Who We Are
Dear Reader,
This toolkit is a birthday present.
It’s a gift to myself, because I wanted to know what I had learned over my first fifty years, and creating this project was a great way to find out.
And it’s a gift to abused children, because I’ve learned over my twenty years as a psychotherapist what hurt children need the most.
And as a teacher, coach or youth leader, you’re in an ideal position to deliver the gift for me. Here’s why -- Did you know that kids disclose their sexual abuse to school staff almost as often as at home?
That means that you may well be the very first person who hears a child’s secret.
And how others react to a child’s disclosure shapes their future healing. It matters even more than the severity of the abuse itself.
You can set a child on a path of self-knowledge and confidence versus shame and withdrawal.
Why this issue?
Several of those close to me have struggled with the aftermath of sexual abuse, including my husband, who shared his 60 years of recovery in the book, “Tapping into God” by Debbie Belmessieri.
I related to their experiences of trauma, as I myself witnessed a fatal airplane crash at six years old, endured intense sexual harassment as a youth, and survived an attempted murder and sexual assault at 22.
Knowing that bad things happen changes you--
I know that you can’t tell yourself that everything will be okay.
I know that you don’t want to deal with petty complaints.
I know that you feel out of control sometimes.
I found that I knew these things after working as a psychotherapist with hundreds of child and adult sexual abuse survivors over the last twenty years. And knowing how it felt from the inside out helped me to help them get their lives back.
There’s no greater feeling than passing on our gifts to others, especially those that have come from hard-fought battles.
I hope you like our birthday present. It’s free, and I hope you’ll share it.
Kim Baughan Young MFT