Websites and Videos
We’ve compiled this list of excellent online resources. If you think we missed anything, let us know.
Restore Love
Our mission is to give young women the community and tools they need to start their healing journey from child sex abuse and addictive pornography use.
Mind & Spirit – Dr. Gregory Bottaro
An online magazine that covers the intersection of psychology and faith. While aimed at religious believers, the site welcome seekers and non-believers—anyone searching for insights and inspiration about mental health, the human person, and the search for genuine happiness.
http://mindspirit.com/author/greg-bottaro/
Healing Voices
Excellent website and digital magazine created by a dedicated group of survivors abused by clergy.
From their website:
Our mission is to reconcile our faith with the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual harm done to us. We wish to reach out to all who have suffered from any tragic event that has left your hearts broken and your faith shaken, just like ours. Together, we can raise our voices, tell our stories and provide healing information to help make our Church and society a better place for all.
Website: https://thehealingvoices.org/
Understanding Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
If you’ve had an experience that’s left you feeling helpless and out of control, you may have been traumatized. Psychological trauma can leave you struggling with upsetting emotions, memories, and anxiety that won’t go away. You may also feel numb, disconnected, and unable to trust other people. When bad things happen, it can take a while to get over the pain and feel trusting and safe again. But with the right self-help strategies and support, you can speed your recovery. Whether the trauma happened years ago or yesterday, you can make healing changes and move on.
Sources, symptoms and help for trauma:
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/emotional-and-psychological-trauma.htm
Supporting someone with PTSD: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/ptsd-in-the-family.htm
What is EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy?
With trauma, one moment becomes “frozen in time,” and remembering a trauma may feel as bad as going through it the first time because the images, sounds, smells, and feelings haven’t changed. This is due to the maladaptive storage of memories that are dysfunctionally linked within emotions, cognitions, somatasensory (body sensation), and temporal systems. As a result, memories become susceptible to dysfunctional recall with respect to time, place, and context and may be experienced in fragmented form. Such memories have a lasting negative effect that interferes with the way a person sees the world and the way they relate to other people.
The goal of EMDR therapy is to access and process these distressing memories, reducing their lingering effects and allowing clients to develop more adaptive coping mechanisms. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves towards mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wounds fester and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. With proper guidance and EMDR sessions conducted with a trained EMDR specialists, clients can allow their natural healing process to occur.
Simple overview: What is EMDR?
Website: http://www.emdr.com/
Fr. Mike Schmitz
Fr. Mike Schmitz is a priest in the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota. He’s the chaplain at the UMD Newman Center. He has a great website, YouTube Videos, and a weekly podcast.
Rachel’s Vineyard
A Rachel’s Vineyard post-abortive weekend retreat is a chance to get away from all the daily pressures of work and family and focus on this painful time in your life through a supportive and non-judgmental process. The time away provides an opportunity to deeply enter the grieving process and identify all the ways your abortion may have affected you. This pain and suffering is then transformed through a spiritual process utilizing rituals, meditations, a memorial service and Mass of Resurrection.
Website: http://www.sttimothymesa.org/rachels-vineyard/
Website: http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/weekend/sites.aspx?s=AZ
Mantle of Hope
Mantle of Hope is a confidential, safe place where anyone who has experienced abuse or an abortion can come for understanding, support, healing, prayer and love. Meetings are monthly at 9:30am and are hosted at the Aid to Women Center office.
Healing is a process. It takes time and sometimes we don’t even recognize we need healing. Come and see. We are here to support you during the journey. Know you are already in our prayers.
Diocese of Phoenix – Office of Child and Youth Protection
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted encourages anyone who has been a victim of child sexual abuse by any employee of the Roman Catholic Church to please come forward by contacting the Office of Child and Youth Protection. Support and guidance is provided for reporting to Church and civic authorities and also counseling resources.
Website: http://dphx.org/youth-protection/