Toi Magazine Apr./May 2019 Issue No.16

MAGAZINE APR./MAY 2019 ISSUE NO.16 THE MENTAL HEALTH ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE.

DON'T JUST BE AWARE,

UNDERSTAND AUTISM Dr.Valerie Gaus and YouTuber Dan (TheAspieWorld) Voice Their Knowledge on ASD

#TTC

FROM INFERTILE TO FERTILE Various Preganacy Success Stories From Families Who Were Relentless

AIMEE RAUPP ELIZABETH LAING AND MORE RESPECTED NAMES WWW.BOUTIQUEOFTOI.COM

THE MENTAL WEIGHT OF SEXUAL ASSAULT Real Survivor Stories.

CONTENTS REOCCURENCE LUCINE(LIFE JOURNEY W/ MENTAL BATTLES & TRICHOTILLOMANIA) LAUREN KULP (OCD) CONNECTING THE DOTS WITH DR. SHAWN HORN NATHALY AGUILERA

SEXUAL ASSAULT EMILIE (POWER OF TRAUMA INFORMED PILATES) WE ARE HER (CEO STEVIE) SURVIVOR STORIES & HELPFUL SOURCES

FERTILITY (TTC) AIMEE RAUPP (UNDERSTANDING YOUR FERTILITY) TTC & INFERTILITY SUCCESS STORIES ELIZABETH LAING THOMPSON (WHEN GOD SAYS "WAIT")

AUTISM DR.VALERIE GAUS (LIVING WELL ON THE SPECTRUM) DAN (@THEASPIEWORLD)

CONTACT Editor-In-Chief: Autumn Farr Graphic Design: Autumn Farr Lauren Kulp Phone: (415)689-9465 Site: www.boutiqueoftoi.com Instagram: @toi.magazine

OUR NOTE

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and He shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Lucine's Story The name Lucine means "moon".

19 y/0 from Germany @lucinebae

Mental Health Obstacles Growing up, my biggest struggle has always been self confidence. I seem to lack it a lot, now as well but i like to believe that i have passed that phase a little bit. During Elementary School, i didnt really face anything that made me feel sad or bad about who i was but around Middle School, that was when i noticed that i was slightly off from other people. Or at least i pushed myself away from everybody. I didnt quite fit in anywhere, i wasnt looking for a place to fit either but i knew i was not happy. I thought i enjoyed spending time alone rather than being with people, later noticed that being alone was also not what i wanted. I didnt want to force myself to fit any certain ideal type or group in the school coridors. After a while i found myself trying to seek attention from people that outcasted me, and that didnt really change anything.

Then High School came around. Cant deny that they were great years but also cant change the fact that those years changed me to the person i am today. Unconsciously i sometimes can be soo selfish to the point where i let people around me down, i noticed a lot of those times during high school but i genuinely didnt care what might happen next. I never thought about how things would go and how i would make things. I had great friends, i had horrible friends. I gained the love so many times but i also gained a lot of hate. I now acknowledge everything, knowing that i had so many mistakes and reactions i got were totally normal. While trying to gain self confidence i never realised, around that time, that i was turning everything about myself and didnt care about other peoples opinions and centered myself for so many things.

After graduation, i left that country as well, now i am in Germany, learning languages so i can study University, hopefully this year or next year. Having time alone here, i had tons of time to think about everything that happened in the past, and i sometimes tend to overthink but sadly cant change anything. Moving here was a huge point in my life right now. Especially 2018, being alone but also having so many people around me all the sudden. Being the “new girl in town” still till now, trying to fit in again somehow but also pushing myself away from people.

-Trichotillomania, which can be explained as a hair-pulling disorder, is a mental disorder that involves recurrent, irresistible urges to pull out hair from your scalp, despite trying to stop. Which brought appearance insecurities. I always wanted to talk about Trichotillomania but never had a chance to or i was never comfartable about sharing it with others because I was never aware of it being a disorder, which i thought i was the only person that does it. It is something hard to explain to other people, because to others, its ; “she is pulling hair off from her scalp” but to me it is an urge. As someone that got compliments to her hair, as someone that seemed to love their hair and seem to take good care of it, never wanted to admit it. I always had my hands on my hair, i dont remember what triggered it to start but once i started, the bald spots increased fast and the length started getting shorter. I always thought people would notice the uneven side of my hair and at least think my hair is weird, up to this day, i tried hiding it the best way possible. Nobody has pointed out yet, but i guess its time for a change now.

Hiding the bald spots in my head can also damage the self confidence because it is getting harder for you to love your own hair. Always doing hair styles trying to hide the uneven length, straighten it and with hair bandages, by time learned how to hide it. But at the same time, noticed how i was not even trying to stop or make it better.

Its an urge that im still trying to leave but cant really help it. Its getting better by time but, again just like with everything, it has to stop in me first.

Overcoming Mental Obstacles When you see me ,in person, sometimes it seems like i have passed every bad thing in life and i am this energetic bubbly person. But also sometimes, it seems like i have all these horrible problems and i hate life and everyone and myself the most.

Its actually wrong, i have passed soo many phases behind and right now i can actually say i love my life and its a bit harder to say but i love myself too.

It is hard to love yourself when you dont feel confident or feel free doing things out of your comfort zone, which i still cant do and lack but that doesnt mean i should stop trying.

When you know you have people around you that genuinely care, love and support you, you try harder to be happy. You try to put their love higher then the people that ruins it for you.

Put yourself in center, surround yourself with the ones you know that care.

Around the end of last year, i told myself “Next year i will do things i want and love, things that i always pushed back.”

I opened back my Youtube channel, i am changing things the way i want, i spend more time with my parents and siblings, i try watching and reading more things, i try not to include people that makes me sad or tired, i listen to myself ; what do i want?

And i do it.

Do i fail to listen myself sometimes? Does other voices can take over? Yes i do and yes they do as well, but i don't make that stop me, this time, i will keep going.

Self-Reflection I would like to tell this as, a journey, for example a train ride. You start off in the first Train Wagon, yourself. You get to chose who is gonna control the journey with you, i chose my parents.

When the journey starts, every station was the countries that i have been, in every station people came in, people left, some damaged the train, some fixed it.

Some even came up to the first Wagon to help me control, ended up making me almost crashed the whole train. Than some other came right on time to help me save the train. They stayed.

Between the stations, i took breaks, i sometimes canceled the whole journey and sometimes started the journey with soo much happiness, like i have saved the world.

I took on huge things to carry between the stations, which was the secrets was given to me, i got most of them to the right owners, but i failed keeping some of them safe.

In the end, i learned to not give up on this journey. Appreciate every station, every responsibility i got. Everything happens for a reason and dont let yourself down while trying to make others happy. Never let the people in the First Wagon down!

I learned that family is permanent, i learned hurting them wont get me anywhere, i learned that i hate making them sad and dont want to anymore. Without my parents, i wouldn't be near anything i am doing today, i wouldn't try, i wouldn't work or study. Making them sad and losing them are my biggest fears.

I learned that nothing lasts forever, good or the bad. Live the life in the moment and stop thinking about what is missing, appreciate what is present.

Advice to You I read many articles, watched many videos, listened to many people about “How to earn self love” For me, my advise to you is, nothing or anyone can make you love yourself other than yourself! Its not easy, just because i said “I will love myself”, it didn't happen. You know yourself better than anyone does, people think they know you enough to judge, there will always be people who will think the worse of you. You know yourself better than those people right? Yes! Do not listen to others and let them get to you.

And with Trichotillomania, I knew i had to stop making myself feel the way that ended up making me do this. I knew i should stop overthinking constantly, stuck in the past.

The best advice i wanna give is, take your mind the furthest way as possible. I like to color a lot, i try to draw things, i write a lot, i try to make my hand busy so it doesn't go up to my hair and keep my mind on other things so i don't think to pull off. Pour my inner feelings so that i have other things to think about.

I try having things in my hand that i can squeeze, bind, pull apart and i usually have ropes that it feels like a hair that i can pull instead. Its not easy to suddenly stop what you are doing, i am doing it for 3 years, but it doesn't mean I'm gonna do it forever. I am still struggling with it, but i have high hopes leaving it.

OCD Does NOT Define Me.

TOI MAGAZINE GRAPHIC DESIGNER

LAUREN KULP I’m from Eastern Pennsylvania, I’m a Independent Graphic designer (Toi being a publication I do work for) I love creating art during my free time as well, I also enjoy watching movies collecting Pop Vinyl Figures, hanging out with friends and family, listening to music, reading and watching documentaries about History, just nerdy stuff like that!

My Journey Well I was just a kid that had a pretty "normal" (Whats normal anyway) childhood would draw on the walls with crayons, thanks mom. I have a congenital disease that I grew up with so that had it’s own stress although not related to my journey with OCD. I was in middle school when I realized that something was off. I would get stuck in my head with these random thoughts that scared me and they wouldn’t stop and I thought maybe it’s just a phase, I’m in middle school I’m at an awkward age like everyone else, silly hormones (gotta love them) but they continued so I thought what is this? What can I do for this? I let my parents know what was going and they said: let’s have you talk to someone. I spoke to a counselor and I told her what was going on I explained to her I would have these constant scary thoughts it gets me stuck in my own head, it would cause me anxiety. she responded with: Well let me give you some things to do at home. If you want to work on these and if your comfortable coming back please do. The counselor had told my parents I displayed signs of OCD . I had thought what?!?! how could I have OCD? I don’t feel compelled to clean things? Which was my first assumption strangely enough the OCD in me read everything I could read about OCD , I learned that the cleaning is a generalization people make , this is not all cases of OCD. Mine was intrusive and unwanted thoughts after that was the anxiety, after that comes the compulsion, but never the compulsion that many people would assume like counting, arranging, washing, cleaning etc my compulsion was not any of that, my compulsion was to completely avoid things that would be related to my thoughts. For example, a movie that had a scene that was scary or creepy I would avoid it anything that would remind me of it. The reason the compulsion happens is to give temporary relief to the anxiety. I found a way to channel these obsessive thoughts in a positive way, thinking good things. Here's an example of my thought process: I have to go to math class which I hate but I have an hour of art after that, then history class.

So looking at positives become my obsession. I got through my middle school year, High school years also most of college without any reoccurrence of any OCD symptoms thankfully. Until last year. I had got some news that I would have to get a serious surgery that was just a huge stress on me. The stress of that triggered an episode of OCD the thoughts were there, long time no see! ... but no thank you go away! It came back but were stronger than I recall weeks and weeks went by I went to a new counselor talked to her about my whole medical history and what I had been through with multiple surgeries, plus the one that was coming up she reminded me I had been through a lot it’s a lot for one person to deal with, also in the process of still having to go through another surgery is causing this to trigger your anxiety and OCD she gave me activities to work on at home I did everything she said. I even did things she didn’t ask me to do I read multiple books on OCD, Anxiety, and how to deal with intrusive unwanted thoughts. I just didn’t like the way I felt I wasn’t myself I wanted to get back to me. I put in all the work I physically and mentally could, I didn’t want the people around me who I cared about to see me go through this anymore either because it hurt me, I didn't want them to see me in this mental state. I also started taking anti anxiety medication along with a very mild anti -depressant which is known to aid in helping symptoms of OCD which both definitely helped. During all of this I hadn’t picked up a pencil, paintbrush or my laptop to do any artwork, which was just another heart-break to me because I’m constantly creating art work, I love doing it so much, I lost interest. Which in itself could have been a really good tool for dealing with my OCD and Anxiety. I eventually got back to me and started creating again my art style changed a lot it used to be very dark and ominous, now its a spunky style that has fearlessness. The style really opened up a lot of opportunities for me, I eventually got the surgery,stayed in the hospital in New York for a week it went great, the build up in my head was much worse than the actual situation. Once I started to heal from that episode I started to call this part of my journey in life, it had a rough start but a very beautiful finish that opened up many more starting lines to newer more vibrant journeys.

Challenges I would say the biggest challenge I face with OCD now is I still have not painted or drawn anything since I was going through all the stress of my last surgery, so it’s been a year and a half, it definitely bugs me that I haven’t but I feel that when I’m ready the inspiration will be stronger than my compulsion. For now I will keep doing my digital work which still brings me great joy and I’ll take that no matter what.

Triggers I would say my triggers are stress and negativity and to make my stress less I take time to myself and I’ll put on a super relaxing movie or end up watching two depending on stress level, make sure my dogs are around for petting fur buddies which relaxes me and I also take time to catch up on doing art work. Listening to music really loud too it helps the creativity a great deal. For negativity I kinda of ignore it by seeing silver linings in things where ever I can find it. I would say to people who need help finding there triggers, everyone is different and my trigger is different from someone else but if you do find your trigger, I would say counter it with something positive like if it’s a certain song or memory think of a better song that has a good memory attached to it. Or make jokes about the trigger to lighten it up for you a bit.

Self-Realization What I have realized having OCD it definitely helps me look at things from different perspective in many ways, creative wise for sure and I think that’s possibly why I consider my style unique and identifiable, it definitely helps me hyper focus on the detail of my work and help me see details no one else would think of looking at or imagining.

Misconceptions Common misconceptions are that people who have OCD are people who clean constantly or are afraid of germs or have to perform rituals, that may be part of it for some people, but it isn't for everyone. OCD is not a cookie cutter diagnosis, it is a complicated disorder which takes forms in many different ways for people. This is why its important to ask for help because while going through it you might not understand as well as someone from the outside because you are deep in it, but it can be treated you can live a healthy life with it.

Advice to Parents My advice for parents that see their child has OCD let your child know it makes them unique in a beautiful way and that you should leave the communication completely open so they can feel safe talking to you about anything that’s going on with their OCD, talking helps a great deal. My parents guided me and helped me find the right help I needed, its never wrong or bad to ask for help. I'm thankful I did.

Closing Words I feel a sense of gratitude for having OCD because its brought me to where I am now, it’s given me some tough days but it lets me know how great having good days are. No matter how tough it gets you always come out on the other side with your mind open and a different brighter perspective of life. I know I have it but I don’t let is define who I am. When some one says Lauren Kulp you're not going to put me in this box that says OCD, you're going to think she’s an artist, she’s a daughter, a sister, she’s a friend, she’s strong, she’s brave, she likes history, she likes movies, she likes to listening to her music loud, she loves her Family, Friends, and Dogs, she needs more pop vinyls, and shelf space for those pop vinyls, she has OCD. YouTbe: AngelicNightmare Art Design Instagram: blueiartangel77 Artwork Site: https://angelicnightmareart.weebly.com

CONNECTING THE

DOTS

with Dr.Shawn Horn LICENSED

CLINICAL

PSYCHOLOGIST

@drshawnhorn Host of "The Rock Your Awesome Show w/Dr.Shawn" Podcast

Shawn Horn, PsyD is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, in private practice, with 27 years’ experience in the mental health field. You can hear her podcast, “The Rock Your Awesome Show with Dr. Shawn Horn” on iTunes and google play and find her on social media @drshawnhorn. This column is for educational purposes and is not intended as direct medical advice nor constitutes a professional relationship with Dr. Shawn. If needed, please seek support in your community.

NORMALLY ABNORMAL OR...

ABNORMALLY NORMAL Abnormal psychology! Finally, the class I’ve been waiting for is about to begin! I was so excited to learn all about the secrets and scientific knowledge of the human brain and behavior! “Before we begin,” the Professor said, “we need some ground rules. Do NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT diagnose yourself, family or friends as we go through the course.” Yeah right, I thought! Now is the time I can finally figure out what was going on with them all! Needless to say, I took his advice lightly. To this day, if you find my Abnormal Psychology text book, you might see the names of many people written in the margins. I finally stopped when I realized everyone’s name was written down and there wasn’t anyone left!

Week 1….I walk through the door, “Honey!” I exclaim to my husband, “I think I have an Anxiety Disorder!”

Week 2…. “Honey! Oh my gosh, I think I have ADHD! Week 3… “Honey! Oh my gosh I think YOU fit the criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder!”

Week 4…. “OMG I think I’m Borderline!”

Week 5…. “I’m sure I have an Attachment Disorder!” and on and on it went. Of course, with every alarmed suspicion, my husband laughed and reassured me, “Shawn, you are just fine….we all struggle, no big deal.” But what did he know!?!

Well, a lot in fact! I didn’t understand at the time, but my husband was correct. We all struggle and can identify with some mental health disorder as described in the Diagnostic Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition, otherwise known as the DSM5!

However, just because we can identify with some of the criteria, does not mean we would be diagnosed with a mental disorder. This begs the question of what’s considered to be normal and abnormal.

To understand what is “normal” let’s look at the phenomenon of Universal Truths as described by the Barnum Effect. The Barnum Effect is often attributed to Circus Showman, P.T. Barnum, who is quoted as saying a “sucker is born every minute.” It is the trickery often used by psychics, horoscopes, magicians, palm readers and crystal ball gazers. They make use of universal truths to coax people into believing they can read their minds and foresee into their future. The consumer is convinced this information is highly unique, specific to them, and could not apply to anyone else. However, the information is generic, universal truths, which could apply to anyone. Examples of these truths include: “At times, you can be very harsh and critical of yourself.”

“Even though you present differently outside, inside you hold feelings of doubt and insecurity.”

“You are holding yourself back from a dream.”

“You have an intense desire to feel connected to others, to belong.”

“You desperately want to be acknowledge for the sacrifices you make.”

“There is something troubling you….you have a heavy burden….you hold secrets no one knows about….you are concerned for a love one…..etc.” You see, it is universally true that everyone experiences difficulties in one of three areas at any given time; relationships, finances, and health. Therefore, it is a universal truth that we all have times where we struggle with sadness, nervousness, %#$anger, focus, memory, learning, and so forth. So how can we separate ourselves from the universal truths and from identifying with every disorder or syndrome? How can we know the difference between abnormal and normal behavior in diagnosing mental illness?

The DSM5 outlines specific criteria to help us distinguish between normal experiences and that which needs medical attentionabnormal. Categories for the specific criteria include: -specific time requirement (i.e. “must have symptoms for more than 30 days, must be before the age of, or after age of,” etc.)

-Specific endorsed symptoms (i.e. “must meet 5 out of 7 symptoms”) -And the symptoms must interfere in major areas of functioning (i.e. significant problems at work, school, relationships, health, financial management, etc.), and cannot be due to substance use, medication or another mental health/medical condition or from normal experiences (i.e. sadness, grief and loss).

Once criteria is met, one receives a mental health diagnosis. Keep in mind, if one is diagnosed it isn’t a life sentence!

The good news is, we can treat mental illness! The word illness has become stigmatized. Let’s think of it this way: when you have the flu, you have an illness. When you have a cold, you have an illness. It just means you are ill for the time being and need medical care.

It does not define a person, their individual value or their future. We must guard from personalizing and overidentifying with “mental illness.” You just have a mental version of the flu. Once treatment is sought, and there is no improvement over time, you might need to change doctors or interventions. Often, we don’t have therapeutic responses (meaning: improving or healing) if the intervention isn’t the right one. You can’t get rid of the flu by doing physical therapy on your foot, right? In this way, not all treatments are the same.

Every mental health professional or provider has a different specialty and educational background. It’s important to research what each mental health professional offers in order for the best results in healing and improving ones’ mental health.

After learning all the secrets of our minds, our lives, our relationships, I finally concluded the closer I am the less I know! Therefore, my professor was right! I couldn’t diagnosis friends or family. Phew! That would have been a challenging job! I also concluded that it is normal to be abnormal and abnormal to be normal! The best news of all, we are indeed magnificently and perfectly made souls having human experiences! We don’t have to do life alone, there is support, we matter and there is hope!

NATHALY AGUILERA @GIRLWITHREDSHOES (ALL PHOTOS) JAKIELYNNPHOTOGRAPHY.COM @LACASADEFLORES

SAN DIEGO BASED OWNER/FOUNDER OF LA CASA DE FLORES AND PUBLIC MENTAL HEALTH WORKER (BACHELOR'S IN PSYCHOLOGY). NATHALY IS ALSO A POWERFUL ADVOCATE FOR BODY POSITIVITY.

