The Kavanagh Sisters Podcast

Episode 9 - How do you deal with your anger?

'Trigger Warning' if you or someone you know has been affected by sexual abuse please remember the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-Hour Helpline 1800 77 8888

*This podcast contains strong language

In this week’s podcast we will be discussing anger and how we each experienced and lived with our own anger.

Anger is often seen as a negative emotion, but it can be a good thing. It can give you a way to express your negative feelings.  Unfortunately for most victims of childhood sexual abuse we tend to either suppress our anger or express it inappropriately.

We grew up in a home that anger was expressed very destructively. Our fathers could explode at any time and over the smallest of things. His temper was so unpredictable, he was verbally abusive and physically threatening. We constantly felt like we were walking on eggshells in the house. We never knew what he would flare up over or where his anger would be directed and so we all seen anger as negative and unhealthy.

We also seen the exact opposite in our mother who totally suppressed all her emotions, and so we never seen a healthy expression of emotions in our home.

We have found that suppressing anger and rage was just as damaging because in order to suppress anger we had to suppress other emotions, it wasn’t possible to pick and choose which emotions we would allow ourselves to feel.

However, over time and after a lot of reflection and discussions we have learned what healthy anger looks and feels like, we no longer fear anger. We understand the role anger played in shielding us from hurt or pain and can now recognise what triggers our anger and a healthy way of expressing how we feel when something happens to upset us.

We hope that sharing our experience will help you understand the importance of examining your thoughts around anger. It is important to be kind to yourself and acknowledge your anger, either expressed or suppressed, has helped you to survive.

Please share and spread the word……

Take care

Joyce, June and Paula

Episode 8 - Trust - What is it?

apologies for the poor sound quality had some technical difficulties

'Trigger Warning' if you or someone you know has been affected by sexual abuse please remember the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-Hour Helpline 1800 77 8888

In today’s podcast we will discuss another of the hidden psychological impacts of childhood sexual abuse, trust.  Although trust may be a small word, the lack of trust in our life has had devastating effect on who and how we were in the world.

We can honestly say we didn’t really understand what trust even looked like. We all had different understanding of what it meant to trust. Because we were abused from childhood and although we knew we weren’t safe at home, in order to survive in that environment, we trusted our father, as mad as that may sound.

Our father was the biggest influence in our lives, he controlled everything in and out of the house. We were dependent on him for everything and mistook this dependency for trust. As bad as he was, he was all we had, and he knew it.

As we grew, our inability to trust people made us suspicious of everyone’s motives and yet, naively, time and time again we willingly let others take control believing they knew better. The constant negative messages our father had fed us went in much deeper that we realised, and it has taken us many years to let them go.

Trust is all about looking inside, trusting in yourself first and letting go of the lies you have been told. It has taken us time, but our understanding of trust and our willingness to challenge our beliefs, has led us to make real connections.  

We hope that sharing our experience will help you understand the importance of examining your thoughts about trust and any issues you may be having. It is important to be kind to yourself and acknowledge you are a survivor and its your strength and courage that has you here today.

Please share and spread the word……

Take care

Joyce, June and Paula

Episode 7 - Child Sexual Abuse and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Child Sexual Abuse and CPTSD.

'Trigger Warning' if you or someone you know has been affected by sexual abuse please remember the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-Hour Helpline 1800 77 8888

In today’s podcast we will discuss Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and how it impacted our lives, which in turn we hope will help you identify what that might look like and understand the many ways the trauma of child sexual abuse may be having a negative impact on your life. 

Most of us have heard of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in connection with the military or those who have suffered or witnessed a tragic event. PTSD occurs in response to an event like, a war, a natural disaster or a car accident. However, more and more victims of childhood sexual abuse are now being diagnosed with CPTSD.

CPTSD occurs as a response to severe and repetitive trauma that happens over a long period of time. It is a condition that can be difficult for victims to recognise because there are a number of effects that develop, like having difficulty controlling emotions, negative self-perception, feelings of helplessness, guilt and shame, hyper-vigilance, difficulty with personal relationships, poor sleep patterns, nightmares and or flashbacks.

Everyone has a unique response to trauma, although there are a lot of similarities to how we respond, we found as we looked closer at our responses just how completely, we were programmed through prolonged exposure to the trauma of our childhood sexual abuse.

Feelings of isolation and loneliness plus the stress of keeping ‘the secret’ put enormous strain on our minds and deeply impacted our ability to reach normal developmental milestones. The trauma we endured made it difficult to experience happiness and joy in our life.

We hope that sharing our experience of living with CPTSD will help others understand why this is a particularly difficult disorder to live with. The saying ‘knowledge is power’ in this case is appropriate. In our opinion, the only way you can let go of all the ways you have been harmed, is to rediscover who you truly are and reclaim it.

