Quotations:

Participant 1

 We need to be sensitive about how we speak to victims

 The kindest thing you can say to a victim is “I’m sorry”…”I’m here for you”
 What a woman is wearing or where she is…or anything like that has no relevance. When it
comes to sexual assault. It is 100% always the fault of the perpetrator.
 It will be ok even if it doesn’t seem like it right now.
 Be gentle with yourself.
 Give yourself time
 By allowing negative self-talk, you are perpetuating the abuse.

Participant 2

 Acknowledge what happened in order to heal properly and to be able to move on.
 A traumatic incident in your life changes you forever.
 There are no timelines involved in PTSD
 Things to do to heal: For a BRIEF time put your own emotions aside and focus on trying to help
somebody else
 Things to do to heal: Find a hobby; learn something new
 Things to do to heal: Look after yourself physically even before or after the incident: exercise,
sleep, eat properly
 Things to do to heal: Forgive so that you can move forward with healing
 Things to do to heal: accept what happened, grieve and reflect
 One of the symptoms of PTSD is Avoidance

Participant 3

 A big part of trauma recovery is knowing

 Mental health is a continuum from mental good health to mental ill health
 All of us at some point in our life will be along that continuum of mental health
 WHO states that 4 in 5 persons would experience depression during their life: it doesn’t mean
that ”yuh mad”, it just means that you have experienced mental ill health
 Why live with mental ill health, when you can get help?
 Trauma literally alters the way your brain functions
 Open the lines of communication so your children can come to speak with your freely
 Provide open support for our children
 Know the baseline of your children, to understand when they go above or below that baseline
 Seek professional help
 Allow our children to have a voice
 Because children do not verbalize how they feel, doesn’t mean that they are not suffering (after
a traumatic incident)
 Have age appropriate conversations with your children
 Trauma untreated: you are always in a state of hypervigilance
 We cannot un-traumatize: I cannot un-rape you, I cannot un-shoot you, I cannot un-flood you
 It is important to process trauma then move to trauma response and recovery.
 Trauma across a life span can be debilitating
 Get treatment for trauma.