• Of the dark, time of year, holidays, people, places, events, celebrations.

• As yourself honestly why you are afraid?
• What happened to you at that time that caused you to be so afraid?
• Who caused you to be afraid?
• Is your fear of a place or a person, or both?
• This is the time you may continue to deny anything happened.  But for fear to be expressed, there is an underlying cause.

• To help organize your thoughts, you may use this form here but it takes a minute to load.  List the age (if known) as memories surface.
• It may take a few minutes, months or years before you can detail your life.  Be patient and accept that healing sometimes is a very slow process.
• It comes in stages as you get stronger

• Name it.
• Give the pain you are holding inside a voice.
• Say it out loud.  "Incest" or "Sexual Abuse" or "Battered Child" or "Child Abandonment"
• Name all the hurts, both physical and mental.

• Face it.  Tell your story to someone you trust.
• If you have no one to talk to, write it down on paper.  Take your time and make it as detailed as you remember.
• Many times there are multiple pains, by one person or multiple abusers. Name all your abusers and what each one did to you.  This may take a long time as multiple abusers are revealed to you.  It isn't that you don't remember some things , but less traumatic events were pushed aside as more grievous events took place.  Admitting your family wasn't perfect is OK to talk about
• You may have a sibling that also experienced the same trauma.  Seek them out for companion healing.
• After you have told someone or written your timeline, you may save them or burn them.

• Perpetrators of child violence heap tons of guilt and blame on an innocent child
• Children accept guilt and blame because their minds are undeveloped
• Children's minds are not fully developed and therefore lack reasoning skills
• Reject all guilt and blame; lay it on the shoulders of the perpetrator

• Let all those suppressed emotions come out.
• Rant, rave, cry buckets of tears. Cry buckets and buckets of tears.
• Get angry! Hit a pillow with a stick.  Rage.  Let go of all the emotions you have suppressed.
• The events may have ruined the first part of your life but the last part, from now on, will be much better.  You will grow and heal
• You will develop a modified version of who you were supposed to be.  This painful process takes time but will give you strength. Be patient.

• Once you tell your secrets to someone, they no longer hold power over you.
• The perpetrator no longer has power over you.
• There is not reason to mask shame and pain with chemicals.

Healing Process Begins

• Once free from the fog of addictions,
• The first thing that will change from the gray and black world you have been walking in.
• You will notice vibrant earth colors.  Embrace them.
• Life, in general, will begin to have clarity. A new path open that you should follow.
• Healing is an ongoing process which eventually will change into exploring.

• You may find, as a result of early childhood name calling and labeling, you believed what you heard.  It may have been so devastating you shut down, believing the hurtful words.  During and after the healing (which will be ongoing for the rest of your life) you realize you were not those things.  In the process of healing, a whole new world will open up to you.  Embrace exploring, learning, be curious.
• Consider finishing your formal education where ever you left off. (Either right away or later when you gain more confidence)
• If you struggled in school begin reading interesting books
• Take community college classes (Keep them fun and easy in order to build success)
• Enroll in college or trade school as your confidence builds
• Surround yourself with positive people.
• Consider avoiding family members or gatherings where people who have harmed you will attend.  You need to build confidence.
• Check out books from the library on interesting subjects
• If you were a good student and learning was easy for you, jump in!  Go for higher education degrees.

• Empowerment presents in many forms
• Become a speaker for children's rights
• Develop national policy for perpetrators of child sexual violations
• Change child abuse-brutality-torture laws
• Speak before Congress
• Make a movie about your trauma
• Write a book about healing from childhood trauma
• Create a website
• Educate the public on children trauma
• Become a pubic speaker
• The more you give outside yourself, the more you heal