Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 2396

Tonight's special guest is Valerie Slininger (Val) from Point Pleasant, New Jersey, a survivor of emotional and psychological abuse/neglect and from it developed CPTSD. She's at a place in her healing where she wants to share her story because her mom just passed. "I am the daughter of a sexual abuse survivor who suffered her entire life with unresolved trauma," Val says. "She was an angry, broken woman, who entered into her marriage with no tools for survival. She and my father had a volatile marriage, and my mother screamed and yelled, and put pressure on me to be her happiness, but was never satisfied with me in any way. She took her anger out on me, not so much in a physically abusive way, but what I now understand was emotionally abusive. I left home in trauma myself, as my parents separated for the last time when I was 18. I jumped into marriage at 21, had babies at 22, 24, 26 and 27, and then became chronically ill." She goes on, "I suffered with anxiety and depression all of my adult life, and then finally 2 1/2 years ago became nearly suicidal. I was blessed to enter into a therapeutic relationship 2 years ago." Val concludes, “I have been working hard with my therapist to face and deal with those things that have caused the initial trauma. I am learning tools to manage the triggering and I am well on the path of my healing journey. My mother never found healing. I chose to bring her into my home for hospice and became her primary caregiver. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, because it was such a toxic relationship, but I felt necessary for me to do. I am processing a very complicated grief now, and am thankful to have had the strength to endure. God is the source of my strength, and is my hope for complete healing.”