I’m sure you have heard the phrase “laughter is the best medicine”. Well I am a firm believer of this! There is nothing better than a good strong laugh to make everything better. But, what happens when you lose your laughter? One of the many things that can happen when your abused as a child is you lose the ability to enjoy life or laugh. In this blog I want to talk about how we as child sexual abuse survivors can get that back.
For pretty much as young as I can remember I had a hard time being happy on the inside. Now this doesn’t mean I didn’t always have a smile on my face, because I did. I had become an expert at “pretending” to be happy. Which let’s be honest when you are sexually abused you are taught or threatened to hide it from everyone. On the outside I looked like the happiest child in the world, but on the inside it was like I was walking around with a constant weight of depression, anxiety, and hurt on my shoulders. Speeding up to being fifteen is when I told, and slowly but surely some of that weight fell off. I would try my best to enjoy every moment because it felt different, I felt lighter and this caused me to find laughter even in the little things. Have you ever talked to someone who has had a near death experience? Most of them after their experience look at life with a new perspective. It is the same concept for the abused, life is so different when you become a “survivor” not a “victim”. Now this doesn’t mean that we don’t have bad or rough days, it just means those days become easier. Now when I look in the mirror, even on the bad days, my smile is real. I can feel it inside that I am happy, I enjoy life, and I found my laughter.
My advice:
-Be around people that bring you true happiness on the inside.
-Do something for yourself once a week.
-Watch and listen to things that bring a smile to your face and make you laugh
For pretty much as young as I can remember I had a hard time being happy on the inside. Now this doesn’t mean I didn’t always have a smile on my face, because I did. I had become an expert at “pretending” to be happy. Which let’s be honest when you are sexually abused you are taught or threatened to hide it from everyone. On the outside I looked like the happiest child in the world, but on the inside it was like I was walking around with a constant weight of depression, anxiety, and hurt on my shoulders. Speeding up to being fifteen is when I told, and slowly but surely some of that weight fell off. I would try my best to enjoy every moment because it felt different, I felt lighter and this caused me to find laughter even in the little things. Have you ever talked to someone who has had a near death experience? Most of them after their experience look at life with a new perspective. It is the same concept for the abused, life is so different when you become a “survivor” not a “victim”. Now this doesn’t mean that we don’t have bad or rough days, it just means those days become easier. Now when I look in the mirror, even on the bad days, my smile is real. I can feel it inside that I am happy, I enjoy life, and I found my laughter.
My advice:
-Be around people that bring you true happiness on the inside.
-Do something for yourself once a week.
-Watch and listen to things that bring a smile to your face and make you laugh