third to one-half of sexual abuse survivors six months after the attack(s). 94% experience symptoms within the first 24 hours.

If and when we choose to share our survivor experience, we don’t owe anyone a hero story.

Life is hard enough as it is. Navigating it as a survivor adds other layers ‘normals’ cannot possibly imagine. Your expectation that we must live our lives according to your heroic expectations is not our issue.

And if I (or other victims) are still in victim mode — so what? Some victims are so traumatized by the crimes against them, the effects are devastating:

some repeatedly attempt to kill themselves — and often succeed,
become addicted to drugs/alcohol (did you know 75% of addicts and 90% of alcoholics were sexually abused as children? Source: The Right Step ),
develop mental health issues (personality disorders, OCD, anxiety, depression, body dysphoria,
have lifelong weight issues
are at higher risk of immune disorders
can retreat to another mental universe completely (e.g., DID or other personality disorders).

If struggling to get through each day is the best we can do — so what?? Who is anyone to judge us?

Mistake #4: The Perfect Victim Myth

People blame victims for not being perfect. If she wore that red dress, if she was drinking, if she didn’t fight back, if she met the guy and they had sex (how dare a woman want sex #gasp), if she was out late walking, if she was asleep in her own bed in a nightie or even naked in her own home! If, if, if.

When you first hear about a crime, it’s our natural curiosity to want to find out more. “What happened? Who was involved, what were the circumstances, is everyone okay?”

However, in a sexual violence situation, many people immediately ask, “What was she wearing? Was she drunk? Was she alone?” This is our go-to. Because it’s somehow her fault for being imperfect. She’s to blame for putting herself in the position to be victimized (and yes, I’m using this passive language on purpose).

Again, with the victim-blaming. Yet the perfect victim expectation goes far beyond that. We’ve all watched enough Hollywood tropes to have been brainwashed into thinking that victims should be thin, virginal, pretty, helpless creatures who are perfect in every way (good), OR they are vampy vixens dressed in leather whom we know have it coming because they ooze sex (bad).

In reality, women are not caricatures (surprise!) and are sexually violated at all stages of life and in all stages of clothing.

Cases have been dismissed entirely because the victim didn’t cry sufficiently or wasn’t hysterical enough (if you recall, PTSD used to be referred to as ‘shellshock’ for a reason). Our brains can react in a multitude of ways during and after sexual assault — see Jim Hopper’s comprehensive work to get the neuroscientific background in understandable terms. As Jim points out, investigators have to learn how to talk to victims differently based on the latest scientific studies on how the brain reacts to intense trauma.

Memory gaps are common — why? Because of the pre-frontal cortex impairment mentioned above. Details can be hazy and remain hazy. The best scientists in the world don’t know exactly why, yet lawyers, judges, and juries demand definitive proof a victim isn’t lying (and even with proof, rape kits are collecting dust. Again, whole other post).

No. Let’s discuss it. If there’s DNA present, the victim can undergo the process of having a rape kit done (commonly referred to as a SAK: Sexual Assault Kit). After being raped or sexually assaulted, a victim must again open themselves up to strangers to be intimately examined.

Then there’s this fact: Most kits are never tested unless there’s a criminal investigation. Go ahead, read that again.

Are all SAKs tested?

No. While there are a few cities and states that automatically test all sexual assault kits, in general, SAKs are not tested unless specifically requested by a law enforcement agency for a criminal investigation. There are a variety of reasons that a kit might not be tested including:

A decision by law enforcement due to a variety of reasons — such as not prioritizing sexual assault cases or a perceived lack of victim credibility or cooperation — not to further investigate the case.
A decision by law enforcement that the results of the kit would not be significant to the investigation. This occurs most often when the suspect does not deny physical contact but instead claims the contact was consensual.
Backlogged crime labs. Due to resource issues, some crime labs may take up to a year or longer to test a SAK.
Lack of funding for DNA analysis. Some law enforcement jurisdictions, including crime laboratories, are underfunded and may be unable to test every SAK. (Source: National Center for Victims of Crime )

Dissociation (aka, spacing out or acting differently) is common after an assault, sometimes for years — even decades (something I still experience now, forty-plus years after my abuse as a child).

I experienced dissociation each time my abuser molested me (not realizing that watching myself as he abused me was not abnormal). I dissociated frequently throughout high school and college — it was normal for me to watch myself from above. Now that I know what that feeling is (something I can do on command), I’m much more aware. Sometimes, though, it happens and I don’t realize it at all. My family knows, though. My guy says he can see me ‘going under.’

You may also find this PTSD visual helpful (Souce: Daily Cardinal) and read more on PTSD here.

As for whether a woman decides to drink, do drugs, wear whatever she wants, meet a guy for sex — she is allowed to do all those things and still does not deserve to be raped. No man deserves to be raped. No child deserves it. No LGBTQ-identifying person. No human.

A person is raped because someone raped them.

By accusing a survivor who is brave enough to come forward for not fitting into the perfect victim myth you’ve come to expect, or accusing them of lying, it’s as if we are all having the wrong argument. What we have here is a faulty car engine (the brain, which in truth isn’t faulty at all), yet you’re accusing, discrediting, and blaming the driver.

When in actuality, the one causing the entire mess is the guy who ran the car off the road.

Allegedly.

Mistake #5: Sexual Violence is Political

Social media is rife with conspiracy theories about the Ford/Kavanaugh situation — which I won’t dignify by going into here on this post. The #MeToo movement, which has brought forward incredible, heartbreaking, brave voices sharing horrific stories of sexual violence, is now being attacked as men vs. women, as right-wing vs those ‘heathen, liberal left’ (never mind the number of priests, GOP’ers identified as child molesters and rapists, Fox News?). Some of the people involved in spreading and believing these stories are tin-foil hat ridiculous.

Geez. See how easy even I lowered myself into the mud? It’s an ugly look, isn’t it? Mud-slinging makes dirty people. Dirty people spread more dirt.

Add to that the conspiracy theorists, fake news, fake accounts, Russian whatevers, bots, and fundamentalists on all sides…we might as well be rolling with the pigs…or is it dogs or fleas? Besides, shouldn’t you be writing instead of arguing politics on social media?)

