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Bloom es una plataforma en línea que te ayuda a recuperarte de un trauma. Desde cursos en vídeo y actividades de reflexión hasta mensajería directa con nuestro equipo, hay muchas formas diferentes de participar en Bloom.

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Transcripción del video

Healing is not a single light-bulb moment. The ways we look after ourselves in the coming days, weeks, months and years matter. Even if the abuse occurred a long time ago, looking after ourselves is always a part of recovery.

Now you’ll need a diary or a piece of paper. You can use coloured paper if you want to make this super fun! Please pause now and go get your materials. If writing is not an option, record this activity instead or just reflect on it. The idea is to create a list of resources to help us in our healing journey. 

Are you ready? First, draw three lines vertically down the paper, dividing it into columns.

In the first column, list the body-focused things you would like to start doing. These may be things you do already and want to do more of — for instance, getting more sleep or drinking more water. These may also be new practices that you would like to try, such as yoga.

In the second column, list the mind-focused things you would like to start doing. These could be actions like reading a book or watching a movie. Or practices like meditation, signing up for therapy or setting boundaries with your devices. If we are ready to, we could learn more about image-based abuse and hearing other survivors’ experiences can also make us feel seen. Do take care if you decide to do this, as it can be triggering. 

In the third column, list activities you would like to do with other people. Again, these could be things you already do — like a weekly lunch with a close friend. Or it could be activities you would like to start doing, for instance taking up a music class or chess club, networking for your career, or simply connecting with others who’ve experienced image-based abuse. Anything that feels okay and safe to do, without feeling overwhelmed. 

Once you have the list, tape it to your wall or refrigerator — somewhere you’ll see it often. Do take care to only do this if you live in a safe space. Remember: our self-care plan isn’t set in stone. That’s the beauty of it, it can change as we change! 

The different forms of justice for survivors

We explore the social context of image-based abuse and learn tools for processing our emotions, understanding our responses, and healing from trauma. We remind ourselves that we are not to blame. 

Image-based abuse and rebuilding ourselves

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Overview

We look back at everything we’ve learnt so far and reflect on how the abuse might continue to impact our lives and relationships. We also create a self-care plan, allowing ourselves to look towards a hopeful future. 

Moving forward with hope

Session 7

 We’ve made it! It’s Mehak and Paz here today, with the last session of our course, 

‘Image-based abuse and rebuilding ourselves

’. We couldn’t be more proud of how far you’ve come. 

 Healing is difficult, and it may take a long time. Just because you’re struggling doesn’t mean that you’re doing it wrong. You’re exactly where you need to be. We’re so proud of you for showing up to this space to listen, reflect, learn, observe, and invest in your journey. 

 In our previous session, we looked at ways to practise digital self-care, online safety, and digital boundaries. We do this while accepting that it’s normal to feel angry, defiant, anxious, tired, vulnerable, empowered or any other range of emotions. Our feelings confirm that the violation that happened to us was real. Today, we’ll look back at everything we’ve learnt so far and then look ahead towards a hopeful future. 

 As always, we’ll begin with a grounding exercise. This one relies on our imagination. Pick a part of your body that you feel comfortable with. I’m going to pick my feet, but you can choose anything. Let’s start by placing our feet on the ground, on a flat surface, if possible. If not, stay in whatever position is most comfortable. In our imagination, we’ll pick our favourite colour. For example, mine is turquoise blue. Now, we’ll imagine that we’re drawing an outline around this body part with this colour. I’m imagining drawing around each foot with turquoise blue colour. Start at the heel and using your imaginary pencil, slowly go up the side of your foot to your pinky toe. Then, make sure you draw around each toe and then go back towards the heel. Repeat on the other foot. You can pause the video for that. And come back when youre done.

 Coming back, the goals for today’s session are to:

Now what have we learnt to date? Well, the most important thing is to validate that the abuse was and is not our fault, that anyone can be abused, and only the abuser is responsible. We’ve carried these lessons with us from session to session. 

, we learnt about the social context of image-based abuse and explored how it has impacted our lives, especially in the form of victim-blaming. Due to this, we might be telling ourselves that we ‘should get over it’, even when in many ways we are still dealing with the trauma. But we also learnt that it is actually not our fault.

