Somerset Survivors

Many survivors, including myself, finds it difficult to manage their emotions.  That may sound a little strange manging your emotions don’t they just happen after all? Don’t we just experience them?

Well yes and no. You see most people live within a fairly tight emotional boundary, usually not to happy or too sad, too excited or too bored. These everyday emotions can it seems often even go unnoticed until somebody else mentions them, the “you look a bit down today, is everything OK” type conversation

The majority of people have learnt, in very much the same way people learn to walk or to talk, buy living the experience, as children, in an environment that allows them to both experience the emotions in a safe space but also one the by its nature helps to moderate the emotional swings. Parents calm the scared child and excide the bored one.

For survivors of childhood abuse, particularly those where the abuse happened within the family setting, the story is sadly very different. Often, we never felt that safe guiding hand, the calming voice or touch so in alter life emotional responses can be far from regulated.

Read more »