Which is why I refuse to discuss politics and sexual violence together in the same tweet or post.* I won’t argue with anyone about sexual violence and politics. They are completely separate because my focus is and always will be on the survivor. And if you work with The Joyful Heart Foundation as I do or RAINN (also wonderful), you’ll see they are not political, either (except to help get funding for rape kit testing or more services for survivors).

Advocating is about helping others. Politicizing sexual violence negatively, to further some politician’s career, doesn’t help anyone.

(*If there’s a bill, contributions needed, or volunteering to help or fund services for survivors — then I’m all in to help out survivors).

Making what a survivor goes through, after any kind of assault, fit into some political party ideology is ludicrous to me.

Compassion and kindness are my ideology.

Mistake #6: Assuming All Victims of Sexual Violence Are Liars

One more, on the house.

As I already mentioned above, the other part of politicizing sexual violence is the assumption that all sexual violence survivors are liars (ONLY if the survivor is hurting your candidate). Why do you suppose this is? Because diehard party-line believers and supporters cannot afford to question their own familiar belief system (this topic brings in fallacies, which you can read more about here). Whole other post.

“Why didn’t she report? She had plenty of time!” Such an easy question to ask. So simple. As easy as asking a domestic violence survivor why she didn’t just leave, right? Surely, violent, criminal situations can be explained away with a tweet. I hope this sounds as ridiculous to you as it does to me, yet that’s what people demand from survivors, particularly women.

I’ve shared above how parts of the brain shut off during trauma. If the victim chooses to come forward immediately, investigators must be trained to question survivors appropriately, keeping this in mind. The victim may not answer in a way politicians or the public would ‘expect’ a perfect victim to answer — yet the knowledge of how the brain responds to trauma is not widely known or understood.

The general public is a different story altogether. Zero comprehension of the brain on trauma. Therefore, we see these brutal social media attacks ensue due to unsatisfactory answers to questions the public has no right to ask.

Shame is another reason. It can take decades for a survivor to speak publicly about their sexual trauma (if they ever do at all). It took me three and a half decades to write Broken Pieces and then Broken Places (Broken People will be available soon-ish).

Fear of retaliation (and considering 90% of sexual violence is perpetrated by someone we know, this is an incredibly valid fear). More specifics from RAINN:

Of the sexual violence crimes not reported to police from 2005–2010, the victim gave the following reasons for not reporting:

20% feared retaliation
13% believed the police would not do anything to help
13% believed it was a personal matter
8% reported to a different official
8% believed it was not important enough to report
7% did not want to get the perpetrator in trouble
2% believed the police could not do anything to help
30% gave another reason or did not cite one reason

Read more statistics about perpetrators of sexual violence .

I won’t go into the details of my own sexual abuse here, but I will share this: as someone who did report (eventually) and testified in two trials at the age of twelve (civil and military), I can tell you it was one of the most terrifying, humiliating, and shameful experiences I’ve ever had, facing the man who abused me, having to explain what he did to me while others scrutinized every excruciating, embarrassing detail for further questioning and cross-examination.

Sure, I was young. Younger than both my kids are now. Too young to know the words I was about to speak.

For the record, he got eighteen months.

 

Do you need help right now? Contact RAINN 800.656.HOPE (4673). Here are 67 resources for sexual assault survivors via Greatist.

 

This post originally appeared on Medium.

 

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book,  Broken Pieces.
She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in
Broken Places,  available now on Amazon.

 

The post 5 Mistakes People Make When Discussing Sexual Violence appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

How To Effectively Balance PTSD and Real Life

Is it possible to balance PTSD and real life? It is, if you realize you have it, know what to look for, and get the help you need.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized, after dealing with migraines for over twenty years, they could somehow be related to the childhood sexual abuse (CSA) I experienced when I was eleven. No neurologist had ever asked about my past. Why would I think there would be a connection?

I started therapy in my mid-thirties for postpartum depression – my shrink was great. He helped me deal with the here and now of anxiety and depression. Triage, if you will. We eventually delved into my past and he diagnosed me as having PTSD from the CSA. (I wrote a post all about migraines and treatment here if you’d like to start with that post. That’s not what this post is about.)

You have to understand – I had no concept whatsoever why I hated crowds and noise, why going to Disneyland with my husband (at the time) and kids made me cry and tremble (it’s supposed to be the happiest place on earth, right?), or why slamming doors and drawers (my ex was a slammer) made me jump as if I were in a horror movie.

I pushed myself through these experiences for years, not realizing how much worse that made the hyper-vigilance. How would I know? While my shrink was helpful in many ways, we didn’t discuss a connection between PTSD and my current chronic pain.

Migraines have had such a huge effect on my life since my late-twenties — how can I not have known about this PTSD link? It’s mind-boggling. 

Fast forward another ten years or so: I’ve written and released Broken Pieces (in 2013), moved to a new city, separated from my now ex-husband, and started seeing a new trauma-informed therapist who shows me all kinds of studies showing the link between PTSD and chronic pain. (Not every survivor of sexual trauma gets PTSD – typically, it’s anywhere from 30% to 50%; Source: Harvard School of Public Health).

Let’s talk more about PTSD, pain, and how to balance it all.

Defining PTSD

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is defined as a state of extreme anxiety and hypervigilance which begins after some type of traumatic experiences such as a rape, military combat, or natural disaster. 

The symptoms of PTSD may include reliving the traumatic event over and over again, avoiding people or places that remind you of the trauma, or exhibiting symptoms of the flight or fight reaction. (Source: Very Well Mind.) (Freezing is also a natural response to trauma. To learn more about the three types of freezing, read this informative article from Jim Hopper, Ph.D. in Psychology Today.)








PTSD and Pain 

It’s well-known that people with PTSD are at higher risk of heart disease, immune disorders, eating disorders, addiction, and depression. But did you know that we’re at higher risk of pain issues (e.g., migraines, back pain, fibromyalgia) as well? Most survivors don’t. I didn’t. In fact, most physicians and other health-care practitioners don’t know (or at least don’t ask about it when taking a patient’s history).

My own experience was fairly unique, in that I was a Big Pharma rep – I called on dozens of neurologists as a rep. I saw several as a patient. One, in particular, was ‘the guy’ – well-known internationally as The Migraine Doctor. Not once did he ask about my past or PTSD. Just threw a triptan* at me and said ‘if it works, you have migraines. If it doesn’t, you don’t. And don’t smoke. You’ll stroke out and die.’ Yea, charming.

