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00:00My life was relatively normal suburban life up until I was about seven and then
00:29that's when my parents got divorced and so my parents divorced or separated when I was seven
00:35officially divorced when I was eight my dad got remarried right away and their divorce was really
00:41hard on me because I was kind of like the middle person between them they didn't want to talk to
00:45each other so they used me as a eight-year-old and when my mom got remarried the man she married
00:53presented himself as a good guy he volunteered at church stuff he was like a builder he was very
01:02one of those what do they call it a wolf in sheep's clothing the it only got worse the abuse started
01:13with him when I was 13 and went until I was 17 and I thought I was protecting my younger sister by kind
01:21of just putting up with it that maybe if I put up with it he wouldn't go after her and that wasn't
01:27totally true yeah they got married right before I turned 12 so their marriage was only going for
01:47about a year before the abuse start started for me and the abuse started at 13 and I told her I was
01:56like I don't think he's a good guy like I don't think he's the one you should marry when the child
02:01experiences any form of abuse right it's very very impactful in relationships but especially sexual
02:09abuse so a child naturally is trusting of people you can see this with little children but when abuse
02:15happens it destroys that sense of trust and so if that is the foundation of their life trust you can
02:24imagine as they grow up they're not going to have that trust in other people it definitely affected my
02:29self-esteem and then honestly it made me seek out negative forms of attention
02:39because I had attempted to tell my mom at the age of 15 so that was two years into the abuse
02:47and then I think once I got shut down in my head nobody would believe me at that point
02:54my own mom doesn't believe me nobody else is going to believe me
02:58I struggled in high school with definitely feelings of wanting to hurt myself but in my head
03:13especially during my teen years when I was being abused if I anything happened to me my younger sister
03:20and my younger stepsister would automatically have to take my place in the abuse and in my head that
03:26was my way of protecting them was making sure I was around and I was okay
03:30so there is a strong relationship between childhood sexual abuse and then depression
03:36anxiety and other psychiatric disorders later on in life in a meta-analysis where they had over three
03:42million participants they found that there was an increase of over two-fold risk of depression and major
03:52depression and almost a three-time fold and then as far as anxiety disorders there's a three times increased risk of developing some sort of anxiety disorders
04:03what a lot of people experience when they are traumatized as a kid is what I call an emotional freezing period is you literally emotionally freeze at the age that the trauma happened and you don't emotionally mature you may chrono obviously chronologically
04:21mature but when you get triggered in the future your most primitive reaction is going to go back to the earliest trauma
04:28often times there's two pathways when it comes to relationships for people for individuals who had childhood trauma either they don't trust at all or they're overly trusting now people might be confused about that why would they be overly trusting if people did or a person or people did something bad to them is because they're hoping that they're going to be a
04:51they're hoping that they can regain that trust they're hoping that they can find somebody to love them and so they will open themselves to up to anybody who will love them and what's really rooted in that is a low sense of self-worth
05:03I always knew I wanted to get married unfortunately I didn't pick the best partner we have since divorced
05:13I had a feeling that if I didn't work on myself enough I probably would not pick the right partner a lot of times when people have been abused they don't understand from a real deep way of where it's okay to say no because they were not allowed to say no in certain situations and so then it's difficult for them to say no to other people in
05:43in the future and this often leads to then being re-traumatized by more abuse in one way or another
05:48my self-esteem was so low that I actually was with him for almost nine years because I figured that no one else was gonna love me and no one else would want me so I stuck around for way longer than I should have
06:00trauma impacts the way you view yourself I'm damaged sexual abuse especially I'm damaged forever I'm dirty I'm worthless I'm not good enough
06:11and so those beliefs about yourself will then impact your relationship if I think I'm worthless then I'm gonna treat myself as worthless and I'm gonna allow people to treat me as worthless if I think that I'm dirty and I'm damaged forever
06:26then I also would allow people in my relationships to treat me that way so it could either impact from a place of how I view people or how I view myself and oftentimes both
06:38now this is just my assumption but it was kind of like once we signed the marriage certificate he could treat me however he wanted
06:45because he knew I wouldn't leave him and I mean we did have good times but there was a lot of
06:51like he would say things to me like you need me you're nothing without me you need my money you need my job
06:59what abuse does is your body is your number one boundary and so when that gets sexually violated it tends to throw off all concepts of all your other boundaries
07:17and so really learning what about healthy boundaries look like and how to implement those is very important and then another piece that I think is almost equally as important is also learning
07:27learning what does a safe person look like because you know through the process of abuse obviously that wasn't a safe person
07:35but unfortunately if we didn't have close relationships with people that were really psychologically safe for us
07:43then it's difficult for us to identify who is okay to open up to and to be vulnerable
07:49when we talk about trauma you know we have to think about what are those things in the world that we face or experience
07:56that can cause us some fear and a fear kind of response to them so looking at it it's kind of a stress related type of what I would say experience
08:09and with trauma we have these kind of reactions on to them so it could be if we directly experience the trauma situation
08:18it's happening to us or witnessing it happen to someone else or it's being repeated to us it could be like a war situation
08:25or sexual assault or seeing someone else being traumatized all of these have an impact on how we perceive them
08:34our histories based on what we've experienced and then we kind of have a response to them
