The Survivor’s Experience: Healing From Hurt & Trusting Professionals
Virtual Statewide Survivor Conference
Welcome!
On behalf of the Survivor Advisory Committee, we thank you for joining the first Partnership Statewide Survivor Conference. Together with over 300 other participants, you heard directly from survivors about strategies they have used to find healing during their journeys through 3 phases of the Survivor Spectrum.
Through 8 workshops over 2 days, you we learned about what the Survivor Spectrum looks and feels like for those who experience violence, and strategies for survivors to address the feelings of “guilt or shame” when the process is not a neat, linear healing trajectory.
Healing is not a linear process. Behaviors and strategies at each of the following stages can and do look different for every survivor. However, there are some general commonalities in each of the phases that is highlighted in each of the workshops:
- Victim Mentality – feelings of anger, blame and shame, denial that abuse is occurring, self- isolation, defeat
Behaviors: mistrust of service providers, thoughts of self-harm or suicide - Survivor Mode – Addiction, Lack of Resources, Mental Health Conditions, Revictimization, Self-Sabotaging Patterns, Unhealthy Relationships, cause harm to others)
- Thriving from Trauma – connection, community building entrepreneurship, mentorship, public speaking, lobbying for policy change, youth engagement, writing.
Community Agreements
Agreements are an aspiration, or collective vision, for how we want to be in relationship with one another. They are developed in part by the group, so we can hold ourselves accountable for our behaviors.
We will co-create community agreements on what every person needs and commits to each other in order to feel safe, supported, open, productive and trusting… so that we can be fully present with each other, learn from one another and take care of ourselves.
Why do community agreements matter?
We cannot tell our stories of survival in a hostile, disrespectful, or undermining group culture.
Some of the most critical conversations teams need to have are emotional, painful, and uncomfortable, but we will not engage or make ourselves vulnerable without emotional safety and trust.
To engage in the co-development of community agreements, consider this question:
“What do you need from every person in this group in order to feel safe (not the same as comfortable), supported, open, present and SO THAT we can hear and tell our own stories of survival and healing?
Workshops for Survivors, by Survivors
Find recording links and workshop information by clicking on the day and time below!
Saturday, June 5th
10:00am -11:00am: Opening Keynote
Presented by the Survivor Advisory Committee & Partnership Staff
11:30am – 12:15pm: Victim Mentality Track (2 Workshops)
Hyper-Sexuality Post-Rape: The Duality of Coping & Building Sexual Intimacy
Presented by Angela Kim
This workshop aims to deconstruct misconceptions around hypersexuality after experiencing rape or sexual assault. The popular narrative regarding survivors of sexual violence is that post-rape, they may have a hard time being sexually intimate with partners or themselves due to the trauma they’ve experienced. While this is common and absolutely true, I aim to create greater awareness of hypersexuality as a trauma coping method.
Surviving Sexual Assault: Healing From Isolation
Presented by Yee Xiong
Sexual assault is traumatizing and a survivor’s healing journey can just be as painful as they recount and relive their experiences. Often times, survivors can isolate themselves from their community due to a lack of trust, anxiety, or PTSD. As advocates and professionals in the sexual assault awareness and prevention field, one must consider the long-term plans of how to integrate survivors back into society and empower survivors, especially after providing intervention services and resources.
This session was not recorded.
12:45pm –1:30pm: Survivor Mode Track (2 Workshops)
Ready, Set, Stop. Become aware of your inner dialogue
Presented by Ferial Nijem
Become aware of your inner dialogue. This is your roadmap to freedom and liberation. When you hear a voice in you head, you are hearing yourself think. You’re not hearing that with your ears, it’s your awareness.
When you become aware that you are awareness itself, you become less identified and attached with the world of effects and circumstances and situations and people and places and things and chatter outside of yourself. As you become less identified with what has forged itself as your identity based on a reaction to those things I mentioned before, you begin to be free and liberate yourself from the hamster wheel of victim consciousness.