*Triptans are formally known as serotonin receptor agonists. Triptan drugs work like a brain chemical called serotonin. This helps quiet down overactive pain nerves. In other words, triptans reverse the changes in your brain that caused your migraine.

Point is: with all of the training (and I sold neurology and migraine meds), with all my interactions with internists, neuros, GPs, FPs, nurses, PAs, etc., not once did we discuss past trauma as a connection to pain. This is major gap.

Tip: Find a physician you’re comfortable with, and tell him/her about your sexual trauma. I’m very open about it now with all my healthcare practitioners. They are welcoming, and it often changes their treatment plan. 

Studies show that pain is one of the most common physical problems reported by people with PTSD. This finding holds true no matter what types of traumatic events they experienced—for example, a motor vehicle accident, physical assault, or combat injury. People with PTSD are also more likely to report pain-related disability.

In one study of volunteer firefighters with PTSD, approximately 50% were having pain (mainly back pain) compared with only about 20% of firefighters without PTSD.
In two other studies, from 20% to 30% of patients with PTSD had frequent and chronic pain symptoms.

You can also look at this situation in reverse: Many patients with chronic pain problems also have PTSD. In fact, from 10% to 50% of people getting treatment for chronic pain have PTSD as well. These rates of PTSD are higher than those found in the general population. (Source: VeryWellMind)

Why is this? Think about it. If you are tensed up due to hyper-vigilance, you may suffer from tension headaches which can lead to migraines *raises hand*. From this same article:

Some symptoms of PTSD may cause pain. For example, PTSD-related hyperarousal symptoms often cause tense muscle pain that can become chronic. More below on hyperarousal (and no, it’s not sexual, ya dirty creatures).

…and the light bulb goes on

Three Main Symptom ‘Groups’ of PTSD

PTSD is complicated. Though it can affect each person in many different ways, there are identifiable characteristics which are grouped in this way:

Re-experiencing: manifests as if we are reliving the event(s) through flashbacks, dreams/nightmares, or intrusive thoughts. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t experience some kind of flashback to when I abused as a child. The thoughts pop up out of nowhere during the course of my day.

Sometimes I expect them if I’m working on my books or poetry, or watching a movie or reading a book that has that kind of content. Most of the time, though, these flashbacks are unwanted visitors that come and go. 

Very rarely do these flashbacks trigger me, and my guess is I’ve become so used to them, I just go on about my day. Once in a while, though, I will be triggered out of nowhere. 

Tip: What triggers you may be different than what triggers me. Make note of past triggers and discuss with your therapist. Work through them IF you feel it’s okay. There is a vast difference between being upset and being triggered. Ignore social media’s definition. Trust your instincts. 

Avoidance: is exactly what you think it means – consciously or subconsciously changing your behavior to avoid scenarios associated with the event(s) or losing interest in activities you enjoy. It can also mean ignoring our health and mental health needs because that would mean acknowledging or talking about our experiences, which can be so shameful and debilitating for many survivors, they’d rather suffer in pain than seek help. 

Shame is powerful. So are you. Remember, you’ve done nothing wrong. If you’re in pain, get the help you deserve.

Hyperarousal: okay, buckle up for this one. Hyperarousal can take many forms. Here’s a list from Medical News Today: 

find it hard to go to sleep or stay asleep
feel irritable and quickly lose their temper
find it hard to concentrate
constantly feel on-guard (hypervigilance)
be more impulsive than usual
feel like their muscles are more tense than usual
feel pain more easily
feel their heart beating faster than usual
feel jumpy and be startled easily
breathe more quickly or less deeply than usual
have flashbacks about a traumatic event

Hyperarousal can cause trouble sleeping, anger, concentration issues, and impulsiveness (as well as what I referred to earlier: avoidance and re-experiencing). Therapy can take many forms here and is so incredibly helpful in teaching us ways to cope with these issues.

Dissociation

Not all survivors experience dissociation, which experts explain as the mind escaping the body until the assault is over. I experienced it. I didn’t know because I didn’t have the language for it. I simply watched myself from a tree while the abuse occurred each time, waiting for it to be over. After that, I dissociated frequently throughout my childhood and teen years, mostly in times of stress, until I could do so on demand.

I still can – quite the party trick.

For me to dissociate without being aware is rare, though it happened recently this past summer at a small, local art gallery where my daughter interned. Hot, crowded, loud — I completely checked out mentally, yet I had no idea. I grew quiet, my eyes were glazed and unblinking as I rushed from here to there.

My guy figured it out and hustled me out of there, but even he didn’t recognize what happened at first except that I acted strangely. I didn’t have any way to tell him it was happening because I didn’t know myself.

Tip: Talk to those closest to you about dissociation. Tell them what happens when you dissociate so they can look for clues in case you’re unable to identify when you’re in it. Let people help you. 

Triggers 

What does it mean to be “triggered?” In recent years, people on the internet casually (and oftentimes, callously) refer to being triggered, particularly in response to political conversations. Beyond that, survivors themselves often confuse triggers with stress. Stress is a normal part of our everyday lives and everyone experiences stress; triggers are specifically associated with anxiety.

From a mental health perspective, being “triggered” more narrowly refers to the experience of people with PTSD re-experiencing symptoms of a traumatic event (such as exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violation) after being exposed to a trigger that is a catalyst or reminder. (Source: VeryWellMind)

It can be hard to tell the difference for survivors if you’re constantly in a state of anxiety and worry, and feel as if everything is a trigger for you. This is why seeking mental health services is crucially important. Most of us are ill-equipped to know the difference.







I’m not a shrink, yet here are some handy tips I’ve learned to use when faced with situations you’re not sure how to handle:

Is what’s bothering you somehow linked to your past abuse in some way? Is it causing a flashback, avoidance, or hypervigilance (as mentioned above)? Then that’s likely a trigger.
Alternatively, if you find yourself angry at what somebody said, that’s a normal stress reaction and you are likely not triggered. You are a normal human having a normal emotional reaction to stress.

Tip: Whenever you feel stressed out, write down what it is specifically that’s bothering you. Is it a daily activity, someone’s voice, specific foods, the time of day? Journaling can be extremely helpful in determining what is a stressor and what is a trigger. 