, we looked deep into our emotions, unpacking where they come from and learning how each one can be processed. From the fear that prevents us from meeting people to the guilt and shame we have internalised, to the anger which makes us lash out — each emotion is a valid response. And we have the power within us to deal with these through curiosity, reflection, resilience and perhaps most importantly, self-compassion. 

, we looked at how triggers, hypervigilance, and dissociation might manifest after image-based abuse. Subsequently, these impact how we approach our relationships – for example, with how trusting and vulnerable we are and how safe we feel. But we also learnt that with pause and reflection, we can cope and find ways to trust others.

, we dived into the impact of abuse on how safe we feel in our bodies and how much we trust them. For many of us, the abuse also shifts our body image. But by consuming body-positive media and engaging in somatic exercises such as yoga, we can rebuild our connection with our bodies.

, we went a bit further and saw how our sense of self is shaken in the aftermath — in falsely blaming ourselves, that we could or should have stopped the abuse. But we deserve to live a life where we trust ourselves, so we considered how we could rebuild our self-esteem through tools like journaling.

, we recognised how our relationship with technology has changed. And while we’ll never tell you to ‘get over’ the abuse, we did share some tips on digital safety, self-care, and boundaries. It’s good to have these in our toolkit, but we must also remember that it’s not a lack of them that led to our abuse. We deserve to be treated with respect. It’s as simple as that. 

 We hope that this course has validated complex feelings and helped us acknowledge the journey our mind and body have been on while reminding us that we are not alone. If the course helped you uncover a new layer to your experience, we would love to hear about it through our 1-1 chat.

 As we think about our lives after the abuse, it’s totally normal to feel like our new reality is overwhelming. We might be hesitant about being vulnerable or having new experiences. We might have changed how we live our life or feel stuck in difficult emotions and circumstances. The abuse might be ongoing, and we may still be navigating it. Let’s remember that any abuse is an attack on basic freedoms such as our appearance, choices, future, sexuality, gender, and online and offline identity. But you deserve the freedom and security the abuser has snatched from you. 

Years may have passed, and we may still carry some of these feelings, and that’s also okay. The human experience is messy, and our feelings don’t immediately change when the situation does. Remember, there are no right or wrong feelings. In fact, many of our feelings contradict each other, and they do not need to make so-called ‘logical’ sense. For example, we can feel that it's our right to share intimate images but also feel guilty for sharing them. 

 Let’s take a moment to reflect on how we feel when we think of the abuse. This can be an emotion or physical sensation. You can pause the video and make a mental note or an actual list of your feelings. It might not be something you can name or label. That’s also valid. If this reflection feels difficult, you can skip it or pause the video and take a break using a grounding exercise. 

It’s okay to want to go back in time and undo the whole thing. Erase the memories, changes, and feelings that came with the abuse and its aftermath. But like many other life events, the abuse is a part of our life story. It happened to us, and it’s something we can learn to live with over time. In some ways, it has changed who we are and touched our lives. 

 As we begin processing our feelings and accepting what happened, we’ve already taken the first step in our journey. We may now want to include some of the tools we’ve gathered from this course, in our daily lives. For many of us, acceszosing some kind of justice is vital for processing what happened. Find more about different forms of justice in our bonus content.

 Throughout our healing journey, we want to cultivate joy and hope in our lives. According to 

 from 2018, hope has been consistently linked to our improved well-being. At Chayn, we believe in hope. That putting ourselves in supportive environments and investing in ourselves will create conditions for recovery. 

We all have the capacity to renew our hope, rebuild our sense of agency, practice self-compassion, foster our resilience, and ultimately experience well-being. Our team of survivors tell us they have found hope in their pets, in a stable daily routine, and in sharing their stories with others. 

 Accepting how the abuse impacted us may feel like we are letting it define us. But actually, it gives us the power to decide how much space we want to let it occupy and what meaning we assign it. Of course, this may seem radical or even impossible to consider. And that is alright, we respect how you feel. 

Mehak: Acceptance does not mean we are minimising the abuse.