Beautiful, as I am.

B

I started my journey toward body positivity at a very early age. My mother tended to be very preoccupied with my weight. I remember being 11 years old and hearing her say to the whole family “I weighed 110 pounds when I got married! Nathaly weighs 110 pounds now!”. I know it was a loving observation, the kind of loving observation that is supposed to motivate you change. There are a lot of those types of observations in the world, passive statements with hidden intent. Love with a dash of shame. Admiration with a pinch of judgement. Even as a child my attitude was to try to maintain a very matter of fact attitude about it; without having a specific mantra, the messages I consistently told myself were “I am beautiful”, “I love my body”, “Different isn’t bad”, “Being overweight doesn’t make me less pretty". By the time I was in the 9th grade I weighed 180 pounds and the comments never ceased. Then something very dramatic happened, I got mononucleosis.

Between the summer of 9th and 10th grade I lost about 40 pounds in a little over a month. I was so fatigued, I didn’t want to eat, I had strep throat and swallowing food was like swallowing glass. I subsisted on strawberry jello and soup stock for weeks. By the time school started I had transformed from a child to a young woman with a perfect hourglass silhouette. The attention I received was nice at first but after a short while it was overwhelming. I felt safe at school, most of those kids had known me since elementary school and I was always well liked. The uncomfortable attention came from adult men. Men who catcalled to me on the street. Men who followed me in grocery stores and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Men who hit on me in my parents’ nursery design business while they were shopping with their pregnant wives. Men who were not dissuaded when I told them I was 15 years old. Men who stopped their cars in the street to pursue me on foot. Men who would try to pry my car door open or pull my window down if it was cracked to keep me from leaving. I know now that a lot of women share these experiences, but when I was a going through them, I felt like the only one. Especially because the response I received when I told my parents about what was going on was “What did you do to provoke them?”.

I loved being svelte. To be honest, I have loved myself and found myself beautiful at any size. But at my smallest I was definitely the most anxious because I never knew when I would have to deflect someone’s advance and I had to be strategic about my surroundings. By the time I was in college I was afraid to walk to my car alone and would ask to walk friends to their car in exchange for a ride to mine, or vice versa. I had two stalkers at this time and owned a small clothing boutique. I was afraid to walk to my car after closing. To this day, if I’m alone, my routine is to get to my car as fast as possible and lock the doors immediately. My husband has told me that I’m paranoid, maybe it's true, but my paranoia has kept me safe all these years so I'll keep it. By the end of my undergrad I had gained those 40 pounds back, in part because they made me feel safer, but honestly, I liked how that extra weight sat on me.

When I started dating my husband, he almost immediately expressed issues with my body. I remember walking by a mirrored building and checking myself out, I was wearing tight tan slacks that really highlighted my assets. I paused in front of a window and said “Whoa! Look at my butt!” to which he replied “Well, why don’t you do something about it?” I was shocked, let go of his hand, and sassily pushed him away; I looked him straight in the eyes, and said “I love how my butt looks. That was a compliment”. He apologized in the moment, but it was just the first of many comments which have been a source of pain and frustration in our 15-year romance. By the time we were married I had gained another 40 pounds.

Our conflicting thoughts and feelings about my body and my weight have had us in and out of individual and couples therapy.

I have always been of the mind that I am beautiful and should not have to change my body to please him. Furthermore, that engaging in exercise solely to please him would result in a loss of self-respect and confidence which I am fervently dedicated to maintaining. He has always recognized that I am beautiful and tells me a dozen times a day, but he still wishes that my body were different. He admires my self-determination, self-love, and confidence amongst several other qualities I possess, and he has supported me through every difficult decision, bout of anxiety, and path I’ve chosen to follow. Most importantly to me, he has challenged himself to try to change his perspective and accept that it is my choice to live my life in a way that makes me happy. He is a wonderful husband, and despite all of this, his feelings about my body and my weight still hurt and make me feel unloved.

They trigger feelings I had in my adolescence when my mother expressed considerable amounts of pride that I was thin and beautiful. As though being thin and beautiful were more important than being smart, driven, creative, thoughtful, compassionate, loving, vivacious, interesting, strong, funny, and a slew of other positive adjectives which describe me, of which beautiful was just one. Though I knew she loved me for a multitude of reasons, beauty related compliments felt like 99% of what I heard. I resented that she rarely praised me for my other accomplishments, and I resented being valued for my physical beauty. And all of these feelings of being underappreciated surface when my husband asks me to join him in exercising or is more physically affectionate when I lose a little weight. Life is cruelly ironic sometimes in pairing you with the person who has the opposite neurosis than you.

In essence, I’ve been working on developing a positive body image my whole life. What has kept me most balanced is the conviction that I am unequivocally beautiful and sexy. I may have to remind myself sometimes, just as I have to remind myself that other people’s perspectives are their own, and I can’t allow myself to be buried by their limited point of view. At this point in my life as a 35-year-old woman, I only have to remind myself a few times a month that “I am beautiful”, “I love my body”, “Different isn’t bad”, and “Being overweight doesn’t make me less pretty".

Something which I have found extremely powerful in my experience is that my positivity with regards to my own body has been inspiring to other women. I receive numerous compliments each day, either in person or on social media platforms about how my attitude, poise, and confidence motivates others to emulate me in embracing themselves. I utilize fashion as an art form which I love sharing with the world. Fashion has been an incredibly powerful tool which has helped me embrace and project confidence. This quote from Greta Christina regarding the power of fashion has been very validating to my experience and helped breakdown some of my own judgements about my relationship to my appearance.

“Fashion is one of the very few forms of expression in which women have more freedom than men. And I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s typically seen as shallow, trivial, and vain. It is the height of irony that women are valued for our looks, encouraged to make ourselves beautiful and ornamental… and are then derided as shallow and vain for doing so. And it’s a subtle but definite form of sexism to take one of the few forms of expression where women have more freedom, and treat it as a form of expression that’s inherently superficial and trivial. Like it or not, fashion and style are primarily a women’s art form.

And I think it gets treated as trivial because women get treated as trivial."

If I have any advice to women about making a positive step toward embracing their bodies, it is to wear things that make them feel powerful and beautiful for no occasion at all, make yourself the occasion. For me it might be a skin tight satin dress, for others it might be wearing a bold lipstick, or trying a new hairstyle. The change can be incremental, but the sense of power can shift immediately. Women tell me all the time “I wish I could pull that off”, “I don’t want to make a change until I’m at my goal weight”, “I love that you are so bold, I wish I could be that way”, and my thought is always - “Why not give it a chance?

Why wait? You are beautiful as you are, why delay change when you can start feeling better about yourself now. Trying something new might shift your perspective and show you that it isn’t your weight or your body that needs to change”. In no way am I saying that being fashionable and knowing what suits your body is instinctive or easy. There is definitely work involved, but the payoff is alarmingly rewarding.

@pilatesembodied www.pilatesembodied.com

EMILIE MILLER

SEXUAL ASSAULT

TRAUMAINFORMED PILATES "Pilates is for sure a passion of mine and I started teaching it to others a decade ago. Since then, I’ve gotten certified in additional complementary movement modalities and also obtained an MA in Integrative Health Studies. With this degree, I provide health coaching to sexual trauma survivors. I love learning and love using what I’ve learned to serve others, especially those who are suffering. If I had tapped into these qualities earlier in my life, I’d probably be trying to get a PhD."

Helping with the aftermath of sexual assault.

SA

ASSISTING THE BODY Upon returning to NYC, I was immediately diagnosed with PTSD. This diagnosis had never occurred to me – until I started to read about PTSD. Nearly all the impairments associated with PTSD were ones I had struggled with on and off for years. Without the diagnosis, I naturally agreed with my friends, boyfriends, family, co-workers, my boss when they told me I was irresponsible, disrespectful, lazy, etc. In seeking treatment, I ended up at a weekend retreat with Bessel Van der Kolk. It was focused on using writing, acting, music, and movement to heal from PTSD. It was there that I suddenly realized why my intuition had drawn me to Pilates shortly after being raped: this movement was healing me.

My mission is inspired by a quote of Nelson Mandela’s: “The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.” By providing Sexual TraumaInformed Pilates and health coaching, my mission is to establish or reestablish the basic human rights of those who have survived sexual violence.

Pilates or Trauma-Informed Pilates? Are They The Same?

One of the challenges in answering this question (and this is something I emphasize in the workshop I’ve designed for sexual assault survivors to introduce them to Sexual Trauma-Informed Pilates) is that not all Pilates is trauma-informed and not all studios stating that they provide Pilates are providing Pilates as Joseph Pilates intended. Just because a studio has Pilates equipment, does not mean that they’re doing Pilates on the equipment. This unfortunately makes it very confusing for the consumer when it comes to choosing a Pilates studio and/or instructor.

Therefore, I have begun to identify Pilates studios and instructors throughout the U.S. who, based on their website, social media presence, bios, etc. appear to be teaching Pilates that is aligned with the needs of sexual trauma survivor. Personally, I have had engaged in Pilates classes that have left me feeling so empowered and motivated, as well totally laid back and chill. This is the Pilates I teach. However, I have also taken classes advertised as Pilates and I’ve taken classes in other fitness modalities that have not only physically impaired me, but worse: they’ve triggered me – and the instructor was not prepared to help me.

Therefore, it is important that survivors do a little bit of research before jumping into a Pilates class – or taking part in any type of body work, even Yoga, as not all instructors are Trauma-Informed. One of my goals is to present (within not just the Pilates instructor community, but among all service providers working with the body) the importance of being at least “trauma sensitive” – i.e. aware that clients in one’s class may be living with unresolved trauma: meaning that the client was in a traumatic situation, like rape, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) [within their Autonomic Nevous System (ANS)] was activated via the flight or fight mechanism, but because of be entrapped or otherwise, they were unable to either fight or flee.

A traumatized person is a person who was not able to discharge the energy related to the trauma they endured and therefore continue to carry that sense of fight or flight, which feels like hypervigilance or anxiety, with them at all times. Classes like High Intensity Interval Training, if there is no restoration built into the class and heart rates are not be monitored, may be triggering for a survivor, and they will need the instructor’s assistance in diminish the resurgence of their trapped traumatic energy. Just like we’re required to be certified in CPR, I believe body workers should be required to know how to handle the situation if a client is triggered during class. Those instructors who are Sexual “Trauma-Informed,” as opposed to being “trauma-sensitive,”will be trained to allow the release of traumatic energy, without allowing the survivor to be flooded by it. They will also be trained to address another response to stored traumatic energy, which is that of the survivor to be “frozen stiff.” These survivors were both given no outlet to dispel traumatic energy at the time of trauma, but were also so overwhelmed by the trauma the encountered that, as involuntary protective mechanics, they have seemingly shut down. This overwhelm causes dissociating and numbing of one’s emotions. For them, being present in the moment is fear-inducing and unsafe.

Once a survivor has identified a Pilates class or instructor that is Sexual Trauma-Informed, they can expect the following benefits: Self-empowerment Control of your body + ease of movement Safe reconnection with one’s “center” or pelvic region Core engagement reduces stress Improved muscle strength Improved muscular flexibility Improved body posture Letting go of limiting self-beliefs Connection to the self-healing innate within us Fat reduction Use of breath that promotes exchange of oxygen + reduction of tension in the neck and shoulders

SA Regulation of your nervous system by Beginning in supine position (on your back) Balancing muscle tension & increased heart rate with restoration & stretch Biointelligently improving the quality of your breathing function Always being grounded in physical safety, which promotes emotional safety Activating all 29 muscles of the core, which improves the health of the nervous system most noticeably by reducing stress responses and improving mood through hormone balance Relief from joint pain Heightened self-awareness Improved focus + concentration Promoted independence Fortification against future injury Improved neurogenesis (whereas trauma can cause premature neurodegeneration) Training of the brain to be in the present moment i.e. mindfulness Benefits of mindfulness include: Reduction of hyper-vigilance and/or dissociation Lowered blood pressure Insomnia relief Increased creative thinking Chronic pain relief Craving reduction Improvement in self-acceptance by Taking a person-centered approach and offering endless modifications to suit your individual body’s needs Basing goals on one’s unique physical needs rather than a universal standard being the barometer of success Improved blood circulation Improved motor skills Sense of freedom Whole body health The opportunity to express yourself, including your trauma, without needing words Coordination of the body, mind, + spirit Improved balanced “Living life with passion, purpose, and vitality” Pilates Movements That Help With SA Survivors all of the Pilates exercises have the potential to heal both the brain and the body post-trauma.

Joseph Pilates began developing his method while working with bed-ridden soldiers, post-World War I. I quote author and Pilates instructor, Gary Calderone, in saying that Mr. Pilates had “ingenious insights on how to support the body under traumatic circumstances.” He was quite literally “trauma-informed” as he developed what would become known as the Pilates Method. His sequence of exercises begins lying on the back, which dampened the fight or flight response, and helped the soldier focus on the task at hand. Additionally, Joseph Pilates balanced his exercises with those that were muscle activating and perhaps quickly paced – thus helping dissociated soldiers make their way back to the present moment – with those that were more restorative, bring the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) back online, to dampen the fearsome energy of the SNS. Now, as we teach Pilates to sexual trauma survivors, and survivors engage in exercises on their own, it is not so much which Pilates exercises are chosen, but how they are done. For example, in class or at home, lying on one’s back (supine) with legs bent and feet flat on the floor – as a Pilates client typically does to prep for the 100 – would suffice in aiding regulation of the survivor’s ANS, especially if it is done with awareness. A starting point for building awareness is to notice the support that the floor is providing under one’s body. This awareness of being held up and supported by the floor is important because feeling safe often eludes survivors. Here, with the floor solidly underneath you: you are safe. As a survivor practices experiencing the sensation of physical safety, they begin to open space for feeling emotionally safe as well.

Awareness also orients a survivor to the present moment. Trauma survivors are often plagued with memories of the past and anxieties about the future, both which can be overwhelming. Feeling the floor underneath their head, back, arms, feet, etc. will bring the focus to present moment, which balances the PNS and the SNS. An additional tool for creating self-awareness and regulating one’s nervous system is by noticing the breath. This can occur without engaging in any movement, or the survivor could choose to bring their hands to their ribcage to feel the breath filling the lungs and then exhaling out as the ribcage drops.

In Pilates, we eventually coordinate movement and breath. My recommendation is to wait and add this element of Pilates after a few sessions.

Yes, the Pilates breath is very beneficial, and for that reason I don’t suggest ignoring the principle altogether. However, everyone is going to breathe. It is involuntary. Unless I see that someone is holding their breath, I only mention the breath in the early sessions by suggesting that one notices their breath, nothing more. Just noticing the breath will again build upon the survivor’s ability to be present and self-aware.

The expectation would be to go from this position of lying on the floor into the 100 exercise. However, for survivors and those working with survivors, regardless of the modality, it is important to move at a gentle pace. Healing cannot be forced and needs to moved along deliberately, based on the individual. Pilates is aligned with this such pacing as it values quality of movement over quantity of movement.

With the 100 in mind as the next sequential exercise, rather than lifting the feet off the floor and straightening the legs out, I would advise the survivor to keep the legs unmoved and remaining bent at the knees, with feet flat on the floor.

As we are holding off on directing the breath, it would make sense to allow the arms to remain still for the time-being. However, we want to be progressing toward muscle engagement and moving, not just lying on the floor indefinitely. Therefore, with either the head up looking into the navel, or down – depending on the survivor’s comfort level – they could address that need to engage their body by lightly pressing, or rooting, their feet into the floor. This activates the back of the legs and aids in grounding a survivor. Grounding is another tool to facilitate remaining present and mindful. When we introduce grounding at the beginning of the exercises, it can and will be a tool to refer back to throughout the Pilates exercises to keep the survivor safe and in control.

Self-awareness; mindfulness; stabilizing; when moving, doing so with control and concentration while initiating from the center (core); and inhaling into the full capacity of the rib cage/lungs and exhaling all of the air out until the transverse abdominus [a deep stomach muscle] engages. Until in a class setting or taking individual Pilates sessions, the best thing for survivors to do at home is as listed above. The more one practices mindfulness, grounding, and orienting themselves in the space they’re occupying, the safer and more in touch with their body they will feel. This will help them move simply out of the house if they’re feeling stuck and, once in a Pilates class or session they’ll find that their home practices as described will have reduced the sensation of disembodiment that sexual trauma creates. Their ability to understand Pilates, move efficiently, and progress at a satisfactory pace will be achievable).

Attending My Class At the moment, I am only teaching in North San Diego County. However, I have developed a Sexual Trauma-Informed Pilates training program for other instructors in which I guide them on how to teach a survivor individually, how to teach a group of survivors, and then how to teach a class open to the general public while sensitive to the possibility that sexual trauma survivors may be present and may need certain modifications.

SA My priority in training other instructors is to train them in teaching group classes for survivors. Sexual assault survivors are an isolated, silenced population. The community provided by a group class in which all participants, and possibly the instructors too, have been through this specific type of trauma can be healing in itself, hence the power of support groups.

Since Sexual-Trauma Informed Pilates classes are currently going to be challenge to locate, I have advice about what survivors might want to look for in local Pilates classes: Those small in number (8 people or less).

They offering of a free intro class (they’re usually shorter in duration) Instructors who teach without a headset.

Instructors who introduce themselves, ask your name, and inquire about physical restrictions and history.

Instructors who ask for your permission before giving you a manual adjustment or touching you in any other way.

An instructor equipped with props and ideas to modify exercises to keep you comfortable, while working.

A class that will be both aerobic and restorative. (If your heartrate is elevated throughout the entire duration of the class you may get triggered or have a panic attack. This happened to me as an experienced fitness instructor.)

An instructor who views you as their equal (no ego or airs) and understands that you are the expert of your body, not them. I often outright state this to my clients, both because it’s true and because it is empowering. Indications that an instructor holds the belief that you are the expert of you would be that they sincerely listen to you without interrupting or responding with “yes, but” and that their instruction style is to suggest exercises and progressions, rather than barking orders at you and shaming you for not complying. A suggestive instruction could sound like, “If you’d like you could try gradually making your leg circles a little bigger, while maintaining pelvic stability,” as opposed to a command with shame: “Now circle the legs wider. Come on! I know some of you could be working harder!”

Tribulation and My Gratitude As I felt death was probable because of what was being done to me, I eventually dissociated while I was being raped almost 25 years ago.

However, I remember quite clearly the aftermath. I was raped by two strangers while walking to the apartment of the guy I was dating.

Miraculously, just as two strangers had attack me, another stranger saved me. He was driving by, heard my cries, and pulled the two rapists off of me. He then drove me to my intended destination, where I was met with disbelief by the guy I was meant to be visiting. He wouldn’t even let me lie in his bed with him to be held and made me sleep on his couch. Had he responded differently, maybe I would have gone to the police, maybe I would have gotten medical care, but I didn’t. From there forward, my friends, enjoying their youth and freedom in NYC, simply did not know how to handle the gravity of what had happened to me. Except for one friend, Eddie, all of my other friends abandoned me and at 25 I was left alone, nearly friendless, and severely traumatized in New York City.

The experience that follows rape is often just as traumatizing as the assault itself, as the majority of survivors of sexual assault and abuse find not people rallying around them after being attacked, but instead find themselves more alone than perhaps they imagined possible. My fury over my circumstances has long since been worked through and I no longer experience it, but I feel the fury on behalf of the women, young and old, who have been abandoned similarly by the people they expected to be their support system. Not only do I feel that fury, but I am grateful for it. This is because media and politics focus almost exclusively on the traumatic act, and hardly ever on the experience of rape survivor as she or he attempts to move on with their life.

The second trauma that survivors experience post-rape is so common that it has two names: “second victimization” and “second rape.” The words and actions of family and friends, medical professionals, and/or the criminal justice system regarding the initial trauma are most reliably behind this phenomenon, unless the case goes to trial. For sexual trauma survivors, going to trial is more likely to cause further trauma than cause justice. Yet silence is what perpetrators rely upon to continue victimizing others without redress. Staying silent is also the soil from which shame grows like ivy around every aspect of a survivor’s life.