There is a lot to manage when you have PTSD as a result of sexual trauma (or any kind of trauma). Don’t diagnose yourself. Get help. You deserve it. We all deserve it. We deserve love, compassion, and support.


And always remember: you did nothing wrong.



Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book,  Broken Pieces.
She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in
Broken Places,  available now on Amazon.

The post How To Effectively Balance PTSD and Real Life appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

10 Things You Need To Know Don’t Matter about Sexual Assault by @BobbiLParish

It’s been an emotionally charged week for those tuned into the Kavanaugh hearings and Bill Cosby’s sentencing. Judgment about what both the accused and the victims have said, as well as what should happen now, filling print and web pages, news programs, and social media posts.

Everyone seems to have an opinion about what should be believed, done or supported in these two high profile cases. I’m not here to tell you what to believe. Nor am I here to help you see my side of both stories. I want each of you to come to your own conclusion. What I can do, though, is help you sort through the information about both cases and pick out what doesn’t matter.

Why should you listen to me? Because recovery from sexual assault is both my personal and professional story. I survived eight years of sexual abuse as a child. Now, I am the Executive Director of The International Association of Trauma Recovery Coaching. Every year I train and certify Trauma Recovery Coaches to help those who have endured trauma as both children and adults. I know sexual assault.

Today, I want to tell you what doesn’t matter about sexual assault:

How long it took the victim to report the crime

Sexual assault leaves the victim steeped in shame. When an individual feels shame they isolate in an effort to avoid others seeing their shame and judging them. They might feel that they were in some way at fault for the assault (a typical aftereffect of sexual assault; see my post about this on PsychCentral). The lies the abuse taught them are strong and pervasive. They can keep a survivor quiet about their assault for years, even decades.

And if they do speak up, the consequences are often swift and negative. Christine Blasey Ford catapulted into the public eye when her accusation of assault at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh came out. Death threats, vicious character assassination, and swift judgment became her reward for speaking up. Other victims will now think even harder about speaking up after seeing what Dr. Ford has gone through.

Sometimes victims don’t report sexual assault immediately after the crime because the victim’s mind repressed the memories. Dr. Jim Hopper, an expert on sexual trauma and memory, states that there is “research evidence showing that it is not rare for people who were sexually abused in childhood to go for many years, even decades, without having (recognizable or explicit) memories of the abuse. This body of work shows that claims to the contrary are contradicted by lots of scientific evidence.”

I have had clients come in to see me in their sixties who have only recently recovered memories of their sexual assault(s). Under threat, our mind processes memories differently than when we are safe and calm. Gaps in memory are the norm, not the exception.

How old the assailant was at the time of the assault

It is inconsequential if the accused assailant was only a teenager. Abusers should not be given light sentences because they are young, as Brock Turner was in 2016. Turner’s father said jail time would be “a steep price to pay for twenty minutes of action.” Mr. Turner is welcome to step into my virtual office where I can tell him about hundreds of women who were sexually assaulted for only 20 minutes and have suffered a lifetime of aftereffects. His son got six months in jail. These victims are serving life sentences.

How old the assailant is when convicted

Bill Cosby’s lawyer, Joseph Green, argued that his client was too old to go to jail, that it wasn’t safe for him because of his age and health: “’How does he fight off the people who are trying to extort him, or walk to the mess hall?’’ The irony of this statement left me speechless. Cosby’s victims didn’t get the chance to fight him off because he drugged them. A child cannot protect themselves against abuse from adults. This excuse is valid for no assailant. Ever.

The socioeconomic status of the victim and the assailant

The laws should be equally applied to both the privileged and the poor. An alleged assailant should not be given a “get out of jail free” card because they play tennis with the judge’s brother or have a “fixer” who can pay out large sums of money to victims. And poor victims are not due any less protections from the law because they have neither tennis buddies or friends in high places.

The race of the victim and assailant

Like socioeconomic status, race should never come into play in the reporting and prosecuting of sexual assault. A black man accused of raping a white woman who pays for it with his life was a horrible reality during our country’s century of open racial segregation. Sadly, those kinds of racial judgments still exist. Racial bias needs to stop being a part of our judicial system.

The sexual history of the victim

Who the victim has slept with in the past, how many people she has slept with and what she did during those sexual encounters is a moot point. It has no business being discussed when a victim makes a report of sexual assault. The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 created a federal rape shield law so that victims cannot be questioned about their past sexual history.

That doesn’t stop the public, family or friends from judging a woman as “rape-able” because she’s been sexually active before her assault. Let’s stop the “wink, wink, nudge, nudge, boys will be boys” hall pass given to men while we tell women they deserved to be raped because they wore a short skirt.

Whether the victim has clear memories of the entire assault, including what happened beforehand and afterward

Dr. Jim Hopper to the rescue again! His research shows that our brains are wired to remember some parts of a traumatic incident while forgetting other parts. That’s the typical way our brain behaves. Just because a victim cannot tell you exactly what happened with unimpeachable detail doesn’t mean they are making it up. “Ignorance of how memory works is a major reason why sexual assault is the easiest violent crime to get away with, across our country and around the world.”

Whether the victim fought back against the assailant(s)

Before anyone judge’s a victim’s absence of “fighting back” they need to understand the concept of our brain’s use of the “freeze” response in reaction to a threat. There are three types of freeze responses that our brain reaches for automatically when it perceives a threat. Our pre-frontal cortex shuts down and we respond with the primitive part of our brain that tells us if we don’t move we have a greater chance of surviving. Like a rabbit in a field of tall grass, we stay still in hopes that the predator will move along to something that catches their eye.

Whether there were drugs and alcohol involved in the assault

No, it doesn’t matter whether either the assailant or the victim consumed alcohol or drugs prior to or during the assault. A drunk assailant doesn’t deserve a pass. Nor does a drunk victim deserve to be assaulted.

The punishment for drinking or doing drugs is never rape.

The type of sexual assault

A victim of sexual assault has no less a right to understanding, compassion and criminal justice if they were “just groped” rather than raped. Is there a difference in our legal systems in charges that can be brought according to the severity of the crime? Yes. But do not mistake that as an endorsement of varying values of victims.

A victim who was “just groped” has just as much of a right to have their crime vigorously investigated as a victim who was raped.

