Coping with Abuse - Desperate Housewives star shows the way

As a professional Total Success Coach™, and having worked with clients in many countries, I have found it surprising how many people have had to deal with some form of abuse whether sexual, physical or verbal when they have been growing up.

It was recently reported that Teri Hatcher, the actress and star of the cult TV program Desperate Housewife’s had been sexually abused by her uncle when she was 5 years old. You can read the article http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/pressroom/ ; it is a very moving piece.

I applaud Teri Hatcher for coming out and admitting what had happened to her as it enabled her uncle to be put behind bars. Unfortunately it was too late for one of her Uncle’s victims-- a young girl who committed suicide after his sexual abuse of her. When someone who is well known admits something it paves the way for others to do the same and to liberate themselves from the pain.

So how do people cope when they have been abused?

A lot of people, as Hatcher had done, cover it up, bury it and try to pretend that it never happened rather than face the ‘awfulness of what actually happened. Hatcher commented "it is something that's been surfacing with me for the past three years. This is something I've tried to hide my whole life."

Here are some ways that people cope:

Weight gain - “What person is going to be interested in me if I am 100lbs overweight?”

Emotional distancing - “If I keep you away, I won’t get hurt again”

Drug and alcohol abuse - “If I can’t feel it, then it doesn’t exist”

Distraction Seeker- “If I’m so busy in one area there is no time to think about what has happened”.

So how do you start making changes and what do you need to do?

Like anything in life, things only change when we do something about it. You can try and convince yourself that you have fixed it by changing your mindset or doing your therapy sessions. From my experience this doesn’t work in the long term. You must take specific action including;


1: Create a non judgmental support system Often this will NOT be family who have an interest in covering up the lie.

2: Forgiving yourself for what happened. This may seem the most obvious but is often the most difficult and the last thing people ever do. It is the only way you let go of the pain and break the cycle.

3: Creating positive experiences for yourself that move you towards changing your life

In closing it IS possible to overcome past abuse of any kind. Keeping your pain buried will only end up eating you away in some form or other. Now is the time to break the cycle and remove that dark cloud that has followed you or someone you know all their lives.


Gavin Allinson
Total Success Coach™
www.TotalSuccessInstitute.com

This release was published on openPR.