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No Failures, Only Lessons: A Reflection on Growth
I never imagined I’d find myself deeply immersed in personal development, let alone speaking about it. In the early days, I was a survivor who hadn’t wanted therapy, someone riding the relentless waves of change in a company I had built from the ground up. I was focused on day-to-day operations, not self-reflection. And like so many, I didn’t yet have words for what was happening beneath the surface, the cPTSD, trauma responses, patterns shaped long before I understood them. Growth doesn’t always look graceful. Sometimes it looks like exhaustion, like making hard business decisions, like putting one foot in front of the other. And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we…
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From Heartbreaking Realities to Realistic Hope
5Waves and the Global SSA Movement I first learned of the Sibling Sexual Trauma website via LinkedIn. Then, I found 5Waves.org. Initially, I was curious about why they had two separate websites. I didn’t ask at first, but I’ll share what I’ve discovered about that at the end of this blog. What I do know is that all their content is empowering and beneficial for anyone interested in learning about, or affected by, sibling sexual trauma or abuse. Discovering the SSA Advocacy Community Most of what I first learned about advocacy, activism, and current research surrounding sibling sexual trauma came from connections I started to make on LinkedIn whilst writing…
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The Persecutor Within: Unraveling Family Dynamics
How Trauma Responses Shape Roles in Dysfunctional Families In families marked by sibling sexual abuse (SSA), complex dynamics often emerge, with individuals adopting roles that perpetuate cycles of harm. Understanding these roles and the underlying trauma responses is crucial for healing and breaking free from destructive patterns. Family Dynamics Beyond the Time of Abuse At 25, I disclosed, and I won’t spoil it here if you’ve not read Resolve yet. Within a week, I was being told to not say another thing. Fear crept in for others in our family. Fear of my brother. He was a cop at the time (that’s not in Resolve). For others, the reality was…