This is a bold move! This daily practice allows you to align with the presence and the power of your true self! And let me tell you, your TRUE SELF is dynamic, magnetic and more brilliant than you could ever imagine!
Retrain Your Brain: Breaking Patterns, Cycles and Chains
Presented by Tiffany Duvernay-Smith
This workshop will explore:
- Survivorship and shifting from victim mode to thriving in empowerment
- Stigma reduction. Evolving by accessing mental health services such as individual and group therapy
- The relationship between thoughts, mood and behavior, our own self-talk and self-judgment. Actively participating in our thinking and breaking patterns
- Linking Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Substance Use, or any form of trauma and any form of unhealthy coping. Survivors are not alone in their unhealthy coping/choices. Discussing healthy self-nurturing as a tool
- How our brain responds to trauma, common trauma responses, healing from trauma
- The power of storytelling and public speaking. Inner work and self-love assist in shifting from a victim mentality to being able to engage in advocacy that supports other survivors. Self-advocacy and system advocacy as forms of recovery
- Trusting professionals using spiritual tools while navigating systems
- Healthy relationships, my marriage, hope and possibilities
1:30pm – 2:00 pm: Networking Session
Join us for an informal networking event where you can meet the committee members, workshop presenters, and fellow conference participants.
This session was not recorded.
Sunday, June 6th
10:00am – 10:30am: Opening Keynote
Presented by the Survivor Advisory Committee & Partnership Staff
10:45am – 11:30am: Thriving from Trauma Track (2 Workshops)
Thriving: The Horizon
Presented by Symone Fairchild
Given the trauma that arises as a result of domestic violence, it is almost impossible for a survivor to fathom a reality outside of their own present environment. This is where outside, trusted influence comes in. Although I have always known that thriving existed, it wasn’t even in my scope of consciousness until a fellow survivor-friend gave me a bit of perspective. It completely and instantaneously widened my perspective and changed what was on my horizon. I began to put the puzzle pieces together of what my future was going to be and it certainly wasn’t just surviving! Thriving is THE reality for EVERYONE and it is individual to everyone. In order for a survivor to realize this, they must at least have the following: a trusted “village”, be pretty clear about personal dreams/goals, and have someone to lead them through their journey by the hand if need be (this could be a higher power OR a trusted mentor). This workshop will help you understand what thriving looks like for you.
Creative Healing with Purpose
Presented by LaRae Cantley
Join in an interactive discussion infused with creative artistic expression to encourage supportive social structures to center healing for survivors and partnerships with service providers in the overall treatment plan.
Starting with the awareness of where one is in their healing from the victim mentality aspect and some practical tools to “take care” while navigating the stages of grief * anger* blame* shame*denial*isolation*mis/distrust*and self-harm
Then engaging providers and survivors to partner together while navigating the journey of survivor mode through the healing center trauma-responsive education to understand the importance of social supports in connection to*Addiction*resources* understanding the survivor spectrum, mental and emotional health, and the patterns and behaviors that cause revictimization self-sabotage
Leading to leveraging your lived experience (skills gifts and talents) to build community, engage youth, build economic opportunity and systems change!!
12:00pm – 12:45pm: Survivor Advisory Committee Activity
This lightly facilitated workshop will be an opportunity for all attendees to engage directly with the Survivor Advisory Committee. We will be taking questions from the audience via chat and sharing how the committee has continued to work together in the last 2 years.
1:00pm – 2:00pm: Survivor Advisory Committee Panel & Closing
Healing isn’t linear and triggers happen, which is why normalizing conversations about The Survivor Spectrum – the ebb and flow between Victim Mentality, Survivor Mode, and Thriving from Trauma – can help professionals prevent re-victimization to survivors and provide services which support their resilience. Join The Partnership’s Survivor Advisory Committee – Claudia Bolanos, Laura Heraldez, and Marcella Maggio – for this informative and foundational panel discussion about The Survivor Spectrum, led by Jacquie Marroquin.
