Many people are survivors of sexual trauma, either in their childhood years or as adults.

Surviving this very personal assault can create many difficulties in your life - low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, never feeling safe, increased worries, inability to trust and much more. One of the most toxic outcomes of surviving sexual trauma can be the shame that goes along with it.

Shame is one of the most difficult emotions to get through. Things that shame us are difficult to talk about – we fear what others will think if they knew about the memories or activities that bring about our shame – but the way through shame is to talk about it in the presence of a safe, caring other person. At Counseling & Recovery Partners we understand the difficulty of living with sexual trauma and sexual abuse and we create a safe place for you to work through the shame and find peace and freedom.

We struggle living with sexual abuse in our background in different ways. For some, it’s Generalized Anxiety Disorder or heightened awareness and anxiety. For others it may manifest in intrusive thoughts, nightmares, reliving the experience and other symptoms that seem like PTSD. Still other people will unknowingly reenact the trauma (being drawn to people who are similar to your abuser, for example), or possibly be diagnosed with ADHD when the real issue may be something called traumatic orbitohyperactivity – a condition that resembles ADHD but is really your brain’s and body’s ways to stay on high alert and avoid getting hurt again.

If you have sexual abuse or sexual trauma in your history, or if you have some of the symptoms we’ve mentioned here, please reach out and let us help you find the peace and calm that you deserve.