Due to the impact second victimization has had on my life, I can’t quite say I’m grateful for it, but I am grateful that I am making myself known to other survivors and am devoted to educating and eradicating what causes it; that being rape culture. I recently wrote on my Instagram page that, “Sexual trauma is for individuals to recover from and for society to resolve.” I am grateful for this painful path I’ve been on for 15 years because it has led me to identifying a healing modality for sexual assault survivors that heretofore been given little attention in this capacity. I love teaching, but the most rewarding teaching moment I’ve had thus far was when a long-time Pilates client, also an SA survivor, told me she always felt safe working with me.

Finally, I love what I do because through my work I am addressing the pain of both sexual trauma and post-sexual trauma and playing a role in alleviating it. As I write this, I have just lost a family member and the pain I feel over losing her almost prevented me from completing all the included questions. My pain is great, yes, because my aunt has died young, too young and was one of the most beautiful souls I’ve ever known. My pain is also great because there is no end point in healing from sexual trauma. The pain is always there. We learn how to manage it, live with it, and move on, but we don’t leave it behind, at least not completely. I embody this harsh truth, but have also come to embody the regulation of trauma. I may from time to time have to ride the wave of trauma again, like today, but I know how to get myself back to shore.

Being involved in and witnessing getting other sexual assault survivors safely back to shore gives me back the life I almost lost when I was 25.

WE ARE HER ORGANIZATION

Healing is not spoken about enough.

It's so easy to compare ourselves to others and think they're doing great.

Healing is not about the destination; it's about the journey.

Stevie Croisant Founder. Est.2016 @_weareher www.weareher.net

OUR STORY

I moved to Bozeman, MT after I graduated from college. I found my first job at the local newspaper and was so excited to begin my life. However, I had no friends or family in my new town and my hometown was over 1300 miles away. I started dating my abuser, but by the time I realized he had abusive tendencies, I felt as if it were too late for me to leave him. I had no one to turn to. Â Fortunately, after almost 2 years, I was able to leave him. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. A few months after leaving my abuser, I joined a group called End the Silence, which was a survivor support group/volunteer opportunity for me to share my story with my community and educate others about the prevalence of domestic violence in our area. Without joining ETS, I don't believe I would have started my healing journey. Connecting with other survivors and sharing my story allowed me to gain so much strength.

That's when I decided to start HER. Had my story happened back in my hometown, there was no group like ETS. I would not have been able to build my own community of survivors. So in October of 2016, I started HER as a blog where survivors could share their stories anonymously. It started with a group of friends who would blog every week about their story, but within a year, HER had survivors from all over the world contributing and asking for healing resources. I knew it was time to become a nonprofit so I could start to provide healing resources for the survivors HER was helping. In April of 2018, HER was granted its 501c3 status. Â HER is an online community for any survivor to become Healed, Empowered, and Restored. In our 2 and a half years, our blog has grown immensely. We have over 250 stories from survivors across the globe. Our thriving Instagram community helps survivors know they aren't alone and offers tips and advice from therapists, life coaches, and other survivors. We host virtual survivor meetups. And every month, we host an in-person or virtual event to help survivors along their healing journey. In March, psychotherapist and nutritionist Clara Wisner, led a webinar on body positivity after trauma. We had over 200 online attendees. In April, dance instructor Danielle Jacobson of Bozeman will be leading an Empowerment through Dance workshop for a small group of survivors.

Advice to Survivors Don't be afraid to ask for help. There are resources out there, and there are people out there who want to help you. The trauma that happened to you is NEVER your fault, but healing is your responsibility. Find other survivors. Start building a community for yourself. Do what you need to in order to start thriving again.

Going to the Authorities An individual should only go to the police about their sexual assault if they feel like it is the right choice for them. Reporting sexual assault can be an extremely difficult process, and there is still a lot of stigma around coming out as a survivor, especially if your abuser is prolific in your community or on your college campus.

Reporting is such a brave act. But it is not the right move for everyone, and that's okay. If you are thinking about reporting, it's definitely best to go as soon as possible (especially if you'd like a rape kit and need to be tested for STDs or pregnancy). However, even if it has been a while since the assault, and you feel like it's the right time to come forward, then that's what you should do.

Unspoken Words Healing is not spoken about enough. It's so easy to compare ourselves to others and think they're doing great. Healing is not about the destination; it's about the journey. And with healing comes so many other topics: dealing with effects of trauma like depression or PTSD, how and where to seek medical or legal help, forgiveness, deciding when to date again. Experiencing sexual assault can absolutely be life-changing.

It could forever change who you are as a person, and that can be very devastating. Spreading awareness about all of this helps survivors understand that what they are experiencing is valid. It helps survivors understand they aren't alone. It's so important to talk about every step of the healing journey.

Lessening Rate of Sexual Assault The best way to combat sexual assault is through education. Kids and teenagers should learn about consent. And the only way to know for sure if you have consent is to get an enthusiastic yes. If it's not enthusiastic, then assume it's a no. Communicating boundaries is also so important. But again, most people aren't taught this skill. It would be so great to see more education around healthy communication skills.

Advice to a Loved One & Yourself If you have a friend or family member who has been a victim of sexual assault, the best thing to do is show them that you care and listen to their needs. Support can mean the world to them. Acknowledge their feelings and be respectful of their decisions. Focus the conversation on them, not their assaulter. Let them know that this is not their fault. Even if it feels like there is nothing you can do, don't forget that by being supportive and caring, you are already doing a lot.

Be gentle with yourself. Don't be afraid to let your partner know your boundaries. It's okay to change your mind. You are always allowed to say no even if you've already given consent. If you find it really hard, contact a therapist. They'll be able to help you work through your feelings in a healthy way.

Self-Reflection I have learned so many things from the survivors HER helps. I've learned how to be a better person. Running HER has helped me learn to communicate better, set healthy boundaries for myself, and to only give what I can. It's definitely taught me to let go of any pre-conceived notions or judgments I may have. Being so close with these survivors has been such a gift. It is truly an honor to learn their stories and be able to reach out to them on a daily basis.

Forming community was the first step in my healing journey, and the online community I've formed through HER continues to help me. I am truly grateful for every survivor I have met because of HER. I hope they all know how amazing and strong they are. They have such beautiful stories and beautiful hearts. The world needs to know who they are, and I am honored to be able to give them a voice and a platform to share. I cannot thank them enough.

LEXIE BEAN

" W R I T T E N V

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About Lexie From Michigan & Ohio.

Freelance writer and performer; currently finishing a middle grade novel, "The Ship We Built," due to come out next year with Dial Books for Young Readers at Penguin Random House.

Love to roller skate, collage, and send mail. Often loses umbrellas and pens. Very good at coming up with games for long car rides.

Pronouns: they or he.

Lexie's Story/Journey It's hard to remember a before, and sometimes I don't believe in an after.

One of my most vivid memories in elementary school is standing in line at gym class. The kid next to me asked about a homework assignment. A boy in the line next to us chimed in, "Don't ask her, she doesn't talk anymore."

At 10 years old, I started leaving my toys and piles of clothes on the ground to create an obstacle course. At dinner, a story about rape came on the news. I was asked from the other side of the table, "Do you know what rape is?" I shook my head no.

At 13 years old, I started wearing headphones when I went to bed. What was happening would be easier to ignore if I couldn't hear it.

At 17 years old, I cried every day. I came out to myself as a survivor after a trip to Barnes and Noble on Haggerty Road. I found a book on the shelf about childhood survivors of sexual abuse. It was then I realized there was a book about me. I never would have thought that I would have ended up making a book that belongs in that same section years later.

At 18 years old, I moved to Oberlin, Ohio for school. I thought that leaving the state meant I could leave everything behind. No one would know. No one would have to feel shame for knowing and not doing anything about it. I couldn't let go of the memory. I went in and out of the hospital my first three years at college, convinced a sickness would settle at any moment. If it was simply a disease, a virus, I could say I could have done nothing to stop it from happening.

Until college, I told no one about what really happened because I thought it was inevitable that someone would do it to me if he didn't. I told people who I knew deep down wouldn't stay—the boys I kissed. One of the first boys broke up with me while he was high. I was in the middle of a flashback, losing breath on my dorm room floor. I went to the hospital nearly a dozen of times the following semester, I was offered a transfusion to get oxygen back into to my blood. They put me in a chemo clinic to undo anemia, and attached my arm to a bag full of iron. That summer, they attached my chest to a monitor to count the times I lost my breath.

At 19 years old, the person I call the Last Boyfriend told me, "I can't wait to have sex with you" over and over until I said yes. The movie was still playing on the laptop computer at the other end of the bed. I thought this was consent, I thought my willingness to give is what made me valuable in a relationship.

At 20 years old, a different boy reminded me that it is possible to be raped with hands. We were in the bottom bunk of a bunk bed in a house that wasn’t even his. He knew I had a crush on him; he popped an ovarian cyst under his fist. I remembered his presence on the inside every time I sat down. I just wanted to give him a collage I made, maybe watch a movie together, maybe kiss if I was lucky.

At 21 years old, I made plans to leave the country again. I moved into a chipped-wall bedroom in Hungary because I wanted to go to a place that was also healing from occupation. I thought there would be things for me to learn in a language that I didn't grow up speaking.

At 23 years old, someone I love went inside of me without asking. I questioned what it meant to love someone. That same night we watched a TED Talk that promised that people are more than the worst things that they do.

At 24 years old, I came out as trans. I felt relieved at the realization. I brought balloons to the intervention others staged in response. I was told that I am only trans because I haven't healed from my history of rape. What they didn’t know, it was the first time I really wanted to invest in my body, in my staying. I never wanted to be the kind of boy who forgets the things that boys can do.

At 25 years old, I realized what happened at 23 was rape. I knew this because my back pain went away only on the nights we didn’t share a bed. Those nights, I had no reason to make myself small. I had no reason to cry to them, “I am a person. I am a person,” as if it were a reminder to myself. I started to write a book about me, in which I asked other trans survivors to write letters to their body parts. It later became, Written on the Body.

At 26 years old, that person moved out. I repainted my room from purple to red. Still, it happened again. This time, the boy from when I was 18 drove into town. I thought we had both grown so much since that night we sat with our bloodshot eyes. He said in the aftermath of my rearranged room, “Sex is intense, isn’t it?” Up my behind. I wondered if I was supposed to like it because I called myself a queer boy. I took my mattress with a black Sharpie “Bye!” on the back. That week, someone who also wrote a letter to his body parts bought me a new mattress and took me to the beach. That week, I was offered my book deal with Penguin Random House for my upcoming novel, The Ship We Built. It took months to feel the joy of that.

I am now 27 years old. I pulled on my lips until they bled while writing this. There will always be a part of me unsure about what I'm allowed to say. Perhaps today is an "after," no matter how temporary it may be. Today I can list people I love and trust; today I can go to sleep really believing that they only thing that may disturb me is the stray cat meowing on the street. Today I am reaching the deadline for writing a novel that holds a story for my past self. Today I booked a flight to speak at the University of Wisconsin alongside other trans contributors to Written on the Body. Today I ate tacos and swept the back porch with my roommates. What has allowed me to live is to allow my story to exist alongside others.

Did I Experience Mental Health Obstacles Afterwards?

Yes. It makes me grateful as ever I have so many creative outlets. Nothing this big can stay inside. It is remarkable to make a living from something that almost killed me. Of course, I still struggle to feel in real time, sometimes I still struggle to know what makes a healthy relationship or family. Most of all, I struggle with believing that this isn't inevitable. I am currently 9 and a half years sober from alcohol and 4 and half years from drugs and over the counter self medication. Years ago, before I was more vocal and intentional in moving my shame, I wouldn't be able to fall asleep without medicating.

Sometimes I would wake up with a sore or swollen hand from pressing into myself.

Dealing with Flashbacks Recently, I have been spending time with someone who notices when I dissociate and brings me back. It's an endless job to keep creating something that I want to come back to. Before then, I would frequently re-arrange my room, change the colors of my walls, change what the bare ceiling looks like. I spent months couch surfing years ago. While it was a form of running, it was also a profound reminder that there are infinite normals and home structures to learn from. For the past few years, I have also kept a sheet of paper listing signs I'm doing well, signs I'm not doing well, triggers that are difficult to

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explain, things that I can do to help myself, and things others can do to help me (inspired by the Icarus Project). I share this list with my roommates, and people who are in it with me for the long-haul. On my list, some of the things I do to help myself include, playing the piano, sitting alone in my bathroom or small space for a few minutes, and looking at clouds.

The biggest turning point for me was taking Contact Improvisation, a modern dance form that plays with weight sharing and gravity, and later becoming the TA for CI at Oberlin College. It was incredibly important practice and community for me to access non-sexual touch, get out of my head, and experience the rare feeling of not having a destination put on me.

Unspoken Battles I am always seeking more trans inclusion when it comes to conversations around sexual abuse. From getting turned away from shelters, to staying in abusive relationships because our bodies are "confusing" or "unlovable," the increase in visibility over the past few years has not protected us. Trans women are the most likely to be murdered, and meanwhile trans men are the most likely to commit suicide. Many trans men and assigned female at birth trans people do not speak on their survivor status. As an assigned female at birth trans person, I have been told many times that both my gender and sexual orientation are the result of my childhood abuse. This is not true. In fact, I would have come out much earlier as transgender had I not had my body and boundaries constantly policed. I would have come out much earlier about being a survivor had I not had to worry about having my identity scrutinized or limited to womanhood.

Why I Chose To Keep Going With My Life The first time I really considered suicide was in high school. I wrote a note, and hid it in the filing cabinet in my room. One day, afraid of someone finding it, I ripped it up. After ripping up that letter, I instead just prayed for death for my entire senior year. By the time I got to college, I was convinced that the sickness already arrived and went in and out of the hospital frequently with a plea for someone to take the pain away. I wrote another letter believing I would die in my sleep. This wave started when I realized what had been happening for most of my life wasn't okay, and it even had a word. The memories became more clear, the feeling more vivid and present. That time, I kept going because I thought getting a college degree would somehow change my future. Beginning to make anthologies was my lifesaver. It held me accountable to a group of people also wanting and needing to share their words. I wrote letters to my body parts and asked others to do so because it was one of the only ways I knew how to communicate with my estranged body. I wondered if others felt the same. It turns out, they did.

The suicidal feelings returned when I was raped at the beginning of a relationship that would last years. At the time, I told myself we could work through anything. I felt my body for the first time when I rented a studio in Manhattan with a friend and danced with my eyes closed. The depression deepened. It amplified when I came out as trans and received negative feedback from loved ones. This was the same summer as the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting.

I stood outside of The Stonewall Inn with a group of strangers singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in mourning. I joined a group in NYC called ACTOUT at THE STUDIO, a community of LGBTQ+ actors, musicians, and creatives to work through layers of shame. It was founded by Brad Calcaterra in response to the surge of LGBTQ+ youth suicides. This group not only offered me life-long friends, but a place where I was expected to be, a place where I was included in a vision for the future.

Advice To Those Who Can Relate A dear friend told me, "You are here now," when I was in the middle of a flashback in 2014. She said it over and over again until I believed her. Those are the most important words shared with me, and now I say them to myself often.

The other advice I would give is to play a game, which I learned from friends who were studying Theatre of the Oppressed. It's called "Who are you?" Find a companion. For two minutes, one person repeats the question, "Who are you?" and the other person responds with a phrase, words, sound, or movement.

After the two minutes end, they switch roles. Most people will start with "mother," "brother," "friend," "wife," "uncle," and then get stuck once they have to think about who they are beyond their relationships. One time in Oxford, a woman said to me while playing this game, "I am 70 years old and it's taken me until now to know that I am someone." I had incorporated this into a writing workshop for survivors. After participating in dozens of rounds, I am amazed how rarely I repeat myself.

With both of these, it's about companionship, recognizing the friends who don't shrink when you speak. You deserve a new normal. You are not a burden asking for a new one.

Self-Reflection & Gratitude I have learned the basics--the things I knew when I was born and was forced to forget. I have learned that I have a body, I have a voice. I have learned that I can be held and cry when I need to.

I'm grateful that I lived long enough to see the beginnings of the #metoo movement, to speak at universities and be a part of the re-education with Written on the Body. I'm grateful to soon add to narratives of childhood sexual abuse and trans identity with The Ship We Built. I'm grateful that I lived long enough to witness trans trailblazers, like Laverne Cox, MJ Rodriguez, Logan Rozos, fellow creatives from ACTOUT, my closeted and un-closeted teacher friends around the country. I'm grateful to have been alive long enough to land on a person and people who help me let go of my old ideas of what is unlovable. In this moment, I'm also grateful for the new Billie Eilish album blessing my ears. @oklexiebean

Available on Amazon

n n A a s s i l e M

author of Who Will Love Me? @love.melissa.ann melissa.ann.mcdaniel

As I started to embrace and love the parts of me I felt were unlovable, magic began to happen.

ALL PHOTOGRAPHYÂ BY ANDREA YOUNG NECKLACE: BIRKLAND BOUTIQUE

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MELISSA'S JOURNEY About Me Have you ever heard a country song about the young girl ready to spread her wings and flee the little town she grew up in? I’m 99% sure they were written about me. I grew up in Tonasket, WA. To put the size of the town into perspective, there is no stop light, bowling alley, or McDonald’s. I took pigs to the county fair and spent my summers baking pie at Grandma School. So fun!

As I began to fly my wings I learned traveling and meeting people from around the world makes my heart the most happy. Some of my favorite destinations are Tanzania, Greece, and Rhode Island.

In my free time I can be found hiking, baking cookies, snuggling my sweet rabbit Gypsy, and Zumba’ing my heart out at the gym.

I have a Master of Arts degree in Holistic Leadership and continued education in the Creative and Expressive Arts from Salve Regina University.

Currently I am a Doctoral Student in Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University.

My Story At 20 years old I was attending a university I loved on a full-ride scholarship. Constantly surrounded by wonderful friends as we learned how to navigate transitioning into adulthood. My apartment overlooked a beautiful bay and my dreams of traveling the world felt in reach.

Until “it” happened. I was raped in my own apartment, in my own bed, by a man I had known for a handful of days. As I tried to push him off of me he explained he was doing it because he loved me. WTF?!

The last thing I wanted after my name was the label rape victim. Yet, there it was. A big fat badge of shame. Blaming myself felt like the best option.

Well only for 50%. That is fair right?! After all I invited him over.

Conflicting thoughts of “do I report, do I not report?” continuously crossed my mind. Questioning how this could be my real life I chose not to report right away. I was so confused and scared. Reporting meant one more thing to validate the fact it actually happened.

My friends saw the man scoping out the college campus, most likely looking for me. Scary and peculiar behavior.

I reported. And it turned out his face was in the series of mugshots the deceives had me look through. The man was a serial predator. Everything he told me from his age to his occupation was a lie. The only truthful thing he told me was his full name.

The legal process was a sickening three years of grief, tears, and uncertainty. (The intro of my book goes into the process in more depth if you would like to learn more.)

There were days I wished I would get in a car accident. Not because I wanted to die. I liked life. Getting in a car accident was just an easier way to say please take care of me. I did not have a way to articulate the inner turmoil I felt as a result of the sexual assault. People easily recognize support and love are needed after a car accident. After sexual assault nobody knows how to talk to you and it becomes the elephant hidden deep inside.

It took me a long time to realize the elephant hidden deep inside was nothing to be ashamed of. Although it was large and painfully lodged in my little body, carrying it the way I did served a great purpose. My body protected the elephant until I was ready to learn a new way to communicate. How beautiful.

As I learned new healing modalities and dove into the studies of Holistic Leadership, my life took on a new shape.

