On Loving Survivors Well (Healing)

She had disclosed her childhood secret in her early forties. Now, more than a decade later, she called me to share wonderful news. “I told someone [about my abuse], and for the first time in my life, I felt no shame. I’m sure it [shame] will still show up in the future, but this lie I’ve believed for years—it’s gone.”

There is no easy fix or overnight healing from sexual abuse and the lies it whispers into its victim’s ears.

We love survivors well when we accept that healing is a process—a process that may last for years and perhaps a lifetime.

We weep with them when they weep and dance with them when they dance.

On Loving Others Well (Part 6: Understanding)

I never tell a survivor, “I understand your pain.” I don’t.

I met monthly for a year with four survivors in an intimate setting created to stimulate healing. I never heard one survivor say to another, “I understand.” These women knew something non-survivors don’t often consider—every survivor’s abuse history and the consequences of their abuse are different.

When we love survivors well, we remember this, and we listen with fresh ears to each survivor.