What Is Sexual Abuse?

Find a therapist to heal from sexual abuse

Limiting exposure to the news is a healthy boundary.

Grounding and emotional release can help calm trauma activation.

Survivors do not owe anyone their story or advocacy.

Recently, a friend reached out and said, “I’ve been thinking about you. With all the awfulness coming out, I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”

Her check-in stayed with me. It’s what inspired me to write this for anyone quietly struggling as new information about the Epstein files continues to surface.

Each time these stories reappear, I feel it in my body before my mind can make sense of it. My breathing slows. My chest tightens. My stomach drops. My nervous system recognizes something long before words arrive. For survivors of childhood sexual abuse, trafficking, exploitation, or organized abuse, these headlines don’t land as “news.” They land as recognition.

For those living with dissociative identity disorder (DID), this activation may show up even more intensely through emotional flooding, shutdown, dissociation, body memories, or increased internal communication or conflict. Parts of the system may react differently or hold different pieces of the impact.

I write this not only as a psychologist who has spent decades working with trauma but as someone who lives with DID myself. I know what it’s like to watch powerful people remain protected while survivors carry the weight. I know the anger, grief, exhaustion, and familiar ache that comes from realizing again and again that justice is not guaranteed.

If the Epstein files have stirred something in you or within your........

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