None of these issues matter when it comes to sexual assault. Please educate yourself or seek out someone who knows about sexual trauma before you pass judgment on a victim or an assailant. No one deserves a knee-jerk reaction. Proceeding carefully, keeping science in mind, and with compassion, we are much more likely to arrive at the truth than when we put any of these ten issues into play.

Here’s a list of wonderful helplines – you can also visit their websites for resources and to educate yourself further about sexual trauma:

RAINN.org (all genders) or 1in6org (for men) or one of these 24-hour toll-free hotlines:


Rape Abuse & Incest National Network 800-656-4673


Childhelp USA 800-422-4453


National Domestic Violence/Abuse Hotline 800-799-7233

Bobbi is a therapist and trauma recovery coach who works with adult survivors of childhood abuse. Bobbi is also an author with one published book, Create Your Personal Sacred Text, and has two others in the works. She is a married mother from the Pacific Northwest, currently shuttling between the state of Texas and the UK. Sparkly shoes are her personal kryptonite. You can learn more about Bobbi at TheTraumaRecoveryCoach.com.

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book,  Broken Pieces.
She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in
Broken Places,  available now on Amazon.

The post 10 Things You Need To Know Don’t Matter about Sexual Assault by @BobbiLParish appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

The Reasons Social Media Breaks Can Help Our Mental Health

I haven’t written for a while and I don’t have one solid reason. I have several.

Embrace your creativity

Working more than usual, for which I’m grateful.

Parenting — As a single mom of two teens, that’s a job in and of itself. My kids are good yet ya know, they’re KIDS.

Owning my own business and all that comes with that — fabulous clients who depend on me to be fabulous means 18-hour days just to run meet the demands, and that’s with an assistant! Not to mention the administrative crap, taxes, and all that.

Personal relationship — private. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Writing — Broken People is in the hands of my amazing editor and loyal friend. She lost her beloved mother so she understandably took time off. I know I want/need to add more to the book, yet I’m patiently waiting to get my structural edit back to find out what to write to fill those holes.

Focus  — more on my business writing, chats, and clients. I’m pulling together my third biz book and finding joy in helping writers navigate book marketing, branding, and social media.

The main reason I’ve not been blogging here? I’ve felt this online fatigue. I’m just…tired. Tired of the ranting and raving, of people’s entitlement over what I choose to post. Over what others post. Of the attacks. We’ve become a nation of attackers and attackees.

Will pain soaked in rage one day become empathy? Or something far darker…

What Happened to the Art of Conversation on Social Media? 

The camaraderie which drew me to Twitter, Facebook, other channels, and even blogging is now full of blowhards teeming with rage and vitriol about well, everything. From books to politics to #MeToo to even cats (always a safe choice), sharing our lived truths has now become filled with denials, gaslighting, and people thrusting their absolute right to judge with aggressive opinions on what others have lived and experienced — and I’m just super fucking over it.

As I wrote in my post on protecting ourselves from social media trolls, I employ those same protections — yet those steadfast on spreading toxicity still slip through. As an advocate, vocal survivor and compassionate supporter of other survivors, I realize that puts a target on me because I’m willing to ruffle feathers. I’m here to have those difficult conversations.

Yet, it can be exhausting.

Twitter: I took a few days off Twitter this week. A few days off Facebook the week before. Why? Well, with regard to my tweets about what happens to survivors (regarding the brain and neuroscience), people decided to throw back as me enabling Harvey Weinstein (as if) and the latest situation with Asia Argento (I’ve made no comment on that). So to use my tweets as somehow part of those conversations made no sense.

Projection. People making assumptions about me without looking at my bio, what my tweets were in reference to, etc. One person became upset with how someone else used my tweet. I mean. This is not my problem.

Facebook: I shared a quote with the word ‘motherfucker’ in it, and someone decided I’m supporting rape culture because of that, and she decided to call me out on her page as a rape apologist. The quote itself is empowering.

I make the choice whether to engage. In some instances, I did respond with compassion and empathy and had good conversations with a few people about the long-term effects of sexual abuse on the brain — something more people need to learn and understand.

People are hurt and angry. Many are survivors themselves. I’m feeling the feels, too. I’ve lived with this rollercoaster for four decades. It’s a long, hard road to healing.

I’m a huge believer in The Four Agreements and this one: don’t take anything personally is more important than ever right now. People say what they say based on their own point of view and belief system.

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

My point: this harsh criticism directed at me or ANY survivor and/or advocate is so entirely lacking in compassion, I’m having a hard time getting my head — and heart — around it. Yet, it’s NOT really directed at me. People are projecting their reality onto us. Being vulnerable in this situation is simply not a choice. And usually, I’m Teflon. Lately, I’m not.

So, I made the decision to check out of social media for a few days for self-care.

Is Social Media Necessary? 

We make our own experiences on social media. I’ve always believed that and still do. It’s helpful for building communities (e.g., the #SexAbuseChat I founded back in 2013 has become a wonderful, supportive community for survivors and I look so forward to these conversations each week – Tuesdays, 6pm pst/9pm est). Chats are such a terrific way to meet others with common interests and learn from one another.

But…is it necessary? Naw. We can all live our lives just fine without it. As writers and business owners, it is extremely important for branding, networking, and connection. It’s super helpful for connecting with readers. Is it the only way? Naw. There are lots of ways writers can still connect in other non-social media ways: advertising, conferences, newsletters, book clubs, writing articles, podcasts, etc.

For visibility sake, I strongly recommend it. For your mental health sake? If it’s too much, take a break or hire someone to handle it all for you. An aside: I have one client who simply cannot focus on writing if she checks into social media, so she only handles Instagram (because she’s a photographer and she loves the photog community there). She has never once logged into her Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, or Pinterest, and says she never will (and she’s got many, many bestsellers). She simply finds it too overwhelming and stressful.

Social Media/Mental Health Decisions

Here’s what we need to ask ourselves:

What is your goal in having social media accounts?
If you go without social media, do you feel better or worse? 
Is being on social media hurting you? If so, how?
Is social media making you anxious and depressed or in some way, affecting your mental health?
Is social media stopping you from writing your book?

I asked myself all these questions and decided to take a break from my personal accounts. Even a day or two made a difference. I didn’t announce it. I just did it. And the world didn’t end. In fact, I felt like a weight had been lifted.

