The Power of Creativity to Heal
Trigger warning: Contains discussion of child sexual abuse.
Recently, I relaunched my newsletter, The Creativity to Heal. This is a repost. If you like it, please consider subscribing. It’s free!
I chose the name of this newsletter when I first began healing in earnest. The pandemic had just ended, and I’d been working through the workbook The Courage to Heal: A Guide for women survivors of child sexual abuse. I stopped about a third of the way in when I read one woman’s account about her mother. It cut me to the bone. I hadn’t been prepared to see myself represented so closely. I’d always known what had happened to me, but I’d held it away from my sight. I could hear it scurry around in the shadows, but if I didn’t look at it, I didn’t have to admit it occurred.
It’s interesting how we keep our abusers’ secrets. It’s like we have as much at stake as they do. To tell is to lose everything, but when I think of all I’ve lost in telling my story, I recognize that those relationships were predicated on a shared truth built by my mother. One everyone agreed upon. When you tell, you lob a grenade into that shared family narrative, and for the most part, the one that gets blown apart is you. To be clear, her abuse shattered me. Telling was…
