My recommended resources of 2022 for survivors of trauma and abuse. Feel free to share this resource with friends and family. The descriptions are directly from the resources or creators - both to save time and to ensure the resource is described the way it is meant to be. The work I do is focused on developmental trauma, queerness, cults and fundamentalist religion. Therefore, the resources I recommend, come from that viewpoint.
BOOKS
1. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson (Trauma) In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect, and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents’ emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you’ll learn how to create positive, new relationships so you can build a better life. Discover the four types of difficult parents: The emotional parent instills feelings of instability and anxiety The driven parent stays busy trying to perfect everything and everyone The passive parent avoids dealing with anything upsetting The rejecting parent is withdrawn, dismissive, and derogatory
2. No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz (Trauma) Is there just one “you”? We’ve been taught to believe we have a single identity, and to feel fear or shame when we can’t control the inner voices that don’t match the ideal of who we think we should be. Yet Dr. Richard Schwartz’s research now challenges this “mono-mind” theory. “All of us are born with many sub-minds—or parts,” says Dr. Schwartz. “These parts are not imaginary or symbolic. They are individuals who exist as an internal family within us—and the key to health and happiness is to honor, understand, and love every part.”
3. Arousal: The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies by Michael J. Bader (Sexuality) In this fascinating and provocative book, Dr. Michael Bader offers a groundbreaking new theory of sexual desire. Drawing on his twenty-five years as a psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, Dr. Bader demonstrates that rather than being programmed by biology or society, sexual fantasies and preferences are really psychological antidotes to unconscious dangers. Armed with this novel theory, men and women will no longer need to feel ashamed about what arouses them or confused about what arouses others.
4. Rough Paradise by Alec Butler (Queer) Born with an Intersex condition in a rough, working-class city, the harassment and hate Terry Tomey experiences for being bi-gendered and Two-Spirit drives them to the brink of suicide--yet they are saved by the love and acceptance of Darla. The two incur the wrath of their families and their community as they fall in love and graphically explore their queer sexuality. Forcefully separated, they spend the next twenty years trying to find each other and to uncover the real truth as to why they were kept apart.
5. Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing by Lauren Hough (Cults/ Religion/ Queer) As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe--to Germany, Japan, Texas, Ecuador--but it wasn't until her mother finally walked away that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond "The Family.”
6. The Satanism Scare (Social Institutions and Social Change) by James T. Richardson (Cults/ Religion) An anthology of essays describing major events during the 1980s Satanic Panic.
7. Fucking Girls by Clementine Morrigan (Trauma/ Queer) Fucking Girls is a collection of writing about dyke desire, bisexual anxiety, and asking if a cute girl wants to kiss you. It's graphic sex scenes and reflections on feelings. It's about scissoring, eating pussy, sucking cock, bdsm, fucking, and flirting. It's a one handed read for perverted dykes who don't want to feel ashamed of their queer desire anymore, and it's a container that holds space for all the shame and anxiety we do feel due to compulsory heteronormativity, homophobia, biphobia, and sexual trauma. This writing appears in other places and is presented here as a thematic collection for bisexual dykes and those who share similar feelings.
8. Love Without Emergency 2 by Clementine Morrigan (Trauma/ Queer) What if you're polyamorous, anxious as fuck with one partner, and unable to totally let other partners in? What if you have complex ptsd and feel fucking insane but you are committed to being poly? What if, years in, you still get nervous system flooded sometimes? What if you are realizing that you are way more avoidant than you thought? What if you want more intimacy and simultaneously push it away? What if your anxiety is part of your avoidance? What if you have sexual trauma and feel sex repulsed sometimes, and polyamory increases a sense of pressure to have a lot of sex?
Love Without Emergency #2 explores these and many other questions. It's a reflection on navigating polyamory with attachment issues and trauma, and it goes deeper than the standard issues with jealousy. It's about surrendering control, facing ambivalence, and listening to the 'no'. It's about loving someone who loves others, and dating when dating is hard. It's a love letter to the process of learning to love without emergency, through the mess and confusion of complex trauma and disorganized attachment.