I can’t afford to shut it all off entirely since clients pay me good money to create and manage their content and channels for them. Besides author branding and book marketing (and writing my own books), social media IS my business. I can’t afford to not be on it. I can afford to give my brain and mental health a break from the personal attacks, though.

Making Positive Mental Health Changes 

Many people become addicted to social media; the studies are well-known. If you fall into this category, I suggest consciously weaning yourself, and slowly adding back in real-life interactions (interestingly, suggesting this on Twitter created personal attacks). Make your mental health a priority over social media. Crazy suggestion, I know.

Imagine that — suggesting something so crazy

Sexual Abuse Is Not A Competition

**This post was originally written in 2013 and updated in July, 2018

Someone asked recently if, in addition to writing about women’s issues, I also write about men’s sexual abuse.

I don’t (though I’ve had male guests here on the blog to share their stories). I’m a nonfiction writer of essays, poetry, and prose based on my experiences (and business articles on author marketing and social media at BadRedheadMedia.com). As I’m a woman, I have no personal experience with being a male sexual abuse survivor. I can empathize as a survivor, certainly, yet not as a male.

This seems fairly obvious, but I guess it’s not. And he had an agenda — to publicize his cause: to give men the same type of press women ‘get.’ To minimize what these women (and others) experience, to make it ‘fair.’

Nothing about sexual abuse if fair, ever. Why blame survivors for surviving? Yet this happens all the time.

I completely support the fact that all victims of sexual abuse need to be heard. This is why I started #SexAbuseChat back in 2013, and SpeakOurStories in 2015. I understand where his anger comes from. Another part of me is though, frankly, kinda pissed off.

Let’s deconstruct.

Sexual Abuse

Abuse of any kind is horrific, particularly when sexual, it involves children, and especially if it’s over a long period of time. In this particular case, I was referring to the Castro kidnappings, rape, and abuse. Hearing about what those girls in Ohio (released in 2013) survived just reinforces what an issue sexual abuse of women is. I was dismayed when someone on Facebook wrote: how could they not have escaped over the course of ten years? There were so many issues in gaining freedom, fear and terror for each other and the child chief among them, as well as further punishment by their captor if caught. To suggest they didn’t try hard enough makes me so angry (not that this person intended that). It’s simply my reaction.

**There stories we read daily, particularly since the #MeToo Movement began last October crush my heart, yet I’m encouraged that people are bravely coming forward. Our brains can protect us for decades — this collective consciousness is moving us forward toward healing.

If you question why people wait, educate yourself. Neuroscience explains so much about the brain and trauma.

Why? In my own situation, I was a child (age 11 to 12) who lived next door to my own personal hell. The man who threatened to kill my family if I told. Who said he’d shoot us all in our sleep. Why would I NOT believe him? As a military officer, he carried a gun.

Assumptions are a terrible thing. To assume these women didn’t try to escape over that long period of a time is to assume they were happy to be there or didn’t try hard enough to get away — obviously, we know that’s not the case.

I can understand that feeling of utter helplessness, confusion, and terror — something most people thankfully will never experience. Sadly, many will — and have. The latest statistics show that 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted over their lifetime. 80% under the age of 18 (source: RAINN).

Men

Men certainly have their own issues to deal with regarding sexual abuse (societal pressures, etc), and just because it doesn’t happen as often (or maybe it does but isn’t reported or make the news as much) doesn’t make it any less horrific for the victims. 1 in 33 (again, RAINN) men will be abused. My heart bleeds for anyone who has suffered, and many men have reached out to me after reading my book with their own terrible stories.

I write about my experiences and how they have affected me. I had no knowledge (back in the 70s) of anyone close to me experiencing this — male or female — so the whole situation was particularly isolating. It’s only through research and years of therapy that I’ve learned so much more about it.

To write about how men feel would be disingenuous of me and would appropriate their experiences, which would be incredibly disrespectful of me — which is why I’ve given amazing men like Paul Gilmartin, Casey Ryan, and Garry Rodgers my platform to share their experiences.

Men do need advocates for their stories — no question. Someone who regularly treats these cases, who has been through it themselves, or who has knowledge from a therapeutic standpoint — something I’m not qualified to do.

I wasn’t upset with this fella — he’s simply trying to advance his cause. Men feel marginalized. They suffer just as terribly as women. Sadly, the fact that women are more often victims creates this situation. And doubly sad is that our system of justice is ill-prepared to deal with these crimes and society judges men for not being able to ‘man up’ is ridiculous and dumb — yet is the reality for guys.

Competition

Let’s be allies for and with one another. Is this possible?

My only issue is with his approach — and he’s just one example. I shared an article the other day about what a woman experienced and finally, after decades of suffering, finally bravely came forward. One guy’s response: Men suffer, too, you know. It’s not just women. 

Total dismissal and minimization. No empathy, no acknowledgment, no compassion. I didn’t respond because I was so angry. Aren’t we better than this?

It’s not a competition. Our abuse isn’t worse than their abuse. It’s not us versus them. It’s all bad. I understand and accept also that my experiences color my reactions. I share my truth, not anyone else’s. It’s all part of dealing with our own personal traumas.

Just because some people write about difficult topics doesn’t mean they are purposefully ignoring other populations. One voice is what this collective ‘we’ contributes.

Hopefully, many voices together will create a change.

 

Read more about my situation in my award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

I go into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected my life in Broken Places, available now on Amazon.

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This is How I Found My Voice and Myself in War and Peace by guest @andrewdkaufman

At a book talk I gave a few years ago, a teenage boy in the audience, intrigued by the stories I’d been telling about young characters’ tortuous journeys in War and Peace, asked me a question during the Q&A. “Did Tolstoy, like, really experience all that?” The ingenuous question got me thinking, not only about Tolstoy’s writing but my own. And it inspired me to share something I hadn’t quite articulated before in public.

Writing a Book on War and Peace 

The hardest part of writing a book about War and Peace, I told him, wasn’t all those years spent researching the topic, or mastering something writers fancily refer to as “craft.” No, the most difficult part was making sure I was telling the truth—about Tolstoy, and about myself. How could I share Tolstoy’s wisdom about happiness if I didn’t know my own views on the subject? How could I talk about what love and death and courage mean to Tolstoy without knowing what those things meant to me? That would be like trying to describe to others a magnificent landscape I’d observed while looking through a dirty window or sharing the beauty of a concert I’d listened to with ear muffs on.