Please share and spread the word……

Take care

Joyce, June and Paula

 

Episode 6 - Shame & Guilt - It was never mine to begin with!

'Trigger Warning' if you or someone you know has been affected by sexual abuse please remember the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-Hour Helpline 1800 77 8888

It Was Never Mine To Begin With!

In today’s podcast we will discuss another of the hidden impacts of childhood sexual abuse, shame and guilt.

 We only discovered that shame and guilt are two separate emotions whilst listening to a Tedtalk by Brené Brown (a research professor at the University of Houston) Listening to the Shame.  In the talk Brené explained that shame is all about the self, whereas guilt is about your behaviour.

 We were plagued with shame for our whole lives believing the negative things our father drilled into us. What we do know now is that shame is so destructive and can keep you locked into a cycle of self-judgement and push you towards addictive behaviours to numb the feelings of self-hatred.

 For us, shame and guilt were permanent companions in our lives. They merged together creating a lethal combination that constantly rushed to the surface anytime we even thought of moving forward. The control our father had over us and his ability to embed negative beliefs about our responsibility in the abuse, left lasting scars that has taken years to unravel.

 We each talk about just how the belief that we were inherently bad stopped us engaging in life and encouraged us to see feelings of vulnerability as weak. We also talk about the difficulty of taking responsibility for our behaviours and what we learned from being able to separate out our behaviours from who we are.

 We hope that by sharing our experience of living with shame and guilt that were never ours to begin with, will help other victims to take back their innocence and see the truth of the abuse they suffered.

 Please share and spread the word……

 

Take care

Joyce, June and Paula

 

Episode 5 - Social Anxiety - Everything is Connected

'Trigger Warning' if you or someone you know has been affected by sexual abuse please remember the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-Hour Helpline 1800 77 8888

 

Everything is Connected!

In today’s podcast we will discuss another of the psychological impacts of childhood sexual abuse, social anxiety.

Anxiety is something everyone experiences over the course of their lives but for us, as children and young adults, we never heard anyone discussing it, nor had we any understanding of what we were feeling in most situations.

We believed we were just shy and understood that we took shyness to a whole other level. This allowed our anxiety to determine what, if any social settings we would attend and engage with.  This had a crippling effect on each of us throughout our lives, leaving us further isolated and full of self-judgement and self-hatred.  We could not understand why we felt so uncomfortable when asked to go somewhere or do something that may seem to others, a simple task, but the anxiety that arose in us was overpowering. This ensured we declined more invitations than we accepted.

Knowing that every unfamiliar situation was disproportionately frightening and embarrassing, meant we felt chronically self-conscious and could only conclude that our father was right to constantly tell us we were stupid. Regardless of how much we criticised ourselves, the thought of others doing the same felt life threatening to us.

The saddest thing about it was that although we hated how it made us feel to decline an invitation, the exclusion was easier to live with than joining in or challenging ourselves. We even got to a space that we convinced ourselves that we really didn’t want to attend different events. If we are to be honest with ourselves, we really didn’t see that we had an option.

It was only through researching for our book that we found that our extreme levels of anxiety were yet another impact from our abuse.  We discovered that our behaviour was a normal response to what was happening to us and learning this allowed us over time, to either let it go or be honest with ourselves when declining an invitation.

Please share and spread the word…..

 Take Care

Joyce, June and Paula

Episode 4 - Victim Mentality - Only You Can Change Your Life

'Trigger Warning' if you or someone you know has been affected by sexual abuse please remember the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-Hour Helpline 1800 77 8888

Only You Can Change Your Life

In today’s podcast we will discuss another of the psychological impacts of childhood sexual abuse and Trauma.

We will talk about how we grew up with a mindset that ensured our continued isolation and the belief that no one was ever going to save us. It was only through the writing of our book that we realised its importance and negative influence it held in our lives.   

This way of thinking developed as a result of our abuse and helped to create drama in the most mundane of situations. On some occasions it turned minor issues into catastrophes.

This mentality was born out of feelings of powerlessness, and the belief that those around us didn’t care and could not protect us.  It was understandable to have these feelings in our childhood, but as adults it made it very difficult to trust anyone or make decisions that weren’t coming from a negative place.

This belief system influenced who and how we allowed people into our lives. That old saying the ‘like attracts like’ is true as we tended to attract people who were at the same level of struggle in their lives as we were but neither of us were in a position to identify our behaviours or help each other.  This impacted every relationship in our life and in some cases ensured that we choose people that would not challenge us. On reflection we can see that many times we used our thinking and beliefs to manipulate others to feel pity or sympathy for us, leaving us in a comfortable space where we didn’t have to take responsibility for ourselves.

Our lack of personal responsibility was probably the biggest hurdle we had to face, even making the most basic of decisions was a nightmare for each of us at different stages of our life.  We realise now that without intervention we would never have had any sense of ourselves or our ability, nor would we have ever taken any credit to our achievements and our ability to survive the life we had lived.

