Here’s me, doing my bit to participate weekly in Kelly’s Seven Quick Takes over at This Ain’t the Lyceum.

So here’s…

This Week’s Resources for Catholic Trauma Survivors

Takes. Best described as quick. Seven of them.

1. Life Giving Wounds: I recently got to have a chat with a woman who participated in one of their online groups for adult children of divorce, and I learned so much. I’m including this link here, because a lot of us Broken Grown-ups are children of divorce, have found ourselves divorcing and wondering how best to serve children who are wounded by that divorce, and so on. Broken Grown-ups who don’t heal often don’t learn how to live the merciful love that is required to enter marriage without deceit, much less that is required to maintain the sanctification the sacrament demands of those who live it. So. Check out Life Giving Wounds.
2. Show grandparents, the elderly that you care, pope tells young people, by Carol Glatz over at OSV News. See, this one gets tricky when it comes to survivors of family abuse. I gotta be honest here: some of those “abandoned elderly” have kids who don’t want to see them for good and healthy reasons. If your kids make time to visit you and all you do is talk about yourself, that is when you’re not complaining about them… you’re probably lonely for a reason. Yes, Jesus does ask us to visit the sick and imprisoned, but he doesn’t require us to visit those who would only fall into more sin by having their victims be the ones to visit them. Do you think that praying for the repentance of and performing acts of penance on behalf of such elderly people fulfills that divine request to visit?
3. Zac Efron visited Lourdes? So he did. Why am I putting this on a list of articles for trauma survivors. One: I’m an Our Lady of Lourdes fangirl. Two: there are A LOT of stories that float around about how Our Lady of Lourdes shed God’s healing upon survivors of childhood trauma, concentration camp trauma, PTSD. Three: Hey, if Hollywood here can be touched by Our Lady’s message, then even child abusers can have their hearts turned towards repentance. It’s about hope. All about hope.
4. The Atlantic has an article on how one school in Oklahoma is meeting traumatized kids’ learning needs. It’s called the ATLAS program. It sounds really nice. I just always get a little wiggy around schools and teachers taking over the parenting rather than taking Mother Theresa’s approach and supporting the parents directly so they can rebuild their families themselves. Help a child in one building, that kid still has to go home to people who aren’t being helped. To be fair, the article says this program is connecting with parents on some level, but is it enough? Time will tell.
5. I love stories of trauma survivors turning their darkness into light. Here’s another one, this time of a young survivor telling her story so that other children can find Sunflower House (KC MO & KA), a victim advocacy center that softens the landing for victims making their police reports and providing evidence.
6. This Sunday’s gospel journaling page for trauma survivors will come out in a few hours, so please sign up here to get yours free through the end of November, 20202.
7. I also invite you to join in some discussion over on my Broken Grown-up Nation Facebook page.

The story about KC’s Sunflower House got me thinking… if you are a trauma survivor, what would have made it easier for you to tell your story? Make your report? Press charges?

Also, let me know how I may pray for you? Meanwhile, make sure you give Kelly & the SQT crew a look see.