No, this would not do: To hear Tolstoy’s voice I first had to hear my own.

Easier said than done. The process has taken me decades. You see, I grew up in a house filled less with the aroma of, say, apple pie baking in the oven, than the sharp rot of first editions in our countless bookshelves competing with the sweeter scent of the latest new novels and biographies. From a relatively young age, I learned how to talk about experiences, without actually, well, experiencing them. The many paintings and sculptures I was not to touch sometimes gave me the impression that I was a visitor in a precious art gallery—always at a safe and admiring distance from Beauty and Truth, but never close enough to fully engage or create them.

Finding Myself First 

As an aspiring seven-year-old actor I was often so scared to perform in front of people that I’d hide under a table or behind a wall and recite my lines while squinting and covering my ears for fear someone might catch me making mistakes. As I look back on my decision to pursue a doctorate in Russian literature, I think I chose that path in part because it was a more socially acceptable way to satisfy my deepest creative urges. I could analyze and admire all those writers from a safe distance, without ever taking the risk of actually trying to be one myself.

I’ve always found it puzzling that, as someone who’s dedicated his life to the study of literature, I still tend to read more nonfiction than fiction: Analysis of the real world has always felt safer than losing myself in a fictional one. A graduate school professor gently admonished me once in his thick Russian accent: “You know Andy, as scholars, we must throw our emotions out the window.” That was easy advice for me to follow.

My writing in those days was cautious and distant. My doctoral dissertation sounded rather like an out of tune trombone with a dirty sock stuffed in the barrel. There was something, I sensed at the time, bubbling beneath the surface of all that abstraction and studied precision, but I didn’t quite know what. My voice was buried. My life was buried. I was a mess, professionally and personally.

So I bolted—from academia, from my family, from the intellectual life, from Russian literature, from anybody or anything I believed to be the source of inability to be me—and pursued what I saw then as a promising career as an actor. I moved to Hollywood, grew my hair long, put on forty pounds, estranged myself for a time from my family and friends, and didn’t read a word of Russian literature for about two years.

I did read books with the word “passion” in the title, like A Dream of Passion or How to Find Your Passion. Passion, you see, was where it was at for me in those days. I exuded it everywhere: on the stage, in the grocery store, on the streets of Las Vegas, where as part of my self-imposed creative boot camp I tasked myself with the challenge of dancing and singing and reciting Russian poetry atop garbage cans on the Vegas strip on Saturday evenings.

I wasn’t the first lost soul who’d come to Tinseltown, or Las Vegas, searching for something missing in his life, and I wouldn’t be the last. But I may have been one of the very few with a Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures. That, at any rate, was the one (and often the only) thing about me that stuck in peoples’ minds after my over-the-top, yet unmemorable auditions.

As I sauntered along Hollywood Boulevard, I conjured up images of Hemingway or Fitzgerald strolling along the Champs-Élysées in Paris in the 1920’s. In those few moments when I got around to actually putting fingers to the keyboard, my writing was brilliant—or so it seemed to me in that exhilarating, self-enclosed world I’d created for myself. In reality, my prose rang roughly as false in that heady period as it had before my grand Hollywood escapade. If my dissertation was emotionally muffled, my Hollywood writing was loud and monotone, overly eager to be something it was not.

Finding My Voice 

I eventually returned to academia, initially with my tail between my legs, thinking I’d failed at my attempt at a creative life, and later with a steadier gait, as the quieter rhythms of ordinary everyday life in Virginia soothed my bruised spirit. I also returned to and radically rewrote my dissertation, eventually turning it into a book, which still had vestiges of the obedient graduate student writer I once was. But it wasn’t all bad. Something like my own voice was beginning to emerge.

“If you want to work on your art,” Chekhov used to tell beginning writers, “work on your life.”

And that’s what I did. It wasn’t an easy process. I had to dig deep in the dirt, sift well through the dross of my failures, false steps, and illusions in order to discover even the smallest nuggets of truth I could call my own. I got married, had a child, and my family went through a financial crisis—a series of events that catapulted me into one of the more creative periods of my life up to that point. And I wrote another book—about Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which I argued is the classic for our time. It’s about people searching for meaning and stability in a world being turned upside down by the forces of war, social change, and spiritual confusion. Of course, it’s a book about my own inner journey as well.

And here’s the interesting thing: Those starts and stops, radical shifts in direction, that toggling between fearfulness and furious passion—all of it was essential to the creation of that book. The very tone of the book, I can now hear, shifts between youthful exuberance when I describe Natasha’s wild dancing or bumbling, bespectacled Pierre’s innocent openness to the world, to a more sober tone later in the book when I write about family and death, and perseverance. Most of the characters I focus on are in their teens and twenties when the book opens, and a decade and a half older at the end. It’s telling that one of the first chapters I wrote was called “Imagination,” and the final chapter is called “Truth.”

None of this is to suggest that I’ve finally discovered my voice completely. One’s voice is continually evolving. Four years later, with a second and well into my next book—this one about Dostoevsky—I can say I’ve reached a point where the artist and the intellectual have finally called a truce, and are working together. The cautious, reserved Stanford grad student and the Hollywood kid desperate to be heard have found a middle ground, where passion and prudence can peacefully coexist. My prose has become more fully integrated than ever before, and it finally feels like it was written by someone I truly recognize.

*****

Andrew D. Kaufman, scholar and educational entrepreneur at the University of Virginia, is the author of Give War and Peace a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times and founder of the Books Behind Bars program. See Andrew’s TEDx Talk here.

Connect with Andrew on Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, or his website.

For Rachel’s poetry and memoirs, go to Amazon.

The post This is How I Found My Voice and Myself in War and Peace by guest @andrewdkaufman appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

Here’s How to Protect Yourself Against Social Media Trolls Now

I’m not sure how you’re feeling about social media right now, but it’s hard out here for many of us. I’ve never seen a nation so divided or divisive, and I observe this daily on Twitter and Facebook (more than other channels), particularly as a sexual abuse survivor with a large author and advocacy platform.