Why I Created Who Will Love Me? For years I longed to see someone openly discussing what life looked like after sexual assault. Occasionally I saw people sharing the story of how it happened and at what age but the conversation stoped there. I wanted to know I was not the only one who grieved behind closed doors and ugly cried at the most unexpected times. I wanted to know I was lovable even with the label of “sexual assault victim.” I wanted to see myself mirrored in another.

In the beginning of 2018 an unfamiliar message began to echo in my mind, “If you do not see her, you have to be her!” I have NO clue where it came from.

Google searching the words at least 100 times have led to zero results. I stalked every social media influencer I follow… still nothing. Yet, the words were carefully crafted and clearly meant for me. The origination became irrelevant, as the echo relentlessly grew louder. The distance I tried to run and the depth at which I tried to bury my truth did not matter. This was something bigger than me. Every part of my being knew the echo was a gentle calling; it was time to “be her.”

Shaking, crying, and feeling all the feels I stepped out to share my story of life after sexual assault. Unsure of what the outcome would look like I knew this was my purpose in life.

Regardless of where the message, “if you do not see her, you have to be her,” came from, it was meant to relentlessly echo from within. Planting the seed and leading me to support sexual assault survivors in being seen, heard, and loved. By lovingly holding up a mirror for them see they are not alone.

With the support of Dr. Angela Lauria and The Author Incubator Team, my best selling ebook, Who Will Love Me? was born in November 2018. The book not only shares my personal story it also has tools to support women in moving forward in their healing journey to building meaningful relationships after sexual assault.

Who Will Love Me? was written for the woman ready to move beyond feelings of isolation and begin to build the meaningful relationships she craves after sexual assault. Drawing from my own transformational experience I give readers the tools—and permission—to heal in ways they never knew were possible. By guiding them on a journey with laughter, tears, and a few WTFS the reader learns: to lovingly take back her power, trust her inner voice, reconnect with her body, build meaningful relationships, and much, much more.

What Do I Feel Is Not Spoken About When It Comes To Sexual Assault Survivors?

This is a great question and my answer is probably very controversial. But in choosing to “be her” I have to speak my truth. For years, I subscribed to the idea that the only way to heal was sitting on a sofa behind closed doors and word vomiting all over a counselor. The victim advocates and crime victim supports confirmed my belief by giving me an overwhelming amount of packets with information on how to find a counselor to “talk to.” The sofa was the only place I knew to seek help and talk. Did I mention talking. Yes, all I did was talk… for way too many years.

Unfortunately only “talking” missed a fundamental element in my healing process. Life after sexual assault took on a whole new meaning as I began to study the synthesis between the body, mind, and spirit. Learning the integral part each piece of me plays was one of the greatest gifts I ever received.

Learning how to communicate with my body through movement and visual journaling gave me a way to articulate my feelings without having to know the words. My beautiful body is so wise and was holding on to trauma with no avail. Once I gave it room to communicate a flood of relief came over my whole being. Yes, this grown woman colors with big fat markers like a two year old, without shame. Sometimes the drawings make complete sense and other times they convey a message only my body understands. Nonetheless, it is the most beautiful experience to be able to communicate with pieces of me and validate how they feel.

My book includes those tools and many others to support the reader in learning how to communicate and connect with their body, mind and spirit. With the ultimate goal of discovering how interconnected they each are and the magic in learning to use them to support each other. This then leads to the discovery of how to build meaningful relationships with others.

Although I am certain “just talking” has supported some sexual assault survivors in their healing journey, for me personally it did not work. My hope is by openly speaking about other modalities survivors will learn if “talking” isn’t working for them, there are other ways. And there is nothing wrong with the survivor if they need to color and dance like a two year old in the mirror to find relief. There is no cookie cutter/right way to heal.

Self-Reflection After being sexually assaulted I felt the need to portray an image of perfection to the outer world. If my life appeared perfect people would never know how hurt I was on the inside. This worked well for some time. Until it didn’t. My have it all together attitude made me less likely to build the meaningful relationships I desired. Why? Because I wouldn’t let conversations get vulnerable. I would only share half of me. The good half. The pretty pieces.

Eventually I felt like a fake person living in a real world. As I started to embrace and love the parts of me I felt were unlovable, magic began to happen.

Learning to love myself as an imperfectly perfect being has been the greatest lesson.

Gratitude Where I am now feels like a dream. Going from living what felt like two separate lives to fully living in my truth has been the most beautiful transition. I now get to be me. Fully me. In whatever capacity I need to show up. Not only do I get to live in my truth everyday, I get to support other sexual assault survivors in feeling seen, heard, and loved. I am not sure there is a word to better describe where am in life than grateful. Grateful for resiliency, love, and the ability to do the work, even when the work seems unbearable.

An Empowering Book Created By

95

5 Stars Overall for Amazon Reviews

VERY d for E a e r t s "A mu

BODY

."

"An anthopology of collective pain and healing."

CO-AUTHORS Sexual Assault Awareness

CHRISTINE

KINDRA

CANDICE

RACHEL

+91 OTHER CO-AUTHORS About the Authors Kindra: I live in a quiet town in Mid-Michigan with my ARMY Veteran husband and our moody old cat. My daughter lives nearby, so she and I spend a great deal of time together. We both love eating good food, laughing until we cry, and engaging one another with meaningful conversation. I’m also fortunate to have a lot of solitary time to devote to my writing career.

Candice: French. Lives in Texas presently.

Rachel: I live in England, UK, close to the sea which I love. I am a mother to four amazing children. Prior to having my children I worked in a specialist school for children with Autism. I love to read, write, swim and pursue my spirituality.

Christine: I live in the Philadelphia suburbs with my husband, kids (21 and 17), and our rescue mutt. I was as a clinical social worker for 20 years, spent 10 years in research administration, have been a professional artist who taught quilting and beading, and have spent the last year writing, freelance editing, and publishing independent books. I love to read, write, and create.

Our Journeys Kindra: I grew up with an alcoholic mother who needed me emotionally, to the point that I told myself I didn’t need her to be a mother to me. I knew at a very young age that my mother had suffered many years of physical and emotional abuse beginning in childhood. She was raped at age sixteen, and the assault was buried by the church and my grandparents.

I never shared my experiences with harassment or assault with my mother. I didn’t believe she could handle knowing that her daughter had been abused. I wish I would have been open with her because now I realize that my mother possessed great strength in her own way. I used to think I got all of my fortitude from my father, so when I made decisions to dig in my heels and thrive, I said, “Thank goodness I take after my dad.” I should have said, “Thank you, mom, for showing me how to survive.”

Rachel: I was first sexually abused when I was 7 years old, by older children, specifically girls that I knew & trusted. I was later gang raped at 12 years old by people I did not know. There is no part of my life that has not been affected by this. Many of my memories were suppressed until the traumatic labour of my first child at which point it all flooded back to me. Both my relationships & friendships have been hugely affected as I found myself unable to trust either men or women for almost two decades following the childhood events. For a long time after the flashbacks began, I really found it difficult to move forward, I dealt with a lot of shame & confusion & at many points in my younger years did not want to go on living. It was at a turning point in my life that I decided to focus solely on recovering from all I had endured. This has been an ongoing process, through which I built an online community that offers support to other sexual assault survivors. This work gave me motivation, determination and strength, as of course do my children. I was and am always determined to keep my spirit whole and to grow in courage and wisdom.

Christine: I received a lot of unwanted attention and touching from an older male relative starting in my pre-teens. It was often done in front of others and interpreted as ‘affectionate’ and/or ‘paternal’ (my parents had split when I was 3.) He had a long, unspoken history of being sexually inappropriate with my mother and my aunts when drunk, which was often. My mother was aware that his attention made me excruciatingly uncomfortable but told me to ‘suck it up’ and ‘not to rock the boat’ because of the critical eye the family already had on her as a single parent. His usurping of my control over my developing body had a profound effect on my body image, sexuality, and my ability to trust and be physically and emotionally intimate with others.

I became profoundly depressed and considered killing myself for the first time at age 12. As I entered my teens, I became more independent, much angrier, and more rebellious, and better able to control his access to me. Although I intellectually knew that his attention and touching had left a mark, I never consciously thought of myself as a sexual abuse survivor until graduate school when I was triggered by a graphic film on child sexual abuse. I had always minimized my own experiences and locked them away. I didn’t start writing about them until a few years ago.

Why We Created Our Book Kindra: I’m alive, and my mother is not. I have a network of support my mother never had when she was living. It was in honor of my mother that I participated in creating WWNBS. Candice: When she [Christine] pitched it to me I immediately came on board as an editor for the anthology because it was so timely and having worked in several rape crisis centers I knew how powerful it could be.

Rachel: I have been advocating to raise awareness & understanding of sexual violence and it's after effects for several years. I had recently published my own book relevant to my experience and it was and still is very much in my heart to pursue a life of purpose concerning compassion, empathy and empowerment. I had begun to heal from my own hurt and I wanted many others to find their voice, share their story and begin to recover from theirs.

Christine and I had a conversation one day that rapidly led to the idea of an anthology and it was intuition and her wisdom that built our incredible editorial team.

Christine: I, like many survivors, was deeply triggered by the Kavanagh hearings and the social media backlash aimed at Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and other survivors. I was deeply disturbed at how easily individual survivors were dismissed. Those feelings grew into outrage and anger and a burning need to do

something. While talking to Rachel one day, it occurred to me that a collective of voices would have a different sort of power and would be much harder to dismiss. We Will Not Be Silenced just fell into place.

The Success of We Will Not Be Silenced Kindra: The response to WWNBS continues to both humble me, and stoke the fire in the pit of me. In addition to the thankful messages we receive daily from survivors, our social media hits continue to grow.

The editors of WWNBS want everyone who will benefit from this book to have one, even if they cannot afford one. We set up a wish-list to provide for those individuals/groups, and we also hold giveaways. I’m proud to say that the editors have been successful in getting books into rape crisis centers, and other places where WWNBS will be helpful. 70 % of the profits earned from the selling of WWNBS are donated to charity.

Candice: The success has been overwhelming in the sense of how it has impacted lives. A book like this has been necessary for a very, very long time. We had one negative comment along the lines of why was it necessary for survivors to 'go there' and talk about it afterward and wasn't that negative? I think that negative comment along with what was happening at the time with the me too movement and the Kavanaugh hearings really galvanized us and encouraged us to realize not only how necessary a publication like this is, but how it doesn't just stop there.

Christine: As editors, I don’t think any of us realized how profound the impact of the book would be. We knew that the quality of the writing was excellent, that the stories were moving and powerful, but it took as a while to realize how much participating impacted the contributors themselves and readers until much later. On the one hand, we have been thrilled by the reach of the book, while on the other hand, we passionately feel like it should be on the shelf of libraries, book stores, rape crisis centers, therapists, police stations, and survivors all over the world.

Hardest Part of Our Healing Journeys. Conquering Your Mind (Feelings of Guilt & Shame) Kindra: The hardest part was coming to the realization that I didn’t do anything at all to warrant assault. I was certainly ashamed of myself at times. I felt that I’d let myself down in certain situations, where I could have spoken louder, or removed myself from the environment.

I’ve only just begun to open up about my experiences. After my first marriage ended in an epic explosion, I did a lot of reflecting. I was really messed up by so many things, and I had my daughter to think about, too. I wondered if anyone would ever truly love me. And then I met my husband. He and my daughter helped me save myself. And then I met Christine Ray, Candice Louisa Daquin, and Rachel Finch. As my network of support continued to grow, I began trauma writing. The creation of Blood into Ink, a safe space for trauma writers, has been integral to my healing process.

Candice: I worked with a lot of survivors as a psychotherapist I thought I was fairly inured to the horrors and could cope but when the book came out my mother stopped speaking to me and has cut me out of her life forever. She said she did not know her father had sexually abused me which is not true because everyone in my family knew. I think she was ashamed and angry and put that anger on me. I realized then how deeply sexual assault affects us because years later, literally decades, it can tear apart families. I tried to make things right with my mom but I lost her in part because of doing this, although the process was obviously in place the day my grandfather abused her and then again when he abused me. The legacy of that is something you can't even put into words. I understand from my mom's perspective, she wants to believe she came from good people, as we all do, it's horrible to think your own father or family member is that way, you will do any amount of denying before you can admit that. Including in her case, hating me and getting rid of me and keeping his memory intact instead. I hoped she would turn to me as someone who has always believed in her and loved her, but sometimes when you are broken you don't want someone who loves you. When you choose the dead abuser over the living survivor that is when you know how much books like this matter, because they speak out when even now, so many do not. I don't regret speaking the truth. I regret it hurt my mom and I deeply regret that she has chosen never to speak to me again but it also showed me that sometimes someone is so broken by abuse they don't know how to love. I always wished my mom would like me but abuse can do terrible things to people and poison the well. I am glad I spoke out because it was the truth and if he were alive today I would prosecute him for child abuse. For my cousins, my mom and myself. Of course a part of me hopes she will come around but truthfully I think I lost her or rather, never had her and that is so much to do with the legacy of sexual abuse.

Rachel: I absolutely felt a lot of shame. Particularly through puberty and young adulthood. This was something that came up in all my early relationships. In my younger years I found myself unable to express why things made me uncomfortable, or why I would burst into tears at what looked like to others as inappropriate times. Intimacy was difficult (and still uncomfortable) many years later and until I met my now husband, I really had little interest in sexual contact. The hardest part for me was dealing with how what had happened, made me feel inside. As well as shame, there was a lot of confusion, anger, sadness and fear. I was later diagnosed with PTSD & GAD and now understand the many ways what happened will stay with me. Although my spirit has worked hard and my wisdom has deepened, my body is slower, more remembering and will kick out before the spirit has had time to reason. As an example, at 32, I cannot endure an internal examination without hysteria. Due to my Autism, many sensory memories seem not to be undone. Smells, sounds, from those moments, are still a trigger now.

Christine: It has taken many years and many small steps to acknowledge that I AM a survivor and to admit to myself just how profoundly my childhood experiences shaped me. As a former therapist and a survivor, I don’t believe that healing is ever ‘done’. It impacts our relationships with our bodies, our ability to be physically and emotionally connected to others, our sense of control, and our very belief in whether we are worthy and lovable. It is the type of trauma that needs to be reintegrated at different stages of our lives. I can be really adept at compartmentalizing and stuffing my past into a locked trunk, but eventually unresolved PTSD catches up. For me, was a brick wall that I ran into face first into when I left everything familiar to go to grad school, every time I started a new romantic relationship, when I became a parent, when my children became the age I was when the abuse started, and most recently when I turned 50.

Although my abuser died many years ago, I kept silent for decades. Partially to protect others, but partially because of the guilt, and the shame, and strong feelings of worthlessness. It took me a long time to realize that the silence was killing me and that it was time for me to be my top priority.

Untold Battles Kindra: What happens to the brain during a sexual assault? When a person is experiencing something as traumatic as sexual assault, a series of hormones are released. This hormonal overload can affect the victim’s ability to think rationally and fight back. https://acasa.us/what-happens-to-the-brain-during-a-sexual-assault/ Society has been indoctrinated, stupidly, to believe that victims of rape who did not scream or fight back haven’t really been assaulted.

Candice: The aftermath includes the hate people who are abused can feel toward others, including their family members. And the blame you receive as a survivor. It always astounds me how many people think a ten year old child somehow did something that caused their abuse. I would say nothing is spoken about enough to do with sexual assault and the more we speak the more things will change.

Rachel: I feel that the after effects are the least discussed area of sexual assault. I don't think people realise how many years it can take to just process and accept the event. From a personal experience, I find that what might look unrelated, can actually be very relevant and this seems hard for others to understand. As an example, the first girl to sexually abuse me had blonde hair. I avoided friendships with girls for over a decade if their hair was blonde. I didn't understand this myself for a long time, but the body remembered & made links to self protect in future experiences. I don't think the physical damage is fully understood either. How a traumatic sexual assault can actually cause irreversible damage and internal problems later on in life. I have seen people gauge how you should feel about the event by the length of time between when it happened & the present day. This needs addressing.

Christine: Science is only beginning to make the connection that sexual abuse, sexual assault, and harassment are public health problems, not just social problems. Many survivors develop chronic illness later in life. When I began to receive acupuncture and myofascial release for symptoms of fibromyalgia, I would sometimes have flashbacks during treatment. New memories were unearthed. Our bodies remember.

What We Want Known Kindra: We want to be known for our calling to help all survivors find the strength in their voices to speak their truths.

Candice: I expect that depends and you would have to ask the individuals in question. I know they were all very brave and beautiful souls to have put their truth out there.

Rachel: That our voices matter. That our truth matters. That we, as individuals, as survivors, matter. We want others to know they are never alone.

Christine: We want to put familiar, human faces to survivors. We want the public to understand how sadly prevalent sexual abuse, assault, and harassment is and how profoundly it impacts the survivor throughout their lives. Survivors are much less interested in staying silent and invisible to make the general public feel more comfortable. We want other survivors know that they are not alone, that they and their story matter, and that however they feel and wherever they are on their journey is okay.

Gratitude Kindra: The ability to build and maintain healthy relationships is a gift I’d once believed was lost to me. Today, I have confidence in the friendships I’ve formed with the members of my Warrior Tribe. I have confidence in my marriage, and in the relationship I share with my daughter. I’m forty years old, and I’ve never loved myself more than I do now. I know what I’m worth, and for that, I am most thankful.

Rachel: It has been over 25 years since my first assault. In this time, I have ridden the wave of every emotion possible. I have been at rock bottom and I have climbed every step back up to meet myself. I am at peace with who I am and where I have been. I am empowered through the work I do empowering others and I am confident our work will affect many lives in many positive ways.

Christine: Finding my writing voice and using it to process my experiences has been a tremendous gift. Being able to provide a vehicle for others to find empowerment, connection, and healing through writing and art is an honor. I am so grateful for my tribe of survivor warriors who inspire and support me daily. There is such power in our voices raised in truth.

Available on Amazon (US, UK, etc.) barnesandnoble.com bookdepository.com (free worldwide shipping!) chapters.indigo.ca bookscrown.com If you would like to add an individual or organization who cannot afford a copy of WWNBS on the Wish-list, please email the editors indieblucollective@gmail.com TWITTER @we_silenced FACEBOOK @wewillspeaktruth https://indieblu.net/

BOBBY

U T T A R O

W W W . B O B B Y U T T A R O . C O M

A V A I L A B L E O N A M A Z O N , B A R N E S & N O B L E , A P P L E , E T C .

T O T H E S U R V I V O R S

S E X U A L

A S S A U L T

R O B E R T _ U T T A R O

A W A R E N E S S

TO THE SURVIVORS...

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I bawled my eyestype, out quite often while doing this. I distinctly remember sitting at my desk with tears gushing down my face while typing.

Things Feel Talkedthings Aboutwe do not speak enough about when it comes to sexual assault survivors and sexual violence in general. However, one thing I Ibelieve believeI receives thereAren't aretoomany little before attention isinnocence who the survivors werePeople beforefrom the assault, molestation, rape, or years of abuse.

Innocence taken from countless people, sotrauma who were they that was stolen? every ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, and age iscansense be sexually assaulted, and that changes people.

It takes smiles away.

It robs joy.

It steals peace.

It severely alters and even destroys self-esteem, of self.

Some examples come to mind. I think of a severely mentally ill woman who takes multiple medications but the medications do not heal her from the rapes she endured as ainteenager.

What was shetolikework before being raped by someone labeled devil”? I stressor. think of a Who man was who he is incredibly intelligent but has no of the confidence himselfmisbehaves and is content low-paying jobsabout even though money is“the aWhat constant before a man rapedhimhim?

Ibedroom think boy who constantly in school and does not care being in trouble. kind of life did he lead before his mother put in a with pornography playing on the television?

These are just some stories that come to mind of people I know.

What was their child-like spirit before being hurt, shattered, or scarred in such a vile way?

How As A IRape Counselor Iphone listenI Help andSurvivors believe them. dohours farCrisis more bymostly listening thansilent. speaking; and I speak or askmore a question whennot.I think it is necessary tothat do so.

