Stacie Glass - Life After Sexual Abuse: A Practical Healing Toolkit to Reconnect Mind, Body & Soul

Experiencing sexual abuse, rape and childhood sexual abuse is life changing. Many survivors struggle to acknowledge what has happened to them and how to cope with the aftermath of abuse. There is not a path to follow that suits everyone, there is no prescription that can wipe away the memories. As a survivor of incest myself, I could not make sense of what had happened to me and why. Now as an adult of mature years I have learnt that my journey is unique and my search for healing is never complete, but it is my journey and I am content with that.

In this book, you have found a friend. Stacie shares with you her story and she takes you gently by the hand through where she has been and where you may be just starting. There is no path you cannot travel, as she explains ways for you to deal with the memories that hold you back.

Each chapter opens up to speak to you as you are now, but also as the person who experienced a terrible trauma. Stacie reaches out to you gently, describing ways that have helped her when she was overwhelmed. She connects with the inner child who was not loved or cared for. Perhaps remembering the child you were is too difficult; in this book you will find a way to connect and to love that little person. You may wish to read this book and then to put it down to come back to sometime later. Stacie gives you permission to do this. In fact, the key to your healing is to recognise that you have the power and the right to make your own way through.

In my life as a survivor, a midwife and a psychotherapist, I have been privileged to walk with many survivors on their path to healing. I have witnessed the desperate, raw emotions of someone standing strong in the memories of their past. This book will be an important resource for survivors and therapists. However, it is more than a toolkit for recovery. It is a book that is full of love and hope. It is a love letter to you for all that you lost and all that you were denied. Stacie has been on her own journey of healing, and she is holding out her arms for you now to follow your own path to healing.

Dr Kathryn Gutteridge

What does life after sexual abuse mean to you? What would it look like?

What does healing feel like and how will you know you are healing?

When I started my healing journey a decade ago, there werent any books that described life after sexual abuse and what could help in the mammoth task to feel normal again. I have come to realise that these past 10 years have been the start of the journey to call back the pieces of myself; I am not broken and I am worthy of a wholesome and fulfilling life.

I am enough exactly as I am, and so are you.

What does healing mean? We will explore this throughout this book with ways you can begin healing or take you further on your path. This book is intended to support and encourage you to learn what feels right for you. I encourage self-inquiry to find out what healing means to you. The general meaning of the word is the process of becoming well again. My interpretation of the word is bringing balance to mind, body and soul, and to know and understand ourselves with acceptance, forgiveness and compassion.

You are not what happened to you.

You are so much more and you deserve so much more.

It takes a lot of courage and sometimes several attempts to begin the healing journey. I know from my personal experience that avoiding the shadow and pain of our trauma only enables it to keep showing up, getting louder and louder until we listen to what it wants us to hear, see and feel. If we dont listen, it shows up repeatedly, ever more present in ways that cannot be ignored.

Healing happens when we face the shadow and triggers of the trauma, moving through the pain, the pattern and the story, and choosing a new direction. Healing is a process, one we cant predict nor control but is one that is unique to us and our individual needs. Healing happens when we choose to want more, choosing ourselves.

Dear reader,

I see you. Thank you for choosing to read this labour of love and healing.

It is my hope that you find something within these pages to help you on your journey.

These pages begin by describing my journey from feeling lost, numb, broken, shameful and guilty because I was sexually abused and raped aged 11-13. At aged 26, I began my healing journey to break down those burdens I carried, to set myself free and to come home to myself. I didnt realise then that I was on a self-discovery expedition but that led me to these pages now; with a passion to speak up loudly and clearly for others who dont feel yet able to speak their truth. If you are reading this, you too may be on this tumultuous path or maybe you are supporting someone who has been sexually abused. It isnt easy, so my advice is that you take this book at your own pace. One thing I learned early on in my therapy was that I didnt hold myself with care or love, and the past 10 years have been about learning how to do that. And so, my wish for you is that if this sounds familiar, this is permission to hold yourself with care and love because you so deserve it.

You are more courageous than you know.

Pause when you need to.

Stop when you need to.

Come along with me and I will help you feel hopeful and inspired to heal for you you are worthy and you deserve the life you dream of. Healing after any trauma can feel like standing at the bottom of a mountain, staring up, unable to see the summit and feeling like getting there is impossible. Im here to tell you that taking that first step up the mountain is what healing is. Wanting more for yourself is healing. We each have our own mountain and the landscape will be different for each of us. How one person takes the journey is unique in every sense because how they got to the bottom of the mountain was unique to them.