I fully realize, and accept, that by being vocal about my stories, experiences, and beliefs on public channels, and sharing content on controversial topics (gasp: violence against women, sexual assault, rape, and the F-word: feminism) puts a huge target on me and I take the good with the bad (more on that in a moment). Oftentimes, it’s men in particular who have Something To Say about what I’m supposed to say or should do or present myself a certain way. It’s pretty comical.

Until it becomes threatening and scary AF.

I follow who I want to follow, I unfollow, mute or block who I don’t want to interact with. Sometimes, though, that’s not enough. I’m often attacked by others who don’t approve of the way I’m sharing my stories, or even by others who want me to do things for them and when I decline, I’m somehow the bad guy. I also see so many survivors are consistently harassed, stalked, doxxed, and even threatened — it’s become seriously disgusting.

We must protect ourselves.

Social Media Trolls 

Twitter and Facebook agree (finally), and have given us ways to cut down on interaction with these trolls. Because my business (as BadRedhead Media) is doing social media, I realized I’m maybe a bit more aware than others on how to maximize these options so I want to share some of these tips with you today.

Why? I still believe in the many wonderful benefits of social media: forming community, finding support, learning, connecting, building bridges, camaraderie, a laugh when we need it, the brilliant commentary, and the many forces for good.

Social media is what you make it, so mold it to be the experience you need it to be, and disregard the rest.

Here’s how.

Twitter Trolls

Change Your Settings on Twitter 

Most people don’t know how to or don’t bother doing this, yet Twitter has made it soooooo easy and you have many options as well. 

First, look at your toolbar, click on the Notifications tab and you’ll see a Settings tab. Looks like this:

Click on the Settings hyperlink, and you go to this screen. You can see how I have set my Notifications right now on my @RachelintheOC Twitter account:

Another option here is the Advanced QUALITY FILTER, which allows you to mute specific words or phrases from showing up in your notifications. For example, if you’ve just had it with Trump, you can add that as a word that will always be muted, regardless of the tweet, and you will not see it (whether it’s from followers, news articles, quotes, trolls, whatever).

Reminder: all of these settings are changeable, so if you’re having a bad day, do what you need to do and then change it back the next day. If you want to make it a permanent thing, that’s also your choice.

Some people argue that removing words or notifications is akin to putting ourselves in a bubble or echo box, where we only interact with people who agree with us; others say we are censoring others. I say: bullshit. You create and curate your own Twitter experience, and if you feel bothered or upset by what people are sending you, then it’s within your power to cut them off.

You are not obliged to interact with haters or trolls. You are not censoring them, as they will argue (which always tickles me). They are still free to spread their hate and vitriol — you simply do not need to be their final destination.

And on that note, Twitter has made a change to their algorithm: it will use behavioral signals – how users react to a tweet – to assess if an account is adding to or detracting from conversations. If it feels it’s exhibiting troll-like or bot behavior, the tweet will be removed or shoved down to the ‘show more replies’ graveyard. I think this is a great and needed change — what do you think?

Facebook Trolls 

Oh, Facebook. What a disaster you have become. If you’re still there (I am. I love my Street Team — click to join! — and survivor group), you have your reasons. Pages are different and important if you’re an author or small business for the sole reason that you cannot advertise your books or services on your personal wall (if you are, stop it. You’re violating the TOS – terms of service) and they have every right to shut you down.

I find it’s almost impossible to post practically anything without someone making a political comment on it — in fact, I posted an article the other day about the legal difference between the terms sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, and sexual abuse, and some guy posted on my wall about why he changed political parties and “deep state” political conspiracies. I was like, dude, seriously? Sigh. (For what it’s worth, I kindly asked him to delete his comment. When he refused, I kindly deleted it for him and blocked him as well.)

I do think it’s possible for us all to disagree about politics and still like and respect each other, and have conversations about it if that’s what the designated topic is. Here, it was not. Anyway, I digress.

Managing Your Newsfeed 

Did you know you can do that now? Before, you had to put people on lists and it took hours and hours. Days, even. And then you had to keep it all updated as you friended or unfriended folks. So most people didn’t bother. Now you don’t need to. Here’s how:

Click on your toolbar (top right by your face), where the little upside-down arrow is:

Once you click on that, a drop-down list appears. Click on News Preferences:

 

Now, you just click on this handy box with the weird crab (I don’t get it but whatever). My kids don’t get it either. Can someone explain the crab to me? It’s just weird.

Click on each tab and do your thing. What’s important here is the light blue tab: you can UNFOLLOW people and they don’t know. You don’t see their vitriolic, ranting, or weird, crab-filled posts anymore and they have no idea.

Personally, I have zero issue with blocking folks and find a kind of sinister glee in it, yet I know some of you feel bad about that because you have hearts and stuff. Again, do what makes you feel good.

A Bit of Advice

If I choose to engage with someone who comes at me — because what’s the point of having this platform if I don’t use it, right? — I have The One-Reply Rule: I reply once (if at all). If that person comes back at me with ad-hominem attacks, circular logic, straw-man arguments, or are just plain ridiculous, etc., they’re gone. If, however, we can engage in some kind of discussion that is educational, beneficial, and all that, cool.

Listen, I get that people have feelings and need to feel their feels. Most people in this world just want to be heard.

None of us needs to be the target of someone else’s hate, though. Do not feel obliged to engage with anyone on social media, ever.

Final Thoughts 

When all else fails and it becomes too much, turn off social media. Walk away. Turn off all your notifications. Your mental health is far more important than social media.

If it helps, here’s what I do with regard to social media (and remember, this is my business, too):

No phone notifications, ever.
No desktop notifications, ever.
I keep Twitter and FB open when I’m working on social media scheduling or interacting with people, otherwise, they’re closed
I always have Hootsuite open because I’m always scheduling or looking for great content to schedule
I definitely recommend using a SMM (social media management) tool as well as the coordinating browser extension (in this case, the Hootlet)
I never have social media open when I’m writing (blog posts or my books)
If I’m working on client deliverables, social media is off.

Some people enjoy the arguments, some people take things personally, and the overall experience can go sideways quickly. Practice compassion with others and importantly, with yourself. If silence is the best answer for your self-care, do that for you.

I hope this post helps you figure out ways to find your peace.

 

For Rachel’s poetry and memoirs, go to Amazon.

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