Sexual and Interpersonal Trauma
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Sexual assault and sexual abuse can leave you feeling disconnected from yourself and your loved ones. It can lead to feelings of numbness, isolation, and anxiety.
Research has found that sexual assault and sexual abuse can have a significant impact on your mental health. It can lead to hypervigilence, difficulties with intimacy, loss of self-worth, restlessness, difficulties relaxing, hopelessness, and feelings of guilt and shame.
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Experiencing psychological or emotional abuse often looks like being gaslit, manipulated, and demeaned to the point you begin to believe what is happening is your fault. You may begin to believe that you are worthless or unlovable. You may believe that you will never find a healthy relationship. These negative core beliefs can lead to significant struggles within new relationships. Most importantly, they can significantly alter the relationship you have with yourself.
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When you have been abused physically, you can begin believing that you are unsafe in any relationship or situation. This can lead to hypervigilence, an impending sense of doom or dread, difficulties trusting others, and high levels of depression and anxiety.
There Is Hope
Talk therapy can help provide a safe space to reconnect with yourself and your body. It honors your experience and can help you prepare for future scenarios in which you may be triggered. Therapy can help you learn to communicate these feelings to your partner, including how to talk openly, express your needs, and get support from one another.
Additionally, therapy can assist with boundary setting, increasing self-compassion and tending wounds while connecting with your inner child.
EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy) is an evidence based treatment that taps into your natural ability to heal from past emotional wounds, get unstuck and move forward.
EMDR works more quickly than talk therapy in resolving emotional distress and letting go of limiting core beliefs connected to past traumas.