The Sexual Healing Journey : A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse (Revised Edition)

Customer Reviews

I have sometimes minimized my own experience because it only happened once and my perpetrator was a stranger. I have felt that perhaps the degree to which this has effected my life is due to my own defect. After reading this book I understand why individual reactions can vary widely. I feel more entitled to my pain and have placed blame where it belongs, on the perpetrator and the people who chose not to help me after the fact. After years of seeing all men as perpetrators, my heart has softened. I realize that many men have been victimized just as I have and that our cultural ideas about what it means to be a man add an extra measure of pain to their experience. I recognized myself in nearly every paragraph, sometimes every sentence, and finally accept that all the things I've experienced, all the difficulties, are real and are there for a reason, not just because I'm weak and unable to "Get over it and leave the past in the past."

After hundreds of hours of counseling, seminars, and books I was nearly finished grieving over the loss of my innocence and my childhood at the age of five, but I was left with one question, "Now what?" This book has helped me dare to hope, that I may be able to reclaim my sexuality as a genuine part of myself, something healthy and warm and joyful. It has given me some specific tools for getting there and it has been an invaluable ingredient in my ongoing recovery.

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