Take back your power

Emotional and psychological abuse, affect women and children from all kinds of backgrounds every day. Sometimes, women are attacked by strangers, but most often, they are hurt by people who are close to them, causing emotional damage, undermining a person’s sense of well-being and leaving deep psychological scars. It can seriously damage the self-confidence of the person experiencing the abuse.

Victims of abuse often keep their victimization hidden, due to the fear of being blamed. This is however, a danger to yourself and to others, who may become the next victims of a sexual offender or abuser. 

To break the silence and take action, here’s what you need to do:

• Know what sexual assault, abuse and harassment are
• Get medical treatment if you are sexually assaulted or hurt
• Know you are not alone and you are not to blame
• Tell someone trustworthy about it
• Consider telling the police about it and laying a charge of arrest
• Establish a protection plan (available from your local magistrates court) if you live with an abuser
• Know your emergency telephone numbers 
• Get counselling

Trying to recover from a traumatic event however, takes time. Seek help for emotional or psychological trauma if you’re:

• Battling to function at home or work
• Suffering from severe depression, fear or anxiety
• Having difficulty in forming close, fulfilling relationships
• Experiencing terrifying flashbacks, memories or nightmares
• Feeling emotionally numb and disconnected from others
• Using alcohol or drugs to help yourself feel better

If months have passed and your symptoms aren’t letting up, you may need professional help from a trauma expert. Contact the following helplines: POWA - People Opposing Women Abuse - 083 765 1235 / FAMSA -http://www.famsa.org.za/contact.asp / WAR – Women against Rape - 021-556 9104 or http://www.womanagainstrape.co.za/

So what now? How do we begin our journey to self-love and self-acceptance? If you look at yourself holistically (as a whole), we have a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual side to ourselves, which all ideally need to be in balance with one another.

 

When you make a conscious decision to grow on all these levels, to gain wisdom, you consciously invoke all the parts of yourself that are not whole to come to the foreground of your life. Your journey to a holistic lifestyle requires you to look openly, honestly and with courage into yourself, into how you feel, what your perceptions are, your values and how you respond. This journey will enable you to consciously experience the nature of your personality, to confront what it has produced in your life, and to make a choice to change it.

As a fund raising initiative, WAR (Women against Rape) invite you to participate in their first annual charity golf day, to be held at Durbanville Golf Club, Cape Town on Thursday 10 September 2015. 

Please see poster below. For further details or enquiries, please comment on this post or email janine@durbanvillegc.co.za

WAR is registered with SARS which means that any donation made to the organisation will be officially recognised and the entity afforded a tax exemption, whether in monetary means or with goods.