08:40he had an affair with actually someone I considered a best friend at the time
08:44so and it was only seven six seven months into our marriage that the affair started so it was a big hit to my self-esteem
08:56and my ex loved to remind me that something must be wrong with me because we weren't happy
09:02so the frontal lobe is responsible for you know decision making executive functioning
09:09um planning and other things but one of the things it it evaluates it evaluates truth
09:17so if you come and you tell a child you're stupid a child is more susceptible and vulnerable to believe I am stupid
09:25because their frontal lobe is not developed to say no I'm not right and so when it happens to them when a trauma happens to them
09:32and it makes them you know start believing I'm worthless I'm I'm at fault for this
09:37a common experience for childhood trauma just super super sad is they believe they're at fault
09:43and a perpetrator will often silence the victim by shame and make them believe that
09:48they feel like I must have done something to deserve the abuse maybe I dressed too provocatively
09:55or maybe I was doing this or that and it's so important that people realize you know what it was
10:02it's not your fault it is not your fault that you were abused that was a horrible choice that someone made
10:09and they are responsible and then the fear that just the fear of being vulnerable to somebody and sharing
10:16like how is this this person that maybe I'm trying to get help from how are they going to think of me
10:22are they going to support me is it going to be safe to be vulnerable are they going to be dismissive of my concerns
10:28are they going to validate and support me are they just going to listen to me am I going to open up and be vulnerable
10:33and then I'm not going to receive the real help that I need
10:37is it's not just the event that's really hard for people to cope with most people actually that endure trauma
10:44they they are able to recover within the first month but the part that makes trauma really hard to deal with
10:52is the narrative the meaning we give it so if I'm you know a victim of abuse and I'm like that was not my fault
11:01it happened to me that person made a terrible decision I'm going to cope well but if I believe it was my fault
11:08you know it was because I did this I didn't you know fight back that narrative is going to carry
11:14I'm going to carry for the rest of my life and think there's something wrong with me which almost makes me the perpetrator
11:20and I walk around with myself everywhere I go and so trauma follows me wherever I go
11:25before it used to be associated with more specific incidents being a soldier in a war or some kind of sexual assault
11:33or natural disaster trauma now it seems to be expanding a little bit more
11:38where now we have people saying okay I've been bullied now I've been traumatized
11:44so it's actually expanding in what trauma is compared to what originally started off with
11:52I'm not sure if I can keep going with the feelings I'm having the feelings of self-doubt the image issues
12:05the confidence issues I always remind myself like look how far you've come because I had a very negative
12:12negative thoughts towards my body for a very long time whether it was my body because it was abused
12:21whether my body wasn't good enough for my ex-husband
12:25I had a lot of negative feelings for and then I was bullied growing up to like cherry on top of all of it
12:31so you know hiking made me realize I can carry myself up a mountain
12:38I can carry a back like I can carry myself and my things up a mountain when I'm determined enough
12:44so if my body can do that then between my mental health and my body I can keep going and I can keep working on my healing process
12:53An external barrier might be that it's often difficult to find the right therapist
13:00you know there's a lot of nuances there for example if someone was sexually abused by a male
13:10maybe doing therapy with a male would not be a good idea because that could be a big trigger
13:17I always get that I'm so sorry you went through that I'm so sorry this happened to you
13:22and I know they are coming from a good place and I know they mean well
13:26but it's very hard to respond to that because honestly my upbringing is what made me who I am
13:32it made me resilient it made me determined it strengthened my relationship with God
13:37and it made me realize that I want to use it to help people
13:42so I appreciate the fact that people are sorry that I ever went through that
13:46but I don't I wouldn't be the person I am today without my upbringing the good and the bad
13:52also making sure the individuals are not isolating but they're getting the support that they need from trusted
14:03either therapists or friends family other church members
14:09my process of healing has definitely been church and my relationship with God
14:13and has also been my friends
14:16faith and God's word is extremely powerful when it comes to healing any trauma any mental health difficulties
14:25but especially sexual trauma and one of the main factors to that is our self-worth and our self-value
14:33most of us we struggle with our identity because we attribute our worth to what we do right
14:40we do this you know in society at large but the Bible teaches a profound truth
14:45truth that your value has nothing to do with what you do or as well as nothing to do with what was done to you
14:54and so you see a constant narrative throughout the Bible of you know I knew you before you were born
15:00you were created in his image not only by creation but then by redemption
15:05so even if you doubt right if you're creating God's image it's like well he bought you back
15:11how much does a product have value and it's often by like how is designed but you know the materials which is creation
15:18but also how much someone is willing to pay for it
15:20so redemption tells you you are priceless
15:24do not let this define you do not let this decide what your future looks like
15:29you can you can work hard and come out the opposite of what statistics say a lot of us should come out as
15:36you can be whatever you want to be you can grow up and have the job you want to have
15:41you can have the family you want to have
15:43and so being able to help other people and share my story has been a huge part of my healing process
15:52but I also have a very good support system
15:54you have to give yourself grace and is and finding your path through life is never going to be straight
16:00especially if you've had trauma but giving yourself grace and understanding that you've been through a lot
16:06and that it's not always easy to come out of that but that you can do it is huge
16:11you can do it is huge
16:41wherever you are
16:45to have to fight
16:47you are
16:48to stand your life
16:58and until now
16:59you are
17:00telling me
17:01this sham
17:02unique
17:03works
17:04and
17:05yes
17:06certainly
17:08nothing