Author • Poet • Advocate
I loved my father. A World War II survivor of horrifying combat, my dad embodied all that was traditionally masculine in the 1960s. He was tough and strong. However, in looking back, it was his narcissism and toxic masculinity that dominated my earliest memories. A product of the times? Perhaps. The scars of the war? Certainly. Identification with an abusive father? Sadly true.
When someone asks me about writing, I tend to shy away. I don’t know what the truth is. I don’t know when a lie becomes a fact. I merely write.
“Trauma is something that overwhelms your coping capacities and confronts you with the thought: “Oh my God, it’s all over, and there’s nothing I can do. I’m done for. I may as well die.”
Thrilled to have my good friend and #SexAbuseChat co-host, Judith Staff, here today to discuss boundaries. Excellent tips here, my friends.
At a book talk I gave a few years ago, a teenage boy in the audience, intrigued by the stories I’d been telling about young characters’ tortuous journeys in War and Peace, asked me a question during the Q&A. “Did Tolstoy, like, really experience all that?” The ingenuous question got me thinking, not only about Tolstoy’s writing but my own. And it inspired me to share something I hadn’t quite articulated before in public.
What are the five things to know before connecting with a child abuse survivor? Let me break it down for you:
Please welcome my esteemed guest, retired Royal Canadian investigator and now author, Garry Rodgers. Garry investigated hundreds if not thousands of sexual crimes during his career. We’ve had an ongoing conversation for many years about sexual abuse, and most recently, about the horrible victim-blaming happening in response to the #MeToo movement against women who report.
Survivors of sexual assault experience the same Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as other forms of trauma.