Starting Your Healing Journey: Where to Go for Help When You’re Finally Ready to Heal Childhood Sexual Abuse
There comes a quiet moment in the lives of survivors when a whisper rises from deep inside: it’s time for starting your journey to healing. The process of starting your journey to healing can look different for everyone, but that gentle call is universal.
I can’t keep living like this.
Not because anything dramatic is happening. Often the outside looks fine, often it is very successful, but the inside is heavy like unexplained sadness, collapsed confidence, or anxiety that seems like it comes from nowhere. It can look like choosing partners who don’t really choose you back or feeling like you’re still carrying something that happened long ago
Maybe you’ve doubted yourself for years.
Maybe you’ve told yourself, “It wasn’t that bad.”
But something in you know.
Something happened.
And it left marks.
And it’s time.
In fact, if you’re here, it means you’re already taking the first crucial step: awareness.
At this critical threshold — where your inner truth first rises to the surface — is where we begin to understand patterns like misplaced trust and why we don’t trust and how past experiences shaped the way you relate, protect yourself, and open or close your heart. The Real First Step: Telling Yourself the Truth
Healing doesn’t often begin with confrontation or family drama or digging up memories. Healing begins in the smallest, most private place inside you. It begins with a sentence no one hears but you:
I was sexually abused as a child. And it mattered.
You don’t have to tell anyone else today.
>You don’t have to know the whole story.
>You don’t need to have perfect memories.
You only need to start with honest inside yourself. That alone is a massive act of self-love.
How to Know if CSA is Still Affecting Your Life
Many survivors don’t connect the dots. They think they have “relationship problems,” Or “depression,” or “bad luck with men.” They’re solving the problems, not roots.
Awareness is the doorway.
If any of these experiences resonate, the past may still be living in your present.
- chronic self-doubt
- depression that feels heavier than your life situation
- shame that appears out of nowhere
- flashbacks or shutdown during consensual sex
- choosing unavailable partners
- fear of intimacy or avoidance
- dissociation (leaving your body when overwhelmed)
- people-pleasing
- carrying responsibility that was never yours
- feeling fundamentally wrong, bad, or unlovable
None of this is weird or baffling. They are normal trauma responses. They are safety strategies that were smart when you were young. And they can change.
Books That Light the Path
Books are often one of the first companions on this journey. Not because they fix you, but because they help you understand you. Here are the books I recommend most at the beginning of the journey, and why:
The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis
This is where I began my healing journey in the 80’s. It’s gentle and fierce, validating and practical. It names what you’re feeling before you even know how to say it.
The Courage to Heal Workbook by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis
If you’re doing this alone, this book gives you structure. It’s like a guided hand.
Freedom from Shame: Trauma, Forgiveness, and Healing from Sexual Abuse by Leila Reyes
This book is written from my lived experience of healing, reconciling with the person who harmed me, and guiding women into freedom. This is not a memoir, it’s a guide. I share the tools that worked for me, and the ones I now use with my clients every day.
What’s True About You by Katherine Woodward Thomas
This book shows how to shift the identity that gets formed by trauma. I use Katherine’s work with my clients because it’s gentle, precise, and transformational.
If this resonates, trauma informed coaching can help you feel safe in love again.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van Der Kolk
If you want to understand why your body reacts the way it does, this book is essential.
Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors by Janine Fisher
Janine Fisher integrates ‘parts work’ with a somatic approach to explain why survivors feel like they have different versions of themselves inside. She guides you to meet all your parts with respect instead of judgment.
Don’t overwhelm yourself by reading everything at once. Just pick one book to start with.
Therapies & Modalities that Help
Talk therapy is a great start. A therapist can help put language to your experience while witnessing and supporting your healing journey. It’s important to remember that CSA also lives in the body. To heal fully, we often need modalities that include the body. Here are the approaches I trust most:
Hakomi Therapy is mindfulness-bases, gentle, and body centered making it ideal for CSA because it works with the beliefs and sensations that formed early in life.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) works with the different “parts” of our psyche including protector parts, young parts, and adult parts. This therapy model shows you how to speak with all your parts with compassion.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) Helps to release stored trauma from the nervous system in tiny, manageable pieces. I have not personally experienced this therapy, but it has benefited many.
Eye Movement Desensitization & Rapid Processing (EMDR) is very effective for many survivors. While this therapy has not been personally transformational, I know it’s been hugely helpful for others.
Remember, you don’t need to choose perfectly, but just choose one.
How to Find a Therapist You Can Trust
Here are some trusted directories that you can use to find a therapist.
- Hakomi.org
- EMDRIA.org
- IFS Institute Therapist Directory
- Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Directory
- Psychology Today (with trauma filters)
Remember that there are a lot of therapists out there and some are better than others; you will resonate more with some than you do others. If this happens, it doesn’t mean you’re not getting it or you’re not safe, it means you need to look for another therapist until you find one that you do resonate with.
Somatic Tools (When the Body Feels Like a Stranger)
If being in your body feels terrifying, confusing, or impossible, that is NORMAL. Dissociation is when your mind leaves your body because the body feels overwhelming to be in. This is not a flat. It’s a survival strategy.
You can begin very gently with trauma-sensitive yoga or simply breathing conscious slow, deep breaths. Once you’ve become aware of dissociating, you can being yourself back by noticing your feet on the floor or simply look around the room naming what you see.
Your body isn’t the enemy. It has protected you for years. Now you can update the safety strategies for your adult life.
How to Start Working with Leila
The most powerful place to begin is with the Pattern Breakthrough Session. This is a deep, and stabilizing private session with me that guides you in the direction of your intention. I’ve waked this road, so I know how to guide you through it.
Take One Small Step
Healing from CSA is not a sprint. It doesn’t happen none conversation or one meditation or one book. It happens through tiny, brave choices. Here’s what I want you to do next:
- Pick one book from the list.
- Choose one modality to explore.
- Take one small action.
- If you resonate with me, schedule a Pattern Breakthrough Session.
Remember, don’t do this simply because you feel broken. You deserve a life that feels like your own.
You Are Not Broken
I want to leave you with this same message. You’re NOT broken. You’re NOT damaged goods, It’s NOT too late, You’re NOT too much, You are a woman on the edge of her own becoming.
I am living proof that healing is possible:
- I Am Whole
- I Am Thriving
- I am in Healthy, loving relationships
- I am free from shame
Truly, so much of that began with a quiet moment, just like this one, when I affirmed to myself: I am whole, I am thriving, and I am free from shame.
I am ready.