I once listened onshould the with a woman for two who stayed Sheup.intended to speak but could We must understand that is okay and weand be patient and welcoming whenever someone chooses to open There could be a deep discussion for hours or it could be crying for five minutes, then they do not want to talk about it anymore. Both are normal. I believe we must listen to people and meet them where they are at, wherever that is.

The thing Iand finditmost commontowith is exactly what you broughtwrong up: shame and guilt. healthy to feel shame whensexual we doviolence something wrong orthe shameful, istheunhealthy notsurvivors feel shame when we do something or shameful.

OneItofis the saddest truths about is not just crime itself, but deep, growing, overwhelming and powerful shame that exists within people’s souls.

This is so sad because survivors have not done anything Theywhere did not ask toseems be sexually assaulted, but are left to deal shame that comes afterward.

There is something about sexualto nature ofwrong. the crime shame to permeate immediately.

People oftenwithfeelthedirty, disgusting, horrible.

Multiple showers are usually notthe enough feel clean.

Ioften am sure can imaginehow whythey people feelfeel so ifmuch shameviolated and feelthem dirty.inSex is supposed to be meaningful andsexual even sacred.

Therewasis traumatic. a beauty toIfsex. ask anyone people toright imagine might someone a sexual way… imagine if their first experience I aI experienced rape now I know I would feel full of shame.

The shame that so many live with prevents them from healing, as shame is often linked to mentality of but “I’msurvivors a bad person.

I’mdeserved a horriblewhat person.

No onetowill everMany wantfeel me.guilty I’m nothing.

I’msoworthless.” islike easier said than done for manySurvivors to understand, never happened them. because often, theyThis feelmuch? they didcould something wrong. fight and often lose the internal war of “Why did I go there?

Why did I do that?

Why did I say that?

Why did I drink so How I be so stupid?

What is wrong with me? can Whatcause could I have done differently? Itand is allcanmyeven fault.” these are understandable, theytelling ultimately are not and guilt be While a slowsomeone killer.thoughts I tryelseto did. battle this by constantly survivors the true. truth,Unnecessary and the truthshame is it is not about what theymassive did or diddamage not do;fortheyears crime is solely about what Ifsomeone you are toreading this andUnfortunately, you have beenI dosexually violated inhard any toway, I beg you to understand that it is notoften yourdofault.

Nothing you did orare saidblameless caused and attack you. understand it is accept, but not impossible.

Survivors not believe that they sometimes struggle to accept love and healthy sex. But survivors are worthy of love and do live healthy lives full of love.

One of the criticisms my book is therestatement is too muchoverrepetition. thatand is true, readers do not that the repetition is thereI say for asomething reason. So often, survivors need oftowill hearaccept a truthful and overto Ifagain overthe again.

I themselves. do not haveunderstand all of the and answers, and just because doesn’t mean a person it.

People will have to come these realizations for I believe have seen when people understand inrelease their hearts that it is not their fault, their life changes.

Shame and guilt can drop away.

These are some of my hopes and prayers: that people find a way to the shame and guilt. Please do not keep it inside. Let it go any way you can.

Should Survivor GotoTodo.TheI believe Police?it is solely up to the survivor to make that choice. If a survivor wants to go to the police, then I believe we should Isupport do notEVERY tell people whatthem them and help every step ofSomeone the way.may If a survivor does not want topolice, go to the police, then I believe welater should support them their to themind, bestand of our abilities.

And this may change over time. not want to report to the and then months or years they may change vice versa.

It really is up to each person, and I believe we must respect their decision no matter what we may personally think about the situation.

There are many justified reasons why rape is the least reported violent crime. Here I list some of the reasons (not in any specific order) why people do not report: 1. People fear they will not be believed.

2.3. People they will be instead oforbeing treated they should be. isfear nonoevidence oftalk ablamed crime occurring there isnoadesire lacktheoftoway evidence.

4.5. There They have desire to to the police and have speak a court room. want to try and forgettowhat happened to them.what happened tointhem.

6.7. Many Many have trouble coming terms with or defining Some have an idea of what a rape victim looks like from the media, so it may be hard to say what happened to them is a crime if it is not what they perceive rape be.

8.9. ItPeople istoextremely difficult tostrangers report a crime and testify against a lovedto one; most people are assaulted bytrysomeone they know. are raped by total and would have no idea where find them even if they wanted to and prosecute them.

10. the Aonedisturbing abusing amount them. of children are sexually abused. Think of how difficult it is for a child to report being sexually abused, especially if a family member is There is a chapter called “Justice” To theissues Survivors which includeswhat a beautiful poem justice by a woman named Megan and for an interview with a lawyer/rape crisis counselor, Aila. We discuss many ofinthese whileexamines Aila explains the criminal system might lookoflike a survivor.

Justice can mean different things to different people, and the chapter legal, philosophical and spiritual issues in terms justice.

Aila closes the chapter with something I always find quite powerful. She says: "The mosttoimportant thing is who thatcan therehelpabsolutely are that options Thereisare a lot ofor different legal options that people know about, so it’s great talk to someone them figure out.there.

But there no right wrong decision.

There really isn’t. Itmight reallynot is individual.

There aredoasomething lot of different things that because people can decide toThey do that willhave worktofor them and they be thedon’t bestwant thingtofordo them.

Nofeel one comfortable should feel like they have to after an assault they don’t. don’t do anything or don’t with.

They don’t have to participate in the criminal justice system that they may feel like is not going to be the best thing for them because they think it’s their duty or Itthey think they should. issues. really depends on whatI think they that’s want." the most important thing, just so they know that there’s just no right part when it comes to legal Why DoareSome People Put The Blame The Survivor?

There plenty of people who dojustnotOn blame survivors, but many many do. I am saddened every timeThink I hearofoftheandamage incidentthat of someone blamed for beingalready raped and sexually assaulted.

But it is not that the survivor is blamed; are not even believed. would cause to someone traumatized when they are strong enough to open up. Ignorance, lack of empathy, compassion, understanding, belief, and people just blatantly being cruel continue to exist.

I think there are different reasons why people blame survivors for being sexuallysex. assaulted.

Some people do use not believe that stance what really assault andbeinstead believe the person is upset oradding complaining about regretted The words some people in their firm that happened an assaultwas did sexual not occur can incredibly detrimental, often times another layer of trauma.

Some people believe that by blaming someone else, they become safer. They have thoughts like, “If I don’t wear that then it won’t happen to me”, or “If I don’t drink that won’t much then it won’tThishappen to me,” or “Itrue. would never hangare outviewed with a rapist.”

The belief that ifnever theycommit do not do someone who got rapedsomeone did, then they getreason raped. of course is not Many rapists asblamed nice people whoisthey could suchwhat a crime.

Also, the clothes wears is never the why someone commits assault, nor should anyone be for what are wearing.

Would you blame me if I was raped because I was in a bathing suit or wearing a tuxedo? If not, why you blame a woman or child for what they wear?

Another reason whyetcis that some people are disillusioned to the truth of who thehave perpetrator is. doSo it,even ifsothey acceptthey that should their friend, familyThis member, community leader, committed sexual assault, they think the survivor must made them and therefore be blamed. kind of thinking illogical, ludicrous, and causing more pain. Children are even blamed for the rapes they endure by adults.

People’s isown insecurities andtaken unhappiness within can manifest in ways to make feel unhappiness horrible. Thereandis hurt, a lot there of unhappiness who in this world, and so much of thatthey unhappiness being out assaulted. on innocent people. thatothers with that when have beenisraped or sexually They mayIt’s notalso havepossible not acknowledged their own experience or begun toaredealsome with it. blame survivors even

"THE TRUTH IS, IT IS NOT ABOUT WHAT THEY DID OR DID NOT DO; THE CRIME IS SOLELY ABOUT WHAT SOMEONE ELSE DID."

I ended my Victim Blaming chapter with this: Ifblame. you have been raped oryousexually assaulted and you have been blamed, or fear that you may be blamed, I just want you to understand this: You are not to is nothing did to make someone anyone,There we should blame a person who chooses tohurt rape.you, nor is there anything you could have done differently to prevent or stop it. If we are to blame Dealing with Thoughts How Everything Could've BeenandPrevented Ihealing. want you toTrivial know that theseofthoughts are perfectly normal quite common among survivors. Still, they are hazardous and a huge deterrent to one’s Often There istimes, truthsurvivors and therearearecaught lies. up in a mental and spiritual war. There is an internal battle constantly waging, which can easily last for years or a lifetime.

Sexual violence people lies about themselves, and the has lies come can beand smothering and overpowering. thoughts come, a person cangood, try to replace them withteaches truthful thoughts.

Acknowledge the thought then say “No, this isn’t right.When Thissomething isthose not true.

This is not me.”

Repeat truthful thoughts to yourself.

I cannot tell you how many times a rape survivor and I will go back and forth on that is not true.

So many people really do blame themselves and have are blamed, but the truth is theyItare not tomyblame.

One woman I know of to waswalk raped on the the street? street byThink a stranger, andother she times constantly thinks that she shouldn’t walked outside that night. breaks heart.

Is she not supposed down of all the she has walked onthoughts the streetcome andand nothing bad happened her.me,And then on tothistellonehernight, she did is violently and left pick isupnothing the pieces years later.

When the negative she expresses themtototohang I continue that she nothing raped wrong and thattothere wrong with walking down the street.

There is nothing wrong with going out with a friend.

What is wrong is another person choosing to commit a vile crime.

I hope and pray anyone reading this understands the difference between truth and lies: Lies It’s your fault.

You are dirty.not have went to that house, party, room, area.

You should You should not have worn those clothes You should not have spent time with that person You should not have been under the influence of substances.

You are damaged beyond repair.

Healing isn’t’ possible.unworthy.

You useless God are doesn’t loveand you.

Truth It is not your fault.

You can be cleansed ingoways you cannot even imagine.

You should be able to anywhere and not get raped.or Are you not supposed to liverape. in society?

You should tobespend able totime wearwith whata family you want.

Clothes, lack thereof do notleader, cause It’s normal member, friend, teacher, religious and others.

Being under the influence of substances does not mean you should then be raped.

You can ispick up the pieces and become stronger than you were before.

Healing possible.

You matter.

You havethan purpose.

You areknow, worthy of ifGod’s grace.

You are loved more you humanly even you do not believe in God. What keeps you going as a counselor of such a traumatic issue?

Do you ever become overwhelmed or saddened by the stories you hear? How do you deal with all Yes,ofI this? havehow beenhard overwhelmed saddened many times, but Iinwillmycontinue workandasitlong as who I am constantly able to. Godstrengthens has called me toI have a life-long mission, no matter it mayFrom be forand me.deeply GodJesus has planted this workmost, deep heart andthis soul, is God me.counselor. a tattoo my back that says “Strength Above.” inspires me the and it is Jesus who I look towards to become a better person and Far tooonmany people misinterpret Christ, so if I can show just a glimpse of what he is like, then I am blessed beyond words.

My faith is deeply connected to human beings and the call to help those suffering. Humanity continues to inspire me to keep going for different reasons. Toi Magazine inspires me to keep going.with After speaking with Autumn, I could sensetohermake genuine care and concern forissues any person affected byonthese evil crimes.

So Iwork am always moved when I connect people who simply care and truly want a genuine change.

These will not go away this earth, so I will hardofastears I can always to makestrengthens a real, true me change as longdeeper as I amclarity able. and And insight. when I am distraught and disturbed, I turn to music, my wife, and God. Deep prayer to theaspoint and gives Advice & Counselors with Sexual Assault Survivor Patients You havetothemselves, toMental listenHealth andand beProfessionals in tune to what people areexpression saying andwhich not saying.

Listen totalking, when they speakscreaming, and listencrying, to whenart,they are quiet.andPeople need to Be express we should embrace their can be through writing, meditation other forms. with themandanddoallow themsomeone to make decisions for themselves.

Beready as compassionate, selfless, and patient as Domade not toforce your own thinking onto anyone, nottomake do as something theycan aretonotregain to doown in their heart.

Remember: theythem werepossible. already doDosomething horrible that they did not want do, so help them best as you their power and control.

Be with and support them. not blame them, question their or get angry with them for not coming to terms with something or making a decision on your timeline and not theirs.

Lastly,reasoning be confidant anddoing strongthisyourself.

It is okaytheto gifts be nervous andand insecure, but Also, ultimately you have to be strong for them and forto yourself. you doyouthis work or are considering work, embrace youthat have bewell. gentle. takesay care ofme,yourself.

You must findIt must ways copeheavy.” withIfwhat hearing because you will be taking on pain, so please release pain as People often to “You do that work? be so It is heavy,areso you must unload it.

Don’t keep it all within.

Ultimately, know that you can make a huge difference and even save lives by the way you respond to people who are hurt and suffering. You can deeply hurt someone who curious has already severely traumatized if yougodoand notdorespond compassionately are aboutbeen getting involved in some way, it. You adequately, have the ability to be confidantandandpatiently. strong. If you have the call to do this work, or I givegenuinely toolandto easy use when respondingI askto that disclosures of sexualthem. assault, this toa besimple helpful to remember. you “B.L.E.S.S.” Herewhether is how: you are a therapist, counselor, friend or total stranger. I hope you find BL isten: elieve:Listen Believeto that person ifwhen theythey disclose. thatwith person need or scream.

ESmpathy: Empathize that person asemotional, best toyoutalk, can.cry, and afety: Ensure that person’s physical, mental spiritual safety.

S upport: Support that person in whatever they need at the time.

God Gratitude Iresonates am &nothing without God.this I would not beoralive if were not acknowledge for God, and I and would havetowritten To thewhich Survivors with you from interview the itbook, please givenever thanks the source, is God.if it were not for God. If anything I want to thank Autumn Farr andexperiences Toi Magazineandforthoughts. reaching out to me.as Autumn, you have ais,gentle spirit and a huge heart.

Itchoices. is a blessing for me tothat workI with you and contribute some of my As hard working with rape I would not change anya little of mylight I love the workthat do and I will always do it.

I am so very blessed to have been able to even finish a book, teach others, and hopefully bring to this dark topic affects countless I am fortunate be a torapeshare crisisthose counselor, and I am so thankful that I am happily married to my beautiful wife and soul mate that I cherish.

I have manypeople. blessings, and I try mytobest with others.

Ifshare you have readdetails this andabout haveyour beenexperiences affected byand sexual violence in any way, please reach outbe,todosomeone hasandyour best interest at There heart for help. you intimate youalone. are notYoutreated the alone. way youAnd should not position lose who hearton findGod someone else.there arelistening peopleIf to out there who are willing to support and help.

You are not are never no matter your faith, is always and you.

God bless you all.

Peace.

-Bobby

ASHLEY WARNER

ABOUT ASHLEY I grew up in Chapel Hill, NC, went to college in Florida for a few years, then dropped out at age 20 to move to New York City to pursue a vague notion of a dance and acting career. Truth is, I didn’t yet have a clue what I wanted to do with my life. In retrospect, theater training provided a good opportunity to figure things out, as did a good therapist. Inspired by the life-changing experience of psychotherapy, I wanted to do that work also. I finished college, went on to get my masters in clinical social work, and then my certification in psychoanalysis, which is not what you might think. Contemporary psychoanalysis is a strengths-based, culturally sensitive treatment that draws on research in human development, memory, neuropsychology, and more to help people be their best. Thank goodness I was a lousy actress. I’m a much better— and much happier— psychotherapist. I’ve had the honor of working with many sexual assault survivors over the past couple of decades.

When I’m not working, my favorite current hobby is staring out the windows of my new little house into the forest across my sleepy country road. After 30 years in New York City, I recently moved with my husband to the charming town of Guilford on the Connecticut shoreline, trading in our view of a Walgreens sign for the serenity of nature. It’s heavenly. We get regular visits from turkey and deer— I counted 12 turkeys and 16 deer on a recent Saturday. Not to mention a fox, chipmunks, squirrels, and birds. I also love yardwork. I love hauling stuff around in our new wheelbarrow. I recently dug a trench drain across my driveway and couldn’t be prouder. Check back in a few years to see if the home maintenance chores have gotten old.

When I’m not staring out the window or doing yardwork or writing or working in my psychotherapy office, other passions include salsa dancing and making pottery. I don’t get out salsa dancing as much as I used to, but there was a time I danced at least 15 hours a week and I even performed a few times with a small company. If I had discovered salsa dancing before becoming a therapist, my life may have been very different! It’s one of the most joyous feelings in the world when you’re flying around the dance floor perfectly in sync with your partner. In a different kind of flow, working with clay is also utterly immersive and satisfying. I’m in the process of setting up an art studio in my garage, and I can’t wait to get back to my ceramics projects. Really, there’s not enough time in the day.

@ASHLEYGETSMUDDY ASHLEYWARNERPYSCHOTHERAPY @ASHFAYWARN

THE YEAR AFTER My Ithe wasStory raped when I wasI 24 by a Istranger who hadtofound my apartment building andtime. hidden stairwell, waiting. believe just happened be thehisand oneway whointoarrived homeasatsoon the wrong The behind man followed me upstairs to my 5th floor walk-up apartment choked my neck as I had unlocked the door, dragging me inside and shutting us in.

I spent a long time hating myself for opening the door, because my guts hadvictims been screaming at me that wasthemselves wrong withresponsible the guy. It’sforamazing and tragic how commonly of sexual assault findsomething ways to hold the crimes committed against them.

The man raped amefewatfriends. knifepoint, rummaged through apartment, In a daze,I did I called 911, my roommate, Help came.

I went to themyER. I gotcare. a rapeIand kit.shockingly, I totalked toleft. detectives. theI didn’t things you’re supposed to do.

They caught a suspect.

I didn’t went the police lineup anyway. recognize anyone.said, I was“Isn’t toldthat theregreat.” were That’s other victims. was a grand jury hearing, a sentencing, he went to jail. Everyone the shortThere version.

Through the course ofwith these I completely, excruciatingly, grotesquely, apart.

Thenback somehow, slowly, miraculously, a lotevents, ofdidn’t support through therapy andthere group therapy, I fell found myI wouldn’t way together again.

I kept on living because I have a choice, although were many months have caredon ifthat I hadawful beenspring run over by a truck killed. followed But I figured werestairs. meantI felt to be dead, it ofwould have happened afternoon whenanda rapist me upif Ithe a glimmer purpose.

My Drive forget To Create YearI After" I’ll never the "The moment came up with thesofa ideacushions for The Year After.

I was inscreaming the middleinto of apillows, rage storm some 6 months after my rape, whaling on the with all my might, sobbing, face drenched with tears.

I thought, “Someone should write me a book.

People need to“Iknow what athis is really like.”

The next thought was so surprising and clear it pulled out of my tantrum. will write book.”

My and journals became the seed for my story that doesn’t sugarcoat the almost unbearable pain of victimization clumsy recovery, the book I wish I had been able to read during my year after.

Inrevisit, the end, it after took aI was long feeling time forbetter me toand writeliving the abook.

For Then, many Iyears, the story waswithtooother raw and painful to even full life. was the happily busy pressing interests and obligations.

It was close to 20 years later when, finally, time was right.

I think the book needed a long incubation period because it allowed a broader viewpoint including my experience as a therapist.

Even though the book focuses on year one, these perspectives subtly provide a drop of hope at the darkest passages: you know I made it through.

Intention While there are now many resources forrecovery. healing, to mymood knowledge there aredoubt, still very fewanxiety, that follow the dayto-day emotional rollercoaster of rape The swings, shame, PTSD, fear, depression, hatred of every single living thing—shall I go on— are torture.

While andYou process recovery unique, some similarities are deep, is why it feels good toeveryone’s hearin reading fromstory others. need toofAndknow thatiswhat you’re feeling isn’tAfter crazy.

I hopewhich that my readers feel less alone The Year After. empowered.

I created The Year Journal to help others process their own feelings and find their voices and tell their own stories, if only for themselves.

The Hardest Part ofperiod My Journey The most difficult of recovery, forones me, was whenasking my shock wore offdoing a fewandmonths I wasown raped.