We hope that today’s talk helps you to explore how you are with others in your life? Do you have someone that challenges your behaviours and encourages you to examine the emotions that drive the decisions you make on a daily basis? 

We believe when you are armed with the information you can begin to heal and be kinder to yourself for things that were out of your control. 

 

Take Care 

Joyce, June & Paula xxx

Episode 3 - Dissociation - How we Escaped the Pain of Childhood Sexual Abuse

'Trigger Warning' if you or someone you know has been affected by sexual abuse please remember the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-Hour Helpline 1800 77 8888

How We Escaped the Pain of Childhood Sexual Abuse

In today’s podcast we will discuss one of the coping mechanisms or methods we used to survive our experience of childhood sexual abuse.  This particular coping mechanism is very common amongst victims who have experienced abuse or trauma as a child, often providing the only escape available to them.

We will discuss how we subconsciously used this mechanism to escape the daily onslaught of the abuse we endured. We will also look at how the continuous use of this mechanism went on to cause immeasurable damage to our ability to function in a healthy way in life.

Unfortunately, we learned the hard way that by blocking out our painful experiences we also blocked our ability to feel good and positive experiences in our life.  This went on to convince us that there was something wrong with us, confirming our negative beliefs that we were bad people who deserved to be abused.

We hope that today’s talk helps you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and hopefully removes some of the negative self-talk that goes hand in hand with being a victim of childhood sexual abuse. We feel if we had access to this information years ago it would have saved ourselves many years of self- hatred.

We believe when you are armed with the right information you can begin to heal and be kinder to yourself for things that were out of your control. 

Take Care 

Joyce, June & Paula xxx

Episode 2 - Attachment Disorder - Why are Relationships difficult for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

'Trigger Warning' if you or someone you know has been affected by sexual abuse please remember the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-Hour Helpline 1800 77 8888

Why are Relationships difficult for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse 

In today’s podcast we will discuss one of the psychological disorders we developed as a direct result of suffering childhood sexual abuse.

Discovering this disorder confirmed for us the benefits of going back to look at our abuse in order to heal. Because we all struggled with relationships, we had to look at our beliefs and behaviours toward others in our lives which allowed us to identify how they had been and continued to be negatively impacted by our experience of being sexually abused as children.

In this podcast we will discuss the many ways this disorder manifested for each of us in our lives and how, until we became aware, we each accepted our negative beliefs and behaviours as simply part of who we were. 

That was before we discovered the relationship with this disorder and our past abuse.  Only through discussions and research did we realise, once again, absolutely every negative belief, trait and behaviour grew out of our experience of childhood sexual abuse.

We also discovered that of all the psychological impacts of childhood abuse/trauma, this was one of the last and most damaging we identified, simply because it encompassed so much. We also never knew it existed.  Although we each had trust issues and had some understanding of the damage it was doing to our lives, we didn’t know what to do about. 

We hope that today’s talk connects with you and helps you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and just how your abuse has impacted you. We believe when you are armed with the right information you can begin to heal and be kinder to yourself for things that were out of your control. 

As Maya Angelo said, ‘When you know better, you do better.’

Take Care 

Joyce, June & Paula xxx

Episode 1 - Why do we struggle to talk about sexual abuse?

'Trigger Warning' if you or someone you know has been affected by sexual abuse please remember the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre 24-Hour Helpline 1800 77 8888

Welcome to our Count Me In! Podcast.  We are the Kavanagh sisters, Joyce, June and Paula.  We were each sexual abused by our father.  In 1989 we made the decision to bring charges against our father. He was convicted and imprisoned for seven years and released after five.

As this is our first podcast, we would like to kick things off by looking at why people find it so difficult to discuss the issue of childhood sexual abuse and if there is anything, we can do to help make it easier for them.

Discussing this issue is vitally important if we ever hope to create change. We cannot normalise the conversations around childhood sexual abuse if no one is willing to talk about it. 

It is important to say right from the outset that we do not claim to have all the answers, nor are we qualified therapists/counsellors.  Everything we say is simply our opinions based on each of our personal experience of childhood sexual abuse.

To begin with, each week we will choose one of the psychological impacts of childhood sexual abuse that almost destroyed our lives and discuss just how each of these condition/disorder manifested in our lives.

 The research we undertook to write our second book ‘Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse,’ along with the continued work we do on our own healing, puts us in a position to help other victims let go of the pain and suffering caused by this heinous crime.

Childhood sexual abuse no longer needs to be a life sentence. We strongly believe if you are armed with the information to understand just how every part of your life is altered through the experience of childhood abuse/ trauma you can find peace in your life. 

Take Care 

Joyce, June & Paula xxx