Dear Abuse Survivor,
I would like to offer you the following cautionary food for thought as you seek to mend…
1. Essential to recovery is your personal empowerment. Anything and anyone, no matter how well-intentioned, who seeks to act as a governess/er rather than a guide to your choice/voice, is to be avoided or approached with caution.
2. Be highly suspect to those to purport to be survivor-centric but are clearly self-centric. No matter how good the message, if the “helper” is placing his/herself as the centrality of the ministry, organization, motivation etc… this is a cause of caution and concern.
3. Your personal safety and stability are the number one goals that may take an extended time to achieve (years). Anyone who suggests that you are responsible to anyone else but yourself and your immediate family for any other reason is promoting and agenda that is not for now.
4. Once you know what safety and stability feel like, tastes like, and looks like for you, your family, and your precious life… guard it like you are fighting for your life.
You are.
5. Anything and I do mean anything, no matter how high a call, how good a cause, how honoring an invitation, that interrupts your safety/stability is to be very carefully considered. You have choice and voice back. You must use them first for you, then for others.
6. Never underestimate the cost of turning the trauma tide. You were not used and abused in the name of evil, only to be used and abused in the name of good.
7. Any cure for the ills of abuse will not contain the same elements as abuse. It ought not to overwhelm your voice or your choice.
Love,
LA