Ironically, it was at that point that loved stopped how I waswas got on after with their lives, assuming the worst was over.

This is very common.

In fact, the worst just beginning.

No longer numb, the rage and heartbreak nearly tore me up.

Having regular therapy appointments was instrumental in my recovery, as was a 12-week group therapy treatment with other survivors.

Something Not Said Enough...

The #metoo movement has created opportunities for survivors to support come forward themedia security knowing there is a community waitingnew to even hear them, respect them,numbers and them. with Social at itsofwebest connects us for growth and healing.

But with such massive of survivors coming forward, witness how difficult itinternational is to acceptcelebrities. that rapistsIt’sarehard usually of our communities, sometimes beloved local ormen evenwho towalkgetmembers our collective heads around and the fact thatnotion most rapists are not hide behind stairwells, but who among us.

This is a profoundly disturbing and that’s whyvictim’s it’s easier forand manyI’mtonotholdlikevictims responsible for Eight rape rather rapists. think,by“It’s that careless fault, her/him, so I’m safe.” outcontinue of than ten rapes arePeople committed someone the victim knows.

Until we come to terms with this, victims will to suffer and rapists will not meet justice.

Advice Toa horrendous Who Can Relate Rape iswith onDon’t everylethuman level. Youpeople deservetrytotofeel everything you feel: devastated, flat, on fire rage,blessings,” evenviolation hopeless. well-meaning talkthem you out ofthe yourhead feelings.

When they say “count your or “it could have been worse,” try not to slug over because—truly —they knowAnd nothere’s what they say. I italso “You’rewhatever so strong,” to befeel irritating.

I think youyoudeserve feelthat weak for aanymore. while. the truth: is byfindfeeling hell go you thatit.eventually, will nottofeel way But you can’t tiptoe around recovery; you must through Get yourself a Wonder Woman costume and wear it frequently for the journey.

GRATITUDE YOU CAN HEAL.

I’m grateful that I now live a life that is not defined by rape.

I don’t really identify as a victim or a survivor at all. I’m just myself. My life is happy and fulfilling and has been for many years. Before I wrote my books, weeks and months would pass without even thinking about my rape. And when I did think of it, it was a memory, not a flashback. Of course, my professional life, if not my personal life, is often about rape. But my message is that your life doesn’t need to be. Whether your assault was recent or something you are processing that happened long ago, you can heal.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON WWW.ASHLEYWARNER.COM

AUTHOR OF "YES, YOU CAN GET PREGNANT"

AIMEE RAUPP Guiding Women Through Their Fertility Journey

Mastering your

FERTILITY WWW.AIMEERAUPP.COM

About Aimee I am an author, acupuncturist and herbalist. I am a mom and a wife; a daughter, a friend and a cheerleader for anyone who needs support and guidance on their journey to thriving health and vitality. My mission is to empower women and to encourage them to take back their power over their health and fertility. Ultimately, each woman who heals herself heals the generations to come Why I Created, "Yes, You Can Get Pregant" I’ve been in clinical practice for over 15 years. Over those years my practice has evolved and I now treat many women on all spectrums of women’s health and fertility. I have seen an increase in women coming to me to heal fertility challenges. I wrote Yes, You Can Get Pregnant because I saw all the fear, shame and guilt surrounding women and their ability to conceive. So much of this negativity comes from media and unfortunately from our western doctors. Whatever your age is when you start trying to conceive, whether you’re in your 20’s, 30’s or even your 40’s, you are met with fear. Even more, there’s not a lot of research to back up the fact that your western doctor will tell you that over the age of 35 your fertility is greatly compromised. In fact, the research doesn’t quite support that statement at all. Yet women are inundated with fearful messages about their body and how it will fail them as they age. It’s extremely disempowering leaving women feeling at a loss about their bodies and their ability to conceive. My mission is to empower women and to encourage them to take back their power over their health and fertility.

Bottom line is when you are in thriving health, your fertility will thrive, even into your 40’s.

Most Common Issue I've Seen with Women TTC (a.k.a An Inhospitable Uterus) In Traditional Chinese Medicine, we would call it: an inhospitable uterus.

Which basically means that the internal environment in a woman's body isn't as welcoming as it could be. That could be due to what I call either emotional or physical inflammation. Often times from a medical perspective I have found that these women who are having fertility challenges are dealing with either an undiagnosed or mismanaged autoimmune condition. As a trained practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine I am trained to also look for the emotional component to the disease or illness. When looking at autoimmunity, the cells in your body are attacking themselves, they are confusing self from non-self…In that same vein (which I touch upon in great detail in my latest book, Body Belief) I go deep with my patients to discover where on an emotional level are they attacking themselves; where are they misidentified with themselves; where have they lost touch with who they are. The ‘work’ is to bring the body back into equilibrium and homeostasis on every level: physically, emotionally and nutritionally. With dietary changes, certain supplements, chinese herbs, acupuncture and lifestyle modifications especially belief shifting exercises I am able to treat and cultivate healing for the whole person. Improving fertility isn’t just about taking antioxidant supplements or removing gluten from your diet, it goes much deeper than that. For the best results, I treat the whole person- spirit, soul and body.

Whether the diagnosis is Endometriosis, PCOS, POF, habitual miscarriage or unexplained- the fertility challenge is multi-faceted and must be approached and treated that way. As I always say, your fertility is an extension of your health- emotionally, physically, nutritionally and spiritually.

INSTAGRAM: AIMEERAUPP FACEBOOK: BODYBELIEFEXPERT YOUTUBE: AIMEERAUPP

"KNOW THAT IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, IF THERE IS A LONGING FOR A CHILD, THERE IS A CHILD THAT WANTS TO COME TO YOU. Â JUST ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE OPEN TO ALL THE WAYS THAT CHILD CAN COME.THE WORLD."

WHEN YOU BEGIN TO TREAT YOUR BODY AND SOUL WITH THE RESPECT AND LOVE IT DESERVES, VITALITY AND FERTILITY THRIVE.

Getting Pregnant with PCOS, Endometriosis, Poor Egg Quality, etc. Can You Still Have Hope?

Yes. There’s always hope. I share a monthly Story of Hope on my website and often highlight how women who have been diagnosed with such challenges have overcome them. My patients have overcome PCOS, endometriosis, multiple miscarriages and unexplained infertility. Here is a story from my patients, Alison, to highlight.

(Check out the full story on www.aimeeraupp.com/sohjune/ "After the 4th unsuccessful IVF she sought out a reproductive endocrinologist who specializes in autoimmune fertility challenges. Alison met another woman in the waiting room of this doctor’s office who told her about me."

"As I did the initial intake with Alison, it was revealed that she had a long history of skin conditions, digestive issues, fatigue, inability to lose weight, joint pain, depression and seasonal allergies. She was an obvious autoimmune case and I was glad she was working with an autoimmune fertility doctor and that she made her way to me. From what I could tell, the general dietary and supplement changes that had been recommended to her by her previous acupuncturist wasn’t specific enough- she was only 80% gluten and dairy free and still consuming many inflammatory foods.

Even more, she wasn’t eating enough fertility-boosting foods, and she was using a host of hormonally disruptive skincare products. I immediately put her on the Body Belief eating and lifestyle plan so we could get her hormones balanced. I also requested her most recent blood work with her doctors so I could be certain she had all the tests she needed to get and stay pregnant.

After just three months of working with me and following my protocol, Alison had lost 8 pounds, her skin issues cleared up, her digestion was working smoothly, her seasonal allergies weren’t bothering her at all, her joints felt less achey, and her overall demeanor had shifted- she was more at ease and hopeful. She was using tapping (EFT) on a daily basis, journaling and focusing on all the ways her beautiful body supports her.

She told me one day, “I feel like a new person.”"

"By the next month, I felt her body and mind were ready to do another IVF transfer (Allison and her husband still had one frozen embryo left to transfer). A few weeks after the transfer, Allison got a positive pregnancy test. She was following my protocol to a tee along with the autoimmune protocol given to her by her fertility doctor (but keep in mind she did two previous transfers following her doctors autoimmune protocol and those transfers were unsuccessful). Of course we had a ways to go to get past those previous miscarriages. Allison diligently followed her protocols and we sailed through that first trimester. Just 13 months after my first meeting with Allison she gave birth to a gorgeous and healthy baby boy."

Does One's Nutrition Have An Impact on Their Fertility?

A HUGE impact. Not just nutrition as in the food we eat but also nutrition for our skin- i.e. what we put on our body. Since the 1980’s we have introduced over 100,000 chemicals into our environment. These chemicals are in our food supply and in our bath, beauty and household products and many of these chemicals are scientifically linked to fertility and autoimmune conditions (which in case you didn’t know, endometriosis and PCOS are classified autoimmune conditions). I strongly urge an all organic, nutrient dense diet filled with grass fed animal product, wild/sustainable fish, healthy fats and TONS of vegetables. I include dietary advice (and recipes) in my books, and on social media, because I have seen first hand, and in my practice, how dietary choices affect fertility.

Fertility in Men The advice is mainly the same, with supplements and dietary shifts focused on important nutrients like zinc and selenium. But, the emotional piece is equally important for the man as it is for the woman.

My Approach For Fertility Rejuvenation It’s a whole body approach, starting with the core beliefs first. It works because as you unpack your core beliefs you shift your story and your perception and with that you shift how you treat your body. When you begin to treat your body and soul with the respect and love it deserves, vitality and fertility thrive. Plus, you become a rock solid woman who knows her power which is the best kind of mom a kid could ever ask for.

Advice To Women Who Have Been Diagnosed with Unexplained Infertility, And/Or Have Had Multiple Miscarriages Keep searching. Try a complete elimination diet (like the one I outline in Body Belief), get more support, look at your emotional burdens, work on your beliefs. ANd know that in the spiritual world, if there is a longing for a child, there is a child that wants to come to you. Just allow yourself to be open to ALL the ways that child can come.

Aimee Raupp Organic & CHemical-Free Hormone Balcing Beauty Line As I mentioned before, since the 1980s we have introduced over 100,000 chemicals into our environment. These chemicals in our bath and beauty products are scientifically linked to fertility and autoimmune challenges.

As part of my mission to empower women to deeply nourish and believe in their beauty, my skin care line was born. I am passionate about helping women heal themselves and their children’s children. My skin care line, Aimee Raupp Beauty is a completely handcrafted line that is gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free and cruelty-free. My formulations contain the most antioxidant-rich, nourishing and age-rejuvenating ingredients to deliver beautifying results AND bring balance to hormones. My products have been formulated with love to be 100% free of toxins (synthetic and natural) and are packed with powerful anti-inflammatory agents that are high in essential fatty acids (EFAs). Essential fatty acids not only support a graceful aging process and leave your complexion glowing but also to bring balance to hormones to support your health.

#FERTILITYSUCCESSSTORY

e t Ka

"Our Dream Boys!!"

Connect with Kate!! Instagram: @kateleann64 Facebook: Kate LeAnn Brown Site: https://unendingpossibilities.wordpress.com

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About Kate I’m from the lovely town of Tulsa, Oklahoma! I get to live out my dream job of being a stay at home mom to our miracle, twin boys, Jett & Kruz.

When I’m not chasing little boys around I am working on my vinyl business to let my creative engird flow. I also created an infertility support group to help families who are struggling with infertility to have an outlet and people to reach.

My Story After much prayer, December 2013, my husband and I decided we were going to take the plunge and start trying for children. I remember telling Gannon how weird it was to “plan” when we would have children. I just knew that it would only take a few months to get pregnant and we would have our family like we’ve always dreamed of, but boy was I wrong!

As several months began to pass, I started feeling like something wasn’t right. We decided to make an appointment with a fertility specialist where we found out I had Endometriosis, PCOS, and a Subseptate Uterus. From there, the whirlwind of infertility began. I had surgery to repair my uterus and help my endometriosis. Went through menopause to help suppress my body to hopefully help allow me to become pregnant naturally.

Got on and off birth control too many times to count. Had my blood drawn enough to fill a blood bank. Tried ovulation induction. And finally settled on the decision that it was time to do IVF. November 2015, I had my first egg retrieval and we got 20 eggs. Out of those 20 eggs we had 2 embryos viable enough to freeze. I overstimulated so we had to wait a few months to let my body heal and February 2016, we transferred our two perfect little embryos. Unfortunately, two weeks later we found out the devastating news that we had lost those precious babies and our first round of IVF had failed. I remember feeling crushed. I never imagined that God would allow us to go through so much for it not to work. We knew our fight for our family wasn’t over.

My doctor wanted us to wait a few months before trying again and to give us time to heal mentally and physically. Adoption has always been on our hearts, so my husband and I decided to pursing that path. For whatever reason, every door to adoption kept getting closed. I remember thinking God just doesn’t love me enough to give me a family. But after that final door closed (for now), my doctors office called and said we have a date scheduled for your next round of IVF. August 2016, I had my second egg retrieval and this time they collected 22 eggs. We had FOUR precious babies make it to the freezer. My doctor decided to do an ERA Biopsy, which basically tells you what is the best day to transfer your embryos based on the lining of your uterus. We found out I needed an extra day of progesterone. February 2017, we made the decision to transfer two of our embryos. And by the grace of the Lord, they both STUCK! I’ll never forget the moment seeing them for the first time on the ultrasound screen. For so many years I had seen an empty womb. And for the first time ever, I got to hear our miracles heartbeats. By the grace of the Lord, I had an incredible pregnancy. I’m one of those crazy women who LOVE being pregnant. I carried those precious babies for 34 weeks and 5 days..

October 6, 2017 at 8:01 and 8:02 am we met our LONG awaited miracles, Jett Rowan Brown & Kruz Laiken Brown. And life as I knew it was complete. Our battle had been won. All those years of disappointment, all the doctors appointments, money spent and tears were FIANLLLY worth it! We fought for our family and I would do it all over again if I needed too! Our boys spent 2 weeks in the NICU and after that our real journey began. We are super blessed and they truly are the best babies ever. Looking back, I can see why God had us wait. It was because he just needed a little extra time creating our “dream boys!”

Mental Aspect of TTC Honestly, there were many times I was angry. I didn’t understand why we had to go though it, when there are SO many unwanted pregnancies everyday. But I learned in order to stay focused, I had to remain positive. Each new thing we tried, I had to believe it would work. Otherwise, I truly would make myself crazy. I learned that we don’t have to go through our journey alone and so I created an infertility support group. And I am forever grateful for the families who I have been able to lean on. It has been incredible to see all the things God has done in the time since it has been created. I feel like during our waiting period the Lord gave me strength I wouldn’t have been able to find any place else.

Seeing Other Couples Pregnant When I Wasn't Gosh, each pregnancy announcement was so hard. It’s such an internal battle because you want to be happy for that person, but at the same time you’re also mourning the fact that it might not happen for you. During our wait, I feel like God somehow protected my heart each time someone would “surprise” us with a pregnancy announcement. He somehow told me it was going to happen before. It’s hard to explain, but I’m not someone who deals with surprises very well and I feel like during that time God just really protected my heart by doing that. My husband and I were the first to start trying within our immediate family. And in our 4 year journey of trying, we had 7 pregnancy announcements just within our immediate family. Each time we would leave feeling so confused and hurt, but God always took that time to work on our hearts and prepare us for that precious life he had given our family. I learned from each announcement that it’s ok to be sad for yourself. Honestly, sometimes it’s ok to be completely vulnerable in front of those people so they can understand your side of things too. None of those announcements were mean’t to hurt us so they would always be there to support us however we needed it. I feel like in order to grow you have to be honest within your self. So allowing yourself to have whatever emotion your feeling in the moment is totally ok!

Physical Changes To Try To Get Pregnant Infertility is so hard on your body. I remember gaining so much wait and feeling so out of my body. Especially when I was put into menopause, while my doctor tried to suppress my endometriosis. I would try and work out and eat as healthy as I could, but I tried to not put too much pressure on it. So I learned to kind of embrace whatever phase we were in. I would try and make healthy choices, but didn’t allow myself to put more pressure on myself that wasn’t already there.

Do I Believe in the "When You Stop Trying You Will Get Pregnant" Saying?

I can’t say that was the case for me. But i’ve seen it in SO many of my friends in waiting. I think God gives us only what we can handle and every persons story is different. I learned that I just have to trust that no matter what, God has a plan. He has written our story long before we were ever on our journey and He knows. So even when life doesn’t make sense, even when it doesn’t seem fair, or you question if He can even hear you, HE knows. So I just had to find rest in that. Nothing I did or didn’t do could change the outcome because the creator of all things knew my future and our story. And goodness is my life so much better than I could have ever dreamed for myself so I’m so grateful I found rest in that!

Advice to My Past Self and to You Trust the journey. God has you exactly where he wants you and He has the perfect plans in place for your future family. Rest in knowing nothing you do can change the outcome. Also, I think it’s so important to take each day as they come. Infertility can throw so many curve balls your way. Lets face it, no one plans to have to go through infertility so you can’t expect your journey to go “as you plan!”

Self-Reflection We are so much stronger than we ever realized. Life is hard, infertility is especially hard, but you have to cling to each other during that time and know you can conquer anything together. Infertility taught me how to fight what I want. It showed us how to be vulnerable with each other, because lets face it, our partners see us in some pretty vulnerable situations. And not the most glamorous ones, that’s for sure. But it brought us closer. I’ll never forget the memories we created during our journey. From the many mens bathrooms I had to sneak into for my husband to give me one of my shots, to the many nights we would go into our “future” nursery to pray and dream together, to the time we held each other on the couch after finding out our first round of IVF failed to FINALLLY hearing our doctor say we are pregnant and hearing my husband say, “oh that’s such good news!” I couldn’t imagine going through that journey with anyone else by my side.

#FERTILITYSUCCESSSTORY

e i n n a je

"my miracle baby girl" Connect with Jeannie!! Instagram: @jeannienelson4

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About Jeannie I’m from Scottsdale, AZ, born and raised, and spent a few years in Chicago after graduate school. I’m a Speech-Language Pathologist and love working with early intervention (birth to 3 years old) and preschool aged kids! I’m currently working on a baby sign language course, I’ve found there just isn’t enough information out there for early communication with babies and I want to help! I enjoy hiking, yoga, being outdoors, crafting, spending time with my wonderful husband, and being a mom (it’s my very favorite)!

My Story When we were first married, I was hoping to get pregnant right away. I was so excited to start a family, and was so happy. Being a mother is something I’ve always known I was meant to be.

I was always the little girl with baby dolls, started babysitting super young and just loved caring for babies and children. I chose my career (as a Speech-Language Pathologist) knowing, one day, when I had children, I could have a flexible schedule either working at a school, or through a private clinic to accommodate the needs of my children. I just love babies, and children, always have. I have this nurturing side to me, and this strong desire to help children.

After our honeymoon, I bought a cute onsie that said, "I can't wait to meet you, daddy" I was so excited to show this to Rob (my husband) when we got a positive pregnancy test. I had it all planned out. Well, that positive test took a whole lot longer than either of us ever expected. .

After a year of trying, we met with a fertility doctor. Over the following year, we tried multiple rounds of clomid with no luck.

Then, we attempted 3 rounds of IUI, again no luck, never a positive test. We then tried acupuncture, meditation, herbs, essential oils (one in particular) and all kinds of natural remedies for months. I started to give up hope. I felt broken. I felt useless and unworthy. I was depressed. I was at the lowest of low, I can’t really even put it into words.

We met again with the fertility doctor, January of 2018, 5 months after our 3rd failed IUI. We were told we had maybe a 3% chance of conceiving naturally, and that IUI didn't seem like an option for us, there was maybe only a 7-10% chance of conceiving through IUI interventions. There was no explanation to our infertility. We had unexplained infertility. I felt hopeless and broken and confused. I cried. A lot. I lost friends, I felt so alone and empty. The worst. I was at an all-time low. We were told to consider IVF, but that since our infertility was unexplained, there was still only about a 60% chance of conceiving through IVF. We talked about adoption and foster care (still want to someday). But, something was still missing and I felt like that was almost giving up on a biological baby. We decided to wait since I was in such a bad headspace. Every pregnancy announcement, pregnant woman or baby crushed me just a little bit. Was I ever going to be so lucky? So blessed? So privileged? .

