Therapy for Mothers
with past childhood wounds in the Carolinas & Illinois.
Specializing in Mothers with Childhood Sexual Abuse
EXCLUSIVELY ONLINE in the Carolinas & Illinois.
We all have a childhood memory of the first time we felt nurtured and seen. Mine was when my father was shining my shoes. The sound of bristles on my burgundy shoes and the smell of shoe polish will forever be embedded in my memory. The senses preserve memories.
Childhood often has a freedom beyond much of what adulthood has to offer. Childhood offers a time to imagine, a moment to create, and limitless opportunities to play.
However, childhood is never perfect. We want our memories to be idyllic, and perhaps there are parts of our memories that are. In my work with women and mothers, we examine parts of our childhood. We work on the shadow work of our childhood, like the feelings of being abandoned and when that all began. An example of an emotional wound is when a father abandons a family. Those feelings of abandonment can scar a child or mother in the moment. The scar can also have lingering effects well into adulthood and beyond.
Every woman and mother has a story to tell.
Creating space for emotions and experiences:
01
Anxiety
This feeling can often manifest in feelings of being overwhelmed or feeling inadequate.
Trauma gets stuck in parts of our brain and body. It can show up as feelings of nervous energy, increased irritability, and difficulty sleeping. Sometimes, it can include habits of eating too much or too little. It may include panic attacks. Sometimes people with anxiety need anti-anxiety medication and they work closely with a psychiatrist to obtain this.
02
Depression
Trauma can also cause an avalanche of other feelings like depression. This includes a significant ongoing and persistent feeling of sadness. Often people with depression have a big change in their feelings: worthlessness, sadness, and possibly difficulty with their daily tasks. This can vary from person to person but sometimes antidepressant medication is necessary.
03
Trauma and Racial Injustice
Women have always dealt with race, class, and gender. It was only in 1974 that The Equal Opportunity Act was passed and a woman could open her own checking account. It seems almost impossible to imagine today how a woman back then lacked freedom with her own money.
Race plays an important role in our independence as women and caregivers. As children, we are all introduced to race first in the context of our families. Sometimes race is introduced in the classroom like having a classmate that has beautiful brown skin or perhaps a peer struggles with reading in English because they were brought up speaking Spanish. Perhaps race comes up on the playground with uninhibited children where they can say hurtful things about another child. I saw this occur when I attended my Catholic grade school. My older sister has a beautiful chocolate skin tone. However, one day bullies on the playground decided to say hurtful things about her skin. It scared me to see her feelings being so hurt that she ran across the street to escape the cruel words. I witnessed first-hand how words matter and that at young ages children show their values. Later on, hushed conversations were had at home with my parents and phone calls were being made to the principal regarding this type of bullying.