9. Almost Ferral by Gemma Hickey (Queer/ Trauma/ Fundamentalist religion) On July 2, 2015, influential social activist Gemma Hickey began a 908-kilometer walk across the island of Newfoundland to raise awareness and funds for survivors of religious institutional abuse. Almost Feral celebrates the community of support that gathered around this journey and recounts Hickey's remarkable story of self-discovery which led to the realization that they are transgender. In this thought-provoking and wide-ranging autobiography, Hickey counters memories of sexual assault, bullying, and depression with inspiring reflections on faith, love, family, individual and communal identity, sex, gender, and acceptance. Through complex feelings of empathy and solitude, weakness and strength, suffering and recovery, Gemma Hickey's Almost Feral chronicles a journey from one side of an island to the other side of personal identity--charting an unknown territory where one's body becomes the map that leads to home.
PODCASTS
1. Why Are People Into That?! Exploring sex, kink, gender, and love with Tina Horn.
2. Ask a Sub with Lina Dune Ask a Sub is an advice podcast for the kink-curious to take themselves from dreaming to doing. Our host Lina Dune is bringing wellness kink to the masses, and equipping every would-be kinkster with the tools to become their own BDSM BFF.
3. Multiamory Multiamory offers support and advice for modern relationships. Whether you are monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we’re here for you. If you want to deepen your current relationships, find your ideal romantic partners, or develop a better understanding of yourself, then you’ve come to the right place. Check out our podcast to discover more!
4. She Explores Come find inspiration with us in the outdoors! Interviews, in-the-field recordings, and listener submissions make up a tapestry of episodes covering themes such as solo hiking and camping, entrepreneurship, outdoor equity, aging, conservation, motherhood, chronic illness, and more as they intersect with outdoor experiences. Hosted by Gale Straub. (I also highly recommend the website of this podcast!).
5. CBC Uncover: Season 6 - Satanic Panic
6. Conspirituality: A podcast which discusses cults, religions and the world of “spirituality”.
7. You’re Wrong About: Sarah is a journalist obsessed with the past. Every week she reconsiders a person or event that has been miscast in the public imagination.
8. Stuck Not Broken: A therapist applies Polyvagal Theory and Attachment Theory in simple and approachable ways for survivors
WEBSITES
https://shrimpteeth.com Shrimp Teeth is a queer, kinky, polyam platform that encourages folks to reclaim and explore their sexuality and relationships. Shrimp Teeth aims to provide accurate and accessible information for folks who are curious to learn about ENM (ethical non-monogamy) / CARS (consensually alternative relationship structures), want to understand their sexuality through BDSM philosophies, or learn to write erotica. Open-minded folks only! They’ve got tons of free and affordable resources on their website!
https://www.justinlmft.com/ : Creator of the Stuck Not Broken podcast which applies polyvagal theory in simple and approachable ways for survivors. I highly recommend both his podcast and his website which is full of free resources.
https://www.sexandu.ca/ : A website full of free resources around queerness and sexual health.
https://www.sugarbutch.net/ : Free queer erotica
https://www.torontobinet.org/ : We provide a community where bisexuals, pansexuals, omnisexual, queer, 2 spirit, fluid and other bi+/mspec people, as well as those questioning their sexuality, can share diverse perspectives and common experiences.
Honourable Mentions from 2021
1. PolySecure by Jessica Fern Polyamorous psychotherapist Jessica Fern extends attachment theory into the realm of consensual nonmonogamy. Using her nested model of attachment and trauma, she expands our understanding of how emotional experiences can influence our relationships. Then, she sets out six specific strategies to help you move toward secure attachments in your multiple relationships. Polysecure is both a theoretical treatise and a practical guide. 2. The Polyvagal Theory by Deb Dana *NOTE: This book is written for therapists, however is very accessible to folks who are not therapists, but survivors of trauma who want to understand the theory and how trauma impacts nervous system development* This book offers therapists an integrated approach to adding a polyvagal foundation to their work with clients. With clear explanations of the organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory, this complex theory is translated into clinician and client-friendly language. Using a unique autonomic mapping process along with worksheets designed to effectively track autonomic response patterns, this book presents practical ways to work with clients' experiences of connection. Through exercises that have been specifically created to engage the regulating capacities of the ventral vagal system, therapists are given tools to help clients reshape their autonomic nervous systems. 3. Author: Vivek Shraya Vivek Shraya is an artist whose body of work crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, and film. Her album Part-Time Woman was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize, and her best-selling book I’m Afraid of Men was heralded by Vanity Fair as “cultural rocket fuel.” She is also the founder of the award-winning publishing imprint VS. Books, which supports emerging BIPOC writers.