Posts in self-care
Intimate Partner Abuse: How Does It Impact You?

Intimate Partner Abuse by men called sex addicts is a taboo topic for the treatment industry and religious-based recovery programs and practitioners. Your response to last week’s blog, however, tells me it’s a topic long overdue for attention. Thank you for your feedback and additional items for the list.

Today I’m talking about the impact and consequences from the abuse we have endured. It’s not a pretty list, either, so please take care of yourself as you read it. Pace yourself. Use mindfulness coping strategies, tapping, and self-soothing strategies along the way. And if your symptoms need urgent attention seek professional help or call a crisis helpline for women.

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Post-traumatic stress, self-careDiane Stricklandpartners are priority, wives and partners pay the price, bearing witness, patriarchal assumptions, telling the truth of your life, tell your story, therapeutic incompetence, intimate partner abuse, intimate partner violence
What Kind of Primary Relationship Does the Treatment Industry Have in Mind for You?

Are you wondering when someone in the treatment program is going to advocate and act for your interests? I’m talking about basic stuff—like what you need to know right now about his sexual and sexualized activities, or responding to your concerns that having him around right now makes you hypervigilant and unable to function, or asking them to recognize that blaming you for his behaviours is particularly heinous, etc.

Well, I hope you are wearing comfortable shoes. It will be a long wait.

The relationship paradigm underneath the prevailing treatment program (as with the many religious groups involved with recovery programs for men called sex addicts) is based on the man’s best interests being served first, foremost, always. It’s not a temporary therapeutic priority. It’s permanent. You don’t get an adult back as a life partner. You get a treatment industry approved non-adult project. And often a mean one, at that.

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therapeutic abuse, making decisions, expectations for recovery, self-careDiane Stricklandpartners are priority, misogynist therapy, therapeutic incompetence, patriarchal assumptions
Mid-week Gotta Share~Retreats Just For YOU!

Tania Rochelle, MS LPC NCC (and most importantly—a guest blogger here!) has launched her website, https://sweetwaterretreats.com and her FB page Sweetwater Retreats. Of particular interest is that she is offering three retreats for wives and partners of sex addicts in three different locations. Registration is limited to eight. As well as being a licensed counsellor and teacher, Tania is a publisher writer who uses all her training to develop tools to treat our trauma symptoms. She is a great listener and will be there for you. Also, every participant will receive a follow-up session with me that is included in the retreat fees. Check out the dates and locations here: https://sweetwaterretreats.com/ Scroll down the homepage for retreat fees and dates.

You also might know Tania from Episode 2, Part 1 of PoSARC’s Survivor series. Lili Bee talks with Tania about her experience extricating herself from her life with a man called a sex addict (not once but twice!) and how she is enjoying a life of freedom now, as well as a new relationship that is positively different from the one she left behind. You can watch that video on http://www.posarc.com/ home page. Just scroll down past a few other videos and there it is!

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Post-traumatic stress, self-care, making decisionsDiane Stricklandretreats for partners, partners are priority
Where Does Hope Fit? And What Is It?

Although I am over nine years from dday, it has been a long journey to find my voice. I well remember putting one foot in front of the other every day as one of the walking dead. I didn’t use the word hope. I just kept going. That was hope. Now, leaving terror behind means I can use my critical faculties to do what they do best—identify, question, analyze and discuss what happened, and choose what happens next.

I seek a just way for us to understand and heal our lives that begins with ourselves as priorities for care, not women to be “managed.“ I will not ignore the domestic violence in our experience or when practitioners add a “therapeutic” version of it to our nightmare. And I keep going. That is still hope.

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Post-traumatic stress, therapeutic abuse, self-careDiane Stricklandhope, suicidality, your strength, hopium, misogynist therapy
You asked for more: Boundaries and Consequences

Your feedback from “The Big Boundary Bluff” (posted two weeks ago) kept me busy for days as messages poured into my inbox. Thank you for taking the time to write. The blog travelled widely and much discussion ensued: women were screaming “YESSSSSSSS!” and panicked men called sex addicts got busy mansplaining boundaries to me—at least till they noticed too many wives and partners on the forums were walking through the prison door they’d just realized had been unlocked all the time. Too late! Too late! They’re getting away!

1.     Why are these men so panicked when you stop making up boundaries to curtail and direct their behaviors?

The moment you stop creating boundaries that men really already know, the jig is up.

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making decisions, Post-traumatic stress, self-care, fake regretDiane Stricklandboundaries, boundaries for partners, sex addicts manipulate, sex addicts tricks, infantilizing sex addicts, partners who challenge sex addicts, partners look after themselves, codependent