Months went by, of nothing, I was done, and then, I was late.... I was so hesitant to take a test, because every time I did and it was negative, it felt like a little piece of me was destroyed and I didn't think I had it in me to see another.

See, when you're trying, every month seems like it could be the one. You don't take just one pregnancy test when you see a negative, because you convince yourself it was wrong. I must have seen at least 70 negatives at this point. I was 3 days late. I bit the bullet and took the test. .

It was positive. What?? My heart dropped! I fell to the bathroom floor and was shaking and crying and laughing all at once. I took a second. It was positive. And a third, guess what? I was in such disbelief!!! How did this finally happen? What a miracle!!!

When Rob came home from work, I couldn't wait!! I ran out to meet him with a wrapped present. The dogs got out and he was so confused. They were running all around the front yard, he had work things in hand and I had this gift- I’m sure it seemed insane.

I made him open it in the driveway. He wanted to get the dogs, I started crying, then laughing. I must have looked like a crazy person. It was the onsie I had been holding on to since the beginning. Our miracle was on her way. .

To anyone battling #infertility don't give up. Have faith. Trust. Hope. Miracles really do happen. This is our story, and it's painful, but was so worth it- Every last tear. It still hurts and doesn't just go away, but I'm mending, and so in love with our little piece of heaven.

The Mental Aspect of TTC TTC was such a mental/ emotional roller coaster. I constantly had hope each month, and was crushed to find negative after negative pregnancy test. It constantly felt like a never-ending battle, I felt broken. After each period/ failed attempt, I would cry, drink some red wine, take a hot bath, cry some more, try to distract myself, and then I would pick myself back up, and start the next month with a dream for it to finally happen. I remember going into the new “cycle” with an open heart, and an open mind (as much as possible) and would try to just have “fun” with my husband. Through the assisted fertility cycles, there was just more pressure. Sex felt more like a chore or another failed attempt. I felt pressure to document everything about my body and constantly questioned myself. I felt like I was letting everyone down, especially myself. I knew how badly my husband wanted to be a father and both of our parents wanted to be grandparents. I almost felt like less of a woman. I started to question my purpose on earth- “why am I here if I can’t do the most natural thing humans are supposed to do?!” or “My body is broken”, “I am useless”. I let the darkness take over, for sure! Each month, though, I some-how convinced myself, “this could be the month”, always feeling like small things were “signs” that I was finally pregnant (i.e. cramping, a day or two late, mood swings, tired, etc.)

It was a very rough journey. It felt like a loss or a death each month, but I had to keep pretending everything was fine, no one really understood the pain. It’s a vicious cycle, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

How did you deal with seeing other couples pregnant when you at the time wanted to be? Is it wrong to be happy for a woman who is pregnant, but mad, hopeless, and almost envious at the same time?

This is a great question! I felt so hopeless and broken and would question, “why not me?” “Am I not worthy or good enough?” I would try my best to be happy for others, but quickly learned, it was difficult to hold back tears when finding out others’ success

with pregnancy. There were several times someone would tell me they were pregnant, I would paste on a smile and as soon as I could would go somewhere privately and cry to myself. I felt empty and alone on this journey. I felt like no one understood or could really relate. I had to keep reminding myself, every life is a gift and wanted so badly to be happy for others, but it was a constant internal battle..

Physical Changes Made To Get Pregnant After years of unsuccessfully getting pregnant and being so mad at myself and trying several diets/ nutrition plans, etc., the two months before I actually got pregnant, I stopped everything- any diet, thinking about what I was eating, worrying about drinking, even taking prenatal vitamins (because it felt like a useless pill)- which I later felt HORRIBLE about when I did finally get pregnant, thinking I had already damaged my unborn baby. On the journey, I tried everything from gluten/ dairy free, clean eating, acupuncture, essential oils, all natural cleaning products, working out, not working out, I also gained about 30 lbs over the years and was unhappy with my body inside and out. I’m not 100% sure if anything I did physically helped or hindered me finally getting pregnant.

Do I Believe in the "When You Stop Trying You Will Get Pregnant" Saying?

I actually don’t agree with this at all. I would get/ still get frustrated when people would say, “oh, just relax and it will happen” or “it was when you finally let it go that you got pregnant”. We were still very much trying when it officially happened and I remember when I got my last period (before the positive the following month) and just bawling on the floor of the bathroom, almost inconsolably so! I felt so broken and defeated, this was the lowest of low. This broken-ness did not fully heal as soon as I saw the positive pregnancy test; either, it’s been a long recovery of the infertility grief. I guess, it feels dismissive of everything we tried when people say these things, like that’s how it was supposed to happen and I for some reason deserved that pain or that difficult journey. I know it’s never intentionally dismissive, but deep-down it feels that way.

Advice to My Past Self and to You Advice to self: The only advice I would give myself, is “don’t give up, your miracle will come”. I would also say, “focus on your husband and love for each other, rather than the grief of not getting pregnant each month”. Give yourself more appreciation and love; you are not broken or alone. Try to appreciate everything else and not give control to the loss each month. Make sure you feel- it’s OK to be emotional and have the feelings you have, you are so loved, this isn’t all for nothing.

To other women: My heart goes out to you, know you are NOT alone. Infertility is such a cruel, unfair roller coaster, but don’t give up. Don’t listen to people who are dismissive or insensitive. You are entitled to your feelings (whatever you’re feeling) and are allowed to feel pain through this. Make sure you take time for yourself, and whatever the circumstances, you are not broken or useless. Try to find joy in things other than babies and kids, focus on things you can control- cleaning your house, working out, spending time with your partner, family, and friends, and your job. Find someone to talk to- either a friend who’s been through something similar, your spouse, or a professional, and let your feelings out, don’t bottle it up inside or become broken.

Self-Reflection I have learned my husband is my rock and my life partner. We can take on the world together and he is by my side. I’m so lucky to have such loving family and friends, and am so supported. Some things are just out of our control and are unpredictable, and that’s just life. Infertility is something I want to share about, in order to give others hope. I never thought I’d be on this side of things, and I remember the pain, it was worth it. My baby girl is such a gift and I never take her for granted. Every life is such a miracle and a blessing, it’s just so beautiful.

Gratitude Now, my miracle baby girl beyond humbles me. I am so grateful for life and the opportunity to be a mother, HER mother. I love this mom life and wouldn’t trade it for anything. Some things, even the difficult things, I appreciate. I don’t really have any complaints about her or the “difficult baby things” (changing diapers, crying, spit-up, sleep, cleaning, laundry, etc.), I sometimes have to step back and remind myself, this is finally the life I really wanted.

I try to soak in each stage of motherhood and do all the things I always dreamed of. I baby wear, breastfeed, play with her, research how to do better, read, snuggle, dress her up, spend way too much money on her..lol… do baby classes- baby yoga, swimming, music classes. She is my life now and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

#FERTILITYSUCCESSSTORY

Shannon Our Baby.

C onnect w it h S han non ! !

I ns t a gr a m: @ pr o j ec t gi bbi ns _s e quel

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About Jeannie I’m from Scottsdale, AZ, born and raised, and spent a few years in Chicago after graduate school. I’m a Speech-Language Pathologist and love working with early intervention (birth to 3 years old) and preschool aged kids! I’m currently working on a baby sign language course, I’ve found there just isn’t enough information out there for early communication with babies and I want to help! I enjoy hiking, yoga, being outdoors, crafting, spending time with my wonderful husband, and being a mom (it’s my very favorite)!

My Story My husband Mark and I decided to start trying to fall pregnant as soon as we were married. I was 33 and he was 38 at the time. I’d been on the pill since I was 18 but had always had regular periods prior to that but had started on the pill due to extreme period pains. As soon as I stopped the pill bang! 28 days on the dot I got my first period.

I took that as a really good sign. Then month after month nothing was happening. I tried every type of cycle tracking and was certain I had the timing right but nothing worked.

About 18 months down the track I had a slightly irregular Pap smear result which saw me going to see a specialist for a further check.

While he wasn’t worried about that result, he did call in a colleague after I mentioned our difficulties trying to conceive. We went through my cycle history and they decided it would be worthwhile admitting me to hospital for a laparoscopy to check for endometriosis. 3 months later I underwent the surgery and they only found very minor lesions which they did not think would have been responsible for our conception problems.

At the same time my husband was told to undergo a semen analysis. He ended up doing 3 as each time the results varied. Now, if you’ve ever tried to get a man to do a semen analysis....let’s say it was a struggle. The results were pretty dire which led the specialists to conclude that this was the cause of our infertility.

So onto our first fertility specialist. We were told our chances were 40%. Pretty good. They had technology called ICSI which they could use to inject a seemingly healthy sperm into my egg. We were confident and positive that this would be an easy fix.

An average egg collection (in Australia) yields about 8 eggs. Note that other countries may use higher levels of drugs to stimulate higher egg production but they say this doesn’t always bring better quality. Anyway, I came out with 18 on my first collection. I thought for sure this was going to be it for us and we would have some to spare. We transferred 1 on day 5 and were told they were going to grow a further 8 embryos until day 6 so they could do genetic testing before freezing. The next day I received a call which gave me my first shattering disappointment. None of my remaining embryos had survived. I didn’t think that was possible. I thought the clinic must have done something wrong. I cried my eyes out. Despite having had one healthy embryo transferred I had thought one of those remaining embryos was going to create a sibling for the one I was carrying. Then to further my devastation my period began 3 days before the blood test was due to test for pregnancy. It was well and truly a failure.

And so it went on.

We went through 4 full cycles and 8 embryo transfers with our first specialist over a period of about 14 months. In the end he was speculating that my eggs must be prematurely ageing as there was nothing else they thought could be to blame.

At that point we decided to seek a second opinion.

We went to a new ivf company and it turned out they had a number of other options for extracting “healthier “ sperm from Mark.

One cycle only yielded 9 eggs with one suitable for transfer which failed. The second cycle gave us 4 healthy embryos one of which was transferred and again failed. It was at this point my specialist suggested we may want to revisit my laparoscopy and have another look. This time around stage 3 endometriosis was discovered which would have been affecting my fertility.

I then underwent another flushing procedure a month later and some other more experimental procedures. When I finally had my next embryo transfer I “cheated”and took a home pregnancy test the day before my blood test. I was elated when it cam back positive. It was my mums birthday the following week so I went and bought her a “happy birthday grandma” card to send to her once I had the blood test confirmation.

I was devastated the next day when the clinic called to say the hormone levels were too low and that what I was experiencing was a “chemical” pregnancy where the embryo attaches for a short time- enough time to raise the pregnancy hormone levels but not enough to maintain a pregnancy. The following frozen transfer I had a similar result but this time the hormone levels where much higher though still not high enough. The 3rd transfer post surgery was also our last remaining embryo. I had given up hope on this batch working as the eggs had been collected pre-surgery and endometriosis is know to affect egg quality. I spent the day after transfer tearing up carpet and renovating a property. 6 days past transfer I decided to take a home pregnancy test and was cautiously excited to see that it was positive. Day after day I tested again and again and could see the results getting stronger but still couldn’t believe that maybe it could be finally happening. Then blood test day came and it was an extremely strong positive!

It was a really special time as my brother was getting married the following week so I was at home (in the country) helping make the wedding dress when I got the news. I was able to be with my family and tell them my good news face to face (still crying as I write this).

After all of this I had a really great pregnancy (despite heartburn to the point of vomiting) and a cruisy 5.5 hour labour. I figured that was the least we deserved after what we went though to get there.

Furthermore...

IVF transfer terms can be a little confusing.

There is a cycle that involves all the needles, egg stimulation, egg collection, fertilisation and finally and embryo transfer. These ones are the most difficult.

There are “frozen”cycles where embryos that have previously been created are transferred at a particular time in a woman’s cycle.

Then there is the number of embryos transferred.

I only transferred one embryo at a time (as is the recommendation in Australia) except for one cycle where I transferred 2.

In the end I underwent 6 egg collections and 12 transfers of a total of 13 embryos. Hence the nickname for our little man “lucky 13”.

Mental Aspect of TTC I think I managed the failed cycles better than can be expected. The nurses actually commented on it when they were finally able to give me the good news. By nature I’m a planner so going into each cycle I always had a next plan of attack. I always had questions I wanted to run by the specialist and to ask about experimental procedures to see what his opinion was on them.

I found I would kick and scream and hit the walls and curl up on the floor and cry the first day but what got me through was knowing the next day was always going to be a little bit better.

IVF is cruel. When you’re swollen and bloated you can look in the mirror and you look months pregnant and you wonder if that’s ever going to be your reality. You wonder what you have done wrong. You wonder why addicts or child abusers can have babies and you can’t. You believe in your heart that you’re meant to be a mum and wonder why the universe has seen fit to deny you of that. There is a lot of “why me?” You even wonder if your husband will leave you because you can’t give him a child. It may not all be rational but with the combination of stress and all the extra hormones in your system being rational does not come easily.

Seeing Other Couples Pregnant When I Wasn't After being so open about our journey I found that a number of my friends to different degrees were going through similar struggles. I was always happy to find they had fallen pregnant thinking it would be my turn next. Although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit envious. I found it particularly difficult when the last one of my friends that I knew at the time was having difficulties TTC (trying to conceive) fell pregnant. It wasn’t so difficult that she was pregnant- she had suffered 2 prior miscarriages and I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult that must have been. It was difficult because it was then I felt really alone. I was the last one trying and everyone else had been successful except for me. That’s the first time I’d allowed myself to think that it may never happen for me.

Physical Changes Made To Get Pregnant I stopped playing basketball when I began TTC as I was too worried about getting injured. Instead I bought a cross trainer and downloaded a yoga app to use at home. I started acupuncture, took various multivitamins and vital greens. I cut back on my alcohol consumption (although still indulged in the occasional big night out). I also downloaded an app and began mediating 20 minutes each morning. In the end I cut back on a lot of the vitamins and returned to basics. In the beginning I was always thinking there was something else I could be doing and by the end I came to the realisation it wasn’t necessarily that I was doing something wrong.

Do I Believe in the "When You Stop Trying You Will Get Pregnant" Saying?

To be honest this type of statement drove me mad. “Just stop thinking about it and it will happen”. It is impossible to not think about it month after month when Mother Nature “blesses” us with a period. It is a constant reminder of our failure to do what is perceived to be a perfectly simple function as a woman. While I didn’t expect our final transfer to work it doesn’t mean I didn’t hope more than anything it would. During the 2 week wait following a transfer you are pumped full of progesterone which also cruelly mimics pregnancy symptoms so you are constant over-analyzing every bloating, cramp, spotting symptom.

Advice to My Past Self and to You To try and let go a little. I am a control freak so I kept trying to change or improve what I was doing when to be honest, my husband and I are both perfectly fit and healthy. There was anything that was in my control I could have done. So go easy on yourself. It’s not your fault. I tried counselling at my first clinic and I didn’t like the therapist so delayed going to see a counsellor at my second clinic and in the end she was amazing. I should have gone sooner. I am not the type of person who would usually seek out counselling but in this case she was exactly what I needed.

Self-Reflection My partner has a much softer side than I had realised. To begin with he was reluctant to talk to any of his friends about it but as we went through more and more he opened up and was also surprised to find how many had been affected around him. He’s now happy to talk to his friends about it (although still relies on me to explain all the technical stuff). He was an amazing support to me through all of the cycles. Before this he would pass out if he even walked into a hospital. The first night of injections he stood by my side while I did it. He also miraculously managed to stay standing throughout the birth of our son. He was embarrassed to do semen samples but we have very quickly become a lot more blasé about that too. I think we were both surprised at how strong we were able to be throughout the process. We really picked each other up and dusted off each time. He also made me feel beautiful as a woman even when I felt like crap.

Gratitude Although the road to our beautiful son Cooper was long and difficult if any of those previous transfers had worked we wouldn’t have ended up with “our” baby. He is a special little soul and I truly think he was meant for us. He is full of character and adventure and we are going to have our hands full as he gets older! We are about to undertake the ivf rollercoaster again but if it doesn’t work we know we have been blessed with a perfect little boy. We would love to give him a sibling but if we can’t he is going to live a very blessed life and be spolied rotten.

h t e b a

z i l E

Laing Thompson

Author of, "When God Says Wait" and "When God Says Go"

Connect with Lizzy!! Instagram: @ElizabethLaingThompson FB: aLizzyLife Twitter: @LizzyLit Site: www.lizzylife.com

HER IMPACT

"WHEN GOD SAYS WAIT" About Lizzy When people ask me where I’m from, I never know how to answer: “Um, I guess the East Coast?” As I was growing up, my dad’s job moved our family from Boston to Miami and several cities between. Two elementary schools, two middle schools, three high schools—it was a dizzying ride, but it taught me to make friends quickly and to love whatever food is put in front of me, from peanut butter and fluff sandwiches in Boston to ropa vieja in Miami.

I married my college sweetheart, Kevin, after several years spent swooning over him from the passenger seat of his Dodge Avenger as he gave me a ride to church every Sunday. It took a church trip to Paris and a bite from a candy apple offered to me by another boy to make Kevin realize, “Hey, wait a minute. I’m in love with this girl, but we’re here in the most romantic city in the world, she’s on a date with another guy, and he’s feeding her candy apples. Maybe I should get a move on.” So he did. Now, twenty-some years later, he still likes me even though I beat him at ping-pong and spend all my money on scandalously overpriced mochas.

Poor Kevin didn’t know he was marrying a writer back then (in my defense, I didn’t know either!). We worked together in full-time campus ministry for three years, but then one night a bout of jet lag gave me an unexpected gift: a novel idea that wouldn’t let me go. I got up in the middle of the night, started writing, and I really haven’t stopped since. I started out writing fiction for teens and tweens, and now I also write Christian nonfiction for grown-ups!

Around the same time that I decided to become a writer, I also started trying to become a mother (more on that later). After an agonizing struggle with infertility, we eventually became the always exhausted but totally grateful parents to four miracle babies, now ages 13, 12, 10, and 6. We have epic sock toss battles and frequent dance-party-related injuries. We call ourselves the Crazies, and most days, we mean that in a good way.

Seven years ago, we moved to coastal North Carolina to plant a new church, and what an adventure it’s been! We spend our days wrestling Christ into the chaos of daily life, then writing and speaking about it, hoping it somehow gives other families hope, help, and a lot of good laughs.

My Fertility Journey & Why I Created "When God Says Wait" After three years of marriage, my biological clock wasn’t just ticking; it was firing off hourly cannon shots complete with fireworks displays. I had always assumed we would just light some candles, turn on a Norah Jones CD, and voilá!—nine months later, out would pop our little bundle of joy!

But it didn’t happen that way—not for us. After five months, I started to get antsy; after one year, panicky; two years, downright despairing.

Nothing had prepared me for this detour. I didn’t expect it, didn’t want it, didn’t know how to negotiate it. Never have I felt so alone, so confused, so “less than.”

When God Says, “Wait” was born out of that messy season. A few years ago, I was feeling the nudge to write a spiritual book. Writerly wisdom says, “Write what you know,” so one day I sat down with a pen and started thinking, “What do I know about, spiritually speaking?” And then—I kid you not —this snarky voice piped up in my head: “Well, I know about waiting.” And my pen started flying. Bam—I wrote the outline and first chapter right in that moment.

When God Says, “Wait” addresses all kinds of waiting—the wait for a boy, a job, a break, a cure—but honestly? I wrote it most of all for the TTC community. With every word I wrote, they were on my heart and in my prayers—they still are and ever will be. This is the book I needed during my baby wait, the book I could not find. If I can help my TTC sisters to hang onto their faith, their friendships, and their sanity while they wait—and give them some laugh-cries and snort-laughs along the way—then I’m happy with that! The message of this book is not “It will happen when it’s supposed to happen.” (UGH.) The message of this book is, “You may not be able to control how long you wait or what God’s final answer is, but you do get to control two things: how you wait, and who you become along the way.” I pray every reader walks away from this book feeling loved, empowered, inspired, and—yes, I want them to feel that most terrifying of feelings, that emotion we so avoid when we’re waiting—hopeful.