 The goal is not to make our trauma and suffering palatable. It is to acknowledge that we were affected by it, but also to acknowledge the other things that make up our life – especially the good stuff we wanted and worked for! Processing our emotions is an ongoing journey and a full acceptance could come much later. There is no need to rush ourselves.

 Our journey of moving on from the abuse will be 

There might be times when we push ourselves too hard or want to give up completely, and it's okay to create room for those feelings. There isn’t a fixed end-point or a return to the way things were before. In the aftermath, we may feel unworthy of love, affection, and kindness. But we didn’t deserve to be violated, and we deserve trust, respect, privacy, and freedom.

 Among the many other tools we’ve shared, one is connecting with the people in our lives who can listen, support us, and understand the trauma we’re going through. In fact, it can be one of our best tools for recovery. Joining a support group for survivors can also be incredibly powerful. For helplines, organisations, and support in your part of the world, check our 

Throughout this course, we’ve tried to share options for our safety and boundaries, and yet people might still find ways to exploit our privacy. Unfortunately, we alone can’t stop abusers though sometimes, we can block, delete, and report them. Wider changes are needed in the legal system, as well as within corporations so that none of us has to ever experience image-based abuse. 

Talking about image-based abuse can feel pretty grim, but there is lots of inspiring and hopeful work happening to counter this abuse. New legislation and new safety features are being introduced daily. We can get involved by advocating for better online safety and volunteering with charities, which might also help our healing. It is our right to hold those in power responsible, whether the government, law enforcement, platforms, apps or websites. 

 A lack of laws, policies, safeguards, and support for survivors impacts us all. Many companies are introducing changes, for example, the dating app Bumble now has 

 that blurs intimate images so we do not have to consume unsolicited images. We’re also seeing more research into this topic as well as a greater understanding of why it happens and how to prevent it, such as in Chayn’s own 

 field guide. New government policies and laws are also coming about to tackle tech abuse around the world.

The education about image-based abuse, of course, starts with ourselves. By this point in the course, we hope you KNOW and are starting to FEEL that this wasn’t your fault. And, that you have the tools within yourself to cope, heal, and live a life beyond this trauma. 

We will spend the rest of the session today making a self-care plan. As we’ve said before, healing is not a single light-bulb moment. The ways we look after ourselves in the coming days, weeks, months and years matter. Even if the abuse occurred a long time ago, looking after ourselves is always a part of recovery.

 In the third column, list activities you would like to do with other people. Again, these could be things you already do — like a weekly lunch with a close friend. Or it could be activities you would like to start doing, for instance taking up a music class or chess club, networking for your career, or simply connecting with others who’ve experienced image-based abuse. Anything that feels okay and safe to do, without feeling overwhelmed. 

 Before we say our goodbyes, there’s one final activity we have. Identify just one thing from the self-care plan you’ve created: something for your mind, for your body, and to do with others. For each one, decide what you’re going to do in the next 24 hours; next week; and next month.

 24 hours might sound intimidating, but it can be something you find simple: for your body, maybe take a long shower. For your mind, listen to a song. And for others, maybe leave a friend a text. Our journey is not just something we undertake with enormous goals. And what might seem small to us could also be huge for someone else and vice versa, so pick what works for you. We’d love to hear how you got on with this. 

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank YOU for being a part of this course. Our team has grown and learnt so much over these sessions, and we could not have done it without you. We are honoured to have had this experience with you — showing up to heal, grow, learn, and challenge yourself in incredible ways. 

 Now take a breath. Get some rest! Take time to process what we’ve talked about, and don’t be hard on yourself if things feel difficult. If the abuse is ongoing, know that you are doing your best to take care in an already difficult situation. Be flexible, gentle and kind to yourself in your journey.

Be proud of showing up for your healing. As one of you wrote to us, it can feel like recovery has an ‘imaginary deadline’. It doesn’t. And it’s not a marathon, either. Things may go slowly, and sometimes backwards. But trust in yourself that you will make it at your own pace.

Know that we’re over here celebrating you, so please make sure to celebrate yourself. Stay informed, keep empowered, and be well. We will continue to cherish you and all we’ve shared in this Bloom journey.