Mental Aspect of TTC As any woman going through infertility can attest, you start questioning everything: your faith, your future, your very self. Time stops. You’re trapped: Nothing can move forward until we have a baby. I can’t change jobs (because I need health insurance and money for all these daggum treatments). Can’t plan trips (because either I’ll be pregnant or else having some daggum trying-to-get-pregnant procedure). Can’t dream for the future. Can’t imagine a different life. Can’t be happy. Can’t anything.

You start asking questions: “Why me? Did I do something wrong? Is this somehow my fault?” And if you’re a person of faith, you may face a serious faith crisis: “Is God angry with me? Is this a test—or a punishment? Does God think I am somehow unworthy of a baby—but everyone else is?” You may even begin questioning things you once thought were unquestionable: “I thought God promised to give me the desires of my heart if I was faithful to him…so are his promises not true? Does God not see me? Does God not care? Is God not real?”

Honestly, my years of infertility weren’t always pretty. I cried a lot, angsted a lot, threw myself a few epic pity parties. I had to reinvent my faith, going back to the Bible to figure out what it actually promised, what God really feels, what I truly believed. Along the way I had to make some key decisions about how I was going to protect my own heart from bitterness—and my marriage from emotional exhaustion.

What I Learned About Myself During My Waiting Season I learned that I am a perfectionist about life: If a thousand things are going right, but one thing is going wrong, I can’t be happy. I fixate on the One Thing. And I gradually realized, I can’t live this way. If I keep waiting for perfect, I’ll never be happy again. Life is always imperfect, always missing something. Right now it’s a baby that’s missing; in another season it will be another thing. I had to consciously identify and reframe the unconscious “rules for joy” I had set for myself: “I can’t be happy until…,” “My life doesn’t mean anything unless….” I had to get rid of the "untils" and "unlesses".

Is It Wrong To Be Happy For Yet Envious of A Pregnant Couple?

First: You are so normal! Join the We Struggle with Envy Club. If we were together in person, I’d teach you our secret handshake. Seriously, though, I don’t see how you can go through a baby wait and not struggle from time to time. The goal is not that you never have envious thoughts and feelings, but that you choose what to do with them when they come calling (or more likely, when they come trying to pound down your door).

In WGSW I tell the story of the time my dear friend, who is younger than me and had only been married for eight months, called to tell me she had accidentally gotten pregnant—on the pill, of course—and I had to decide how to respond. I hung up the phone and sobbed for hours, but then I picked myself up, blew my nose, and went to work on my heart. I knew that if I allowed bitterness and envy to take root and settle in, I would wreck our lifelong friendship. I had to choose how to think, even if my feelings didn’t cooperate at first. I had to remember that she hadn’t gotten pregnant on purpose to rub my infertility in my face, and that I could choose to be happy for her and sad for me at the same time. I could choose to focus on loving her child—and loving her—instead of thinking about my own empty arms. It was one of the most challenging heart moments I had ever faced, but I guarded my heart, envy did not prevail, and our friendship is thriving to this day! (I ended up having my first miracle baby one week after she had her second baby—of course her second one was also an accident, also on the pill, but what can you do?! I adore her in spite of her ridiculous levels of fertility.)

Elizabeth's Book, "When God Says Wait" If you are TTC and your faith is struggling—even if it hardly has a heartbeat left—this book is for you. Especially for you. One of my favorite chapters in the book is called “Lies About Waiting.” A lot of Christian women have been taught some unfortunate things about God—things that simply are not true, or else are not always true.

Well-meaning believers throw around a lot of casual, misguided Christian theology that makes unfair, unreliable promises: “If you love God, then you will always get what you want”; “If you live a good life, then good things will always happen to you!”; “God’s timing is always perfect, so this just isn’t your time.” Pat answers and shallow “if-then theology” can quickly lead hurting people to a crisis of faith. I tackle the hard faith questions head-on in this book, and I try to offer different (I believe more accurate and honest) ways to read Scripture, interpret God’s promises, and find God’s loving heart towards us even when he says, “Wait.”

Advice To You Confession? I cringe a little when people say, “This {insert illness or heartache here} is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. One day you’ll feel the same way.” I mean, good for them if they have reached that place, but I don’t think that should be everyone’s emotional goal. Infertility was, hands down, the most painful thing that’s ever happened to me. The most bewildering, agonizing, and seemingly endless thing. So I wouldn’t look back and tell my past self, “One day you’ll think this was the Best Thing Ever! And one day you’ll know exactly why you went through it.” Um, not exactly. It’s not that simple.

I don’t look back on those years and clap my hands and say, “Yay, I’m so happy I cried myself to sleep all those nights! I’m so thankful I got to spend thousands of dollars on weird medical procedures when all my friends got pregnant for free! (And by accident!)” But you know what I can say looking back? I can say I’m grateful for the person I became through that suffering. I learned empathy, humility, perseverance. I learned there aren’t always easy answers to hard questions, and I shouldn’t offer shallow comfort to hurting friends. And I am forever thankful for the relationships I now cherish as a result of my TTC years: not just the friends who saw me through my own journey, but also for the women—friends I have met in person and readers I have met online—who are now undergoing their own baby wait. I count it a profound honor to share their pain, to pray with them and for them as they wait. Just this morning, I got an email from a reader I have been praying for, telling me she now has a daughter! What a blessing to share even a tiny piece of her joy.

To those who are now enduring this heartache I say: You are not alone. You are understood—not just by me, but by many. And although I can’t tell you how (or when) your journey ends, I can tell you that if you’ll let it, this suffering can shape you into a stronger you, a more compassionate you, a wiser you—a you you didn’t even know you wanted to be. And I can tell you that no matter how long the wait or how winding the road, God sees you, God hears you, and God cares for you.

Reflecting On My Husband As Well As Myself First I have learned that my husband deserves the Most Patient Husband Award. This sainted man was infinitely long-suffering and amazingly nonjudgy-faced (I know that’s not a word, but let’s pretend) as I kicked and screamed my way through our TTC years. He mastered the art of when to speak, when to say nothing, and when to drive straight to Starbucks.

I have also learned the importance of nurturing your friendships as a way of protecting and strengthening your marriage. About a year into the journey, I began to realize: This is killing me, but it’s killing Kevin differently: it’s killing him watching me. He can’t fix it, and he feels helpless. And as sad as he is about the baby we can’t have, he needs me to still be happy sometimes—but he feels guilty for needing me to be happy… I mean, yikes, marriage during infertility is complicated!

From then on, I decided not to pour all my pain onto poor Kevin’s overwhelmed shoulders every day. It’s not that I no longer shared my heartache with him, but I learned to also share it with other people. I started deliberately cultivating new friendships I’d never needed before. I learned to divvy up my ginormous load of sadness among a few blessed and compassionate friends. (I also learned that my friendships couldn’t be all about me and how sad I was all the time!) And much as I fought the lesson, I learned to hold joy in one hand and grief in the other: to be happy even while I was sad. Again with the yikes. It was the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn.

My Gratitude I have four children. The privilege of saying those four staggering, miraculous words is not lost on me, even though I have spoken them a million times over. Even when I have those I-want-to-pull-my-hair-out moments when I’m packing four lunches—all four different because, you know, picky eaters; and someone needs clean socks—not short black ones, long black ones; and someone else needs a field trip form that was due yesterday —oh, and the field trip costs fifty dollars, and we don’t have fifty dollars—I am so grateful that I get to want to pull my hair out! I ached for this, I begged for this—this beautiful mess, this wild whirlwind of a thousand bittersweet emotions—and every day I am thankful to live it. Delighted to live it. Aware that so many people I love are still aching and begging to live it themselves.

And you know, I think those twin perspectives—gratitude for what we have and remembering where we have been—make all the difference, even if we are still waiting. They keep us thankful and hopeful. They help us think, “I don’t know what lies ahead, but I remember where I was, I am grateful for now, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.”

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VALERIE Gaus

LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST SPECIALIZING IN AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS

WWW.DRVALERIEGAUS.COM

MENTAL HEALTH

autism spectrum

"Living Well on the Spectrum" About Dr.Valerie Gaus I am a licensed psychologist with a private psychotherapy and consulting practice in Long Island and New York City. I have been providing mental health services to adults for 25 years. I treat depression, anxiety and stress-related problems in adults, with a special interest in addressing these problems as they occur in adults with autism spectrum disorders, developmental disorders and learning disabilities.

I grew up in upstate NY but have lived in Long Island for all of my adult life. My hobbies include flower gardening and kayaking. I also love animals and have had many pets. Cats and dogs have long been part of my therapy sessions for clients who feel comfortable with them. I currently have a dog named Zorra and a cat named Stormy (pictures included). My old cat Reeses, also pictured, recently passed away. My husband and I also keep a flock of chickens.

Starting My Journey to Specializing in ASD I will start with what drew me to psychology, because that was years before I learned about autism. I was always interested in science but also wished to do something in human services.

When I was in high school, I always thought I would have to choose one or the other. It was not until college, when I started to study psychology and find out that scientific methodology can be used to understand human behavior and also to find solutions to problems that can cause people to suffer that I became really excited about pursuing that career. When I entered my Ph.D. program in clinical psychology, I was thrilled because I would receive higher level training in scientific methods, while also learning to apply helpful interventions with people who were looking for help with mental health problems.

I was trained to use behavioral and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to address depression and anxiety in adults.

My interest in autism came many years later, after I was out of school and working for an agency that served adults with a variety of different disabilities. It was there that I became interested in treating mental health problem in people who had co-existing disabilities because up to that point, people with disabilities often had their mental health needs overlooked. I enjoyed bringing my mainstream clinical psychology background into a field that traditionally had not offered CBT to the clients who were being served.

It was also there that I met my first client who had the diagnosis of Asperger syndrome. Because it was the mid-1990s at the time, the idea that autism could occur in a person with a normal or above intellectual functioning and normal verbal functioning was new. I was fascinated with this information and intrigued by the idea of using CBT to help people with such a unique way of experiencing the world.

The Drive to Create "Living Well on the Spectrum" I was working with adults with Asperger syndrome (AS) for a number of years before I thought about writing the Living Well book. I had previously written a book called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adult Asperger Syndrome (Guilford Press, 2007), which was a guidebook for therapists to use when helping adults with AS and coexisting mental health problems. What I had noticed while preparing for that book was that there were few resources pertaining to the treatment of adults; most books and research articles focused on children and adolescents. That was not directly helpful to me, as my clients were over 21, many of them in their 40s, 50s, 60s or even older. There were even less resources that could be considered self-help books for adults on the spectrum. I wanted resources that spoke to people on the spectrum, not about them, and that offered tools that were evidenced-based. So not long after my first book came out, my publisher approached me and asked I was interested in writing a self-help book to help adults on the spectrum manage their stress. I was thrilled at the opportunity and they agreed to let me write it in a voice that spoke to, not about the adults I wanted to reach. I wanted the book to serve three purposes for every reader: 1) Provide sound and accurate (research-based) information about Asperger syndrome/autism spectrum disorder to dispel any myths or misinformation a reader may have been exposed to in the past; 2) With a positive psychology approach, describe AS and ASD as a set if differences that are not defects and to help come to an understanding of how these differences bring both strengths and vulnerabilities to daily living; 3) Offer a collection of tools that have been shown through research to be helpful to people in every-day life to manage stress and anxiety.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has a very strong evidence base for helping adults with such problems, but most books on this topic focus on neurotypical adults with depression, anxiety or stress. I believe adults on the spectrum should have access to the same CBT strategies that have been proven helpful to the general population, so I presented those strategies (e.g., problemsolving, stress management) in a multi-modal fashion that I thought would suit the unique learning styles of people on the spectrum. So I did not invent the strategies in the book, but took evidence-based approaches, designed and tested for the past several decades by clinical researchers before me, and wrote about them, as one client told me, in “Aspie-friendly” language.

MAJOR Impact for the Aspie Community Nothing pleases me more than when readers of this book contact me to tell me how the book has impacted them. I like to hear all feedback whether it’s positive or critical. I am especially happy when I hear from people who live in remote areas all around the world, where access to cognitive behavioral therapy may be limited; when they tell me they use the block to learn problemsolving and stress management strategies it brings a great sense of satisfaction to have been able to get that important information out to people. I am most moved when someone tells me that the shame they have felt about their struggles is transformed into understanding and self-acceptance because of my book. I’ve also heard from readers that they enjoy the format of the book as a step-by-step set of concrete strategies that they can use to self-direct toward solutions. This is important for a adults on the spectrum because they can work at the pace they’re comfortable with and increase a sense of autonomy and self-sufficiency. One of my favorite criticisms had to do with an error that was in the first printing run. In the chapter about emotions, I was referring to the character from Star Trek, Spock to make a point. I erroneously called him “Dr. Spock” and somehow mistake was missed by myself and my editors. Any selfrespecting Star Trek fan would have caught that in a second, but the reader who took the time to write to me and point that out was very helpful because I was able to ask the publisher to correct that for a later printing run.

A Common Challenge to Those with an ASD Each person I meet is unique and it is difficult to generalize about the struggles a person encounters along the journey of life. With that said, one common experience that is shared by many adults I have met is the tendency to become overwhelmed by hassles or stressors that a typical person my find minor or mundane.

Because of sensory differences, emotion regulation differences and thinking differences, the demands of adult life, whether they be at home, at work, at school, with friends, with romantic partners, or in the local community, can become unmanageable very quickly. This book helps people manage stress by teaching a problem-solving approach to handle daily hassles and challenges.

It helps reader recognize and accept their own differences so they can break down tasks into smaller bits and plan for ways to adapt. It provides a buffer against the storms that life can throw your way.

What I Feel Is Not Spoken About Enough Every adult is challenged to figure out how their ASD diagnosis fits into the overall view of one’s identity. For some the struggle comes from a belief, perhaps based on myth, that ASD is a disease. People who subscribe to that belief may see their

"By accepting each person’s individuality, including one’s own, adults can integrate their ASD characteristics into the rest of the unique factors that make them the people they are."

What You May Not Know About Yourself Some people I meet in my practice are trying to find a balance between knowing when to ask others for help and know when to try solve a problem alone. I tell my clients that few people are truly independent, including most neurotypical adults. What allows us to be truly self-sufficient is to recognize that we are interdependent. No one of us knows how to do every single thing we have to do to live as an autonomous adult – but we do have to know what we don’t know how to do and know who we can ask for help and how to ask for it. I don’t know how to fix a broken furnace, for example, but my recognition of that leads me to find a name and number and then have the skill to call the person who can fix it. If I know how to do that, then my asking for help and depending on another is what allows me to live independently, which really is interdependently. People with ASD struggle with that sometimes. Young adults may think they should know how to do everything themselves and see help-seeking as a weakness.

Other adults may know they need help but anxiety or communication problems interfere with reaching out. Adults with ASD can find that “sweet spot” of interdependence when they become very familiar with their own unique profiles of strengths, vulnerabilities, and strategies for effectively acquiring help. That way they can also figure out the best way to accommodate themselves, which sometimes involve recognizing the need for making changes in one’s day or surroundings. These seemingly minor things are kindnesses that people can do for themselves without even asking for help (e.g., building in more breaks, taking time to do relaxing activities, changing the lighting, changing the seating arrangement, wearing ear phones etc). Being kind to yourself results in a version of you that is more present and available in your own life.

My Personal Graitude I am so grateful for where I am in work and life. I have a career I love, that allows me to meet people every day who I admire and can learn from. I have been lucky enough to have mentors and colleagues who have supported me and given me opportunities to pursue my interests, even when some of my goals were unconventional. Because I am self-employed, I have the flexibility to make time to do activities that help me relax and have fun with my husband, son and pets!

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MENTAL HEALTH

DANIEL JONES www.theaspieworld.com @TheAspieWorld

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"I THEN FOUND MYSELF GOING THROUGH VARIOUS MENTAL HEALTH CLINICS IN SEARCH OF HELP AND SUPPORT AND WAS DIAGNOSED WITH ASD (ASPERGER’S SYNDROME) ALONG WITH ADHD OCD AND DYSLEXIA AT THE AGE OF 26.

THIS WAS MIND BLOWING TO ME AS I KNEW NOTHING OF AUTISM UNTIL THIS POINT IN MY LIFE." -DAN

DIAGNOSED AT 26 & EMBRACING THE JOURNEY AFTERWARDS About Dan So I live on Anglesey which is an island of North Wales, awesome beaches and mountains. I love to skateboard in my free time when I’m not working.

My work is the best work, I get to make YouTube videos and content for social media all day long, and I LOVE IT! A Brief of My Journey I had always been an ‘odd’ kid growing up and had lots of issues so my parents tried to get me to see doctors and professionals at the time in the early 90s but they were not able to diagnose Asperger’s back then Fast forwarding to my adult life, I wasn't able to hold down any job for longer than a few months due to depression, anxiety and meltdowns and I was at a loss, I felt like i didn't know what was going on?

I then found myself going through various mental health clinics in search of help and support and was diagnosed with ASD (Asperger’s Syndrome) along with ADHD OCD and Dyslexia at the age of 26.

This was mind blowing to me as I knew NOTHING of autism until this point in my life.

How Asperger's Makes My Life Different Asperger’s makes my life challenging in ways of dealing with social situations or meeting new people, it’s super difficult to understand conversation themes and even down to going to big cities or traveling these things are overwhelmingly difficult for me to deal with.

It also comes with issues like, not getting facial expressions or jokes, and I’m really bad at recognizing people's faces!

The Challenge I Face with Asperger's Some challenges are having to stick to my routine and if it changes or my plans waiver, this causes a catastrophe of issues, where I feel completely overwhelmed and upset and basically distort.

It could be something like, planning to go food shopping at 11 AM but something happens and your plans are now up in the air, it’s like lining a bunch of dominos up and seeing how perfect they will fall then someone pulling one up and stopping the falling of the line you have so perfectly placed.

What Isn't Said Enough The fact that as you get older your traits intensify in certain areas, like for me anxiety from driving my own car is getting crazy bad as the older i get. Also social anxiety is getting worse and worse.

It is not often talked about as people presume it’s only a childhood issue, but it isn’t the issues grow with you.

YouTube & Why I Created @TheAspieWorld When I was looking for help and videos on Asperger’s on YouTube the week I was diagnosed, I couldn't find anything that was upbeat and happy, so I decided to make a channel to help people feel happy with the fact that they are autistic to try make the world a little less bleak.

Advice To You I would suggest checking out online influencers with autism, these people have a wealth of information that will be relatable and help you feel guided :).

Also I would recommend checking out the resources available at Autism.org.uk Side Note!! A tip I use to stay calm and helps with my ADHD and anxiety is, get rid of alcohol and caffeine in your life, this will change your world for the better!

Advice to Parents of a Child with ASD Don’t worry about anything, you’ll be awesome. Listen and adapt to the needs of your child. There are always ways around any situation, just believe in it! Love, support and listen to your child that is all they need :).

Self-Reflection & Gratitude I have learned that I am not stupid, I am not crazy I am unique I am awesome and I am creatively different!

I am so blessed and grateful I get to interact, inspire and educate amazing people daily that enrich my life to no end! The work I do isn’t just fulfilling it is also a journey of meeting new and amazing people that teach me so much and I am forever grateful for this opportunity.

THE WORK I DO ISN’T JUST FULFILLING IT IS ALSO A JOURNEY OF MEETING NEW AND AMAZING PEOPLE THAT TEACH ME SO MUCH AND I AM FOREVER GRATEFUL FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY. - DAN (@THEASPIEWORLD)

strength | pg.3

All content in Toi Magazine should not be used as a solution to any medical or mental health issues.

Please see and consult with your therapist, licensed physican, etc.

All content in Toi Magazine is strictly for entertainment purposes.

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