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A place where you can gain awareness, education, and support on domestic violence and trauma.
How to Cope With Grief by Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle
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When someone you love passes away, you’re likely to experience a wide range of emotions, from sadness and guilt to anger and denial. It’s vital to learn how to cope with grief by maintaining your mental and physical health. Below are some tips to help you cope with grief by making healthy lifestyle choices during this time.
Spend Time With Loved Ones
Have someone you can talk to about your feelings during tough times. Letting them know what they mean to you can give you much-needed perspective, and it allows them to comfort you in ways they may not even be aware of.
Get Enough Sleep
Not only does getting enough sleep make you less prone to bouts of depression and anxiety, but it also helps your body repair and regenerate after a tough day at work. Aim for eight hours of rest each night. No matter how busy your schedule is, create time for proper sleep each night. You're likely to be more energized, focused, and productive during your waking hours when you get sufficient sleep.
Eat Healthily
When you’re grieving, it can be hard to eat healthy meals. Your food cravings may change, and certain foods may even remind you of your loved one in an unpleasant way. But if you’re looking for healthy ways to cope with grief, try eating nourishing meals that include lean proteins and complex carbohydrates, such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.
Exercise Regularly
Your body needs regular exercise. If you don’t have time to make it outside for a run, work out at home with a YouTube exercise video, or join an indoor fitness class. Just move — exercise helps relieve stress and creates space between you and your troubles.
Binge on Netflix or See a Movie
It’s okay to take time off from life and spend some time alone. To help forget about your loss, try binge-watching favorite movies or shows on Netflix or seeing what’s new at your local cinema. Both activities can offer respite from reality — and from painful reminders of what you’ve lost. If you feel like socializing, go out for a drink with friends.
Go Out for a Meal
There’s nothing like sitting down for dinner with loved ones, even if it’s not every night. It’s essential to connect — and your meal can serve as a reminder of how much you care about yourself and others. Leave your phone off, grab that best friend or partner, and go out to have a nice meal together. You deserve it.
Avoid Becoming Isolated
If you’re working from home, a consequence is an increased risk of isolation. Keep in touch with friends or colleagues and ensure you're never without human interaction for too long. If possible, limit the amount of time spent alone at work to just one or two days per week.
Happiness in Life
Although there’s no way to grieve without pain, there are healthy ways to cope while still holding onto memories of loved ones. Spending time around loved ones can help lift your spirits and remind you there's still happiness in life.
The Helping Hands Resource Center supports sufferers of trauma and hardships so they can move forward and rebuild their lives. Learn how you can volunteer and make a difference.
Written by: Camille Johnson
Links to article: https://www.everydayhealth.com/insomnia/relationship-between-insomnia-anxiety-depression-its-complicated/
https://betterme.world/articles/what-to-eat-when-you-dont-feel-like-eating/
https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-netflix-shows-and-movies-to-binge-watch-now/
https://www.epilepsy.com/stories/importance-connecting-others-after-loss
https://www.zenbusiness.com/blog/7-ways-to-stay-mentally-healthy-while-working-from-home/
Getting Away, Starting Over: Advice for Domestic Abuse Survivors
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Leaving an abusive relationship can be an agonizing decision. Women may stay for years despite repeated incidents of domestic violence or many reasons, from a lack of resources to the fear of the unknown and the uncertainty of starting over. But when the situation spirals into uncontrolled violence, getting away quickly and safely becomes a matter of life and death.
Realizing it’s time to leave once and for all is an important milestone, but you need a plan for making a safe exit, for beginning a new life in a new home, and staying safe from a vengeful and violent ex-partner. There are a number of factors to consider when making arrangements because walking out and moving in with a friend or family member won’t protect your anonymity or guarantee your safety. Remember that you can’t change or control a violent situation, and it’s not your fault. You have to protect yourself. This important information from Helping Hands Resource Center will help you stay safe.
Where to Go and When
Not knowing where to go when it’s time to escape means you’re not ready. Make arrangements to stay with friends or family, preferably someone your former partner doesn’t know. If moving in isn’t an option, identify the nearest domestic violence shelter, especially if there’s a strong likelihood that an emergency escape will be necessary, and keep a bag of essentials packed and concealed. Set up a bank account in your name alone so you have an emergency fund in place.
If you have children, talk to them about how you’ll get away together. Make a plan, be certain they understand it thoroughly, and settle on a code word or signal that tells them it’s time to go. If you’re unable to park your car on the street, try to back it into the driveway so you can get away as quickly as possible.
Moving On
Gather your financial information and documents and take them when you leave. These should include bank information, car titles, and copies of loan documents with payment information. You’ll need them when you’re ready to start looking for a new home. You should also be familiar with your credit status and debt situation. Talk to a credit counselor to determine whether your former relationship has negatively impacted your credit score.
Also, research the best prices and neighborhoods in your area to find a house that fits your budget. You can pull up an online map like this one, which will show you all of the properties available in the area and their proximity to public transportation and local schools, which is helpful if you want to keep your kids where they currently are. As you look for homes, bear in mind that anonymity is key to your safety.
Be sure your ex can’t trace your internet searches or access messages from a realtor. If necessary, use a computer at the local library or at work to research homes and for exchanging emails with a real estate agent. And exercise caution when pricing moving companies, since they’ll have two addresses/locations where you could be found.
Never list your new address or phone number. Instead, use a post office box and give your phone number out only to your closest acquaintances, people you know you can trust with the information. Domestic violence survivors often find it necessary to take out a restraining order,only to find out it’s no guarantee of safety. Always have a fall-back plan in place in case your ex does find you. Make sure your cell phone stays charged and is always with you, and identify an escape route you can use if you get trapped.
Escaping an abusive relationship requires planning and careful attention to detail. Once you’re free from your abuser, the best way to ensure your safety is to maintain your anonymity, keeping in mind how easy it can be for someone to locate you. Confide only in those people whom you know are trustworthy and careful.
Image courtesy of pexel
Blog written by: Nora Hood
Links : https://www.helpinghandsresourcecenter.org/apps/blog/show/45224298-what-is-domestic-violence
https://www.helpinghandsresourcecenter.org/
http://www.thehotline.org/help/path-to-safety/
https://www.divorcenet.com/resources/divorce/leaving-abusive-relationship-how-protect-yourself.htm
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/leaving-an-abusive-relationship_n_5840504.html
https://www.equifax.com/personal/education/covid-19/what-is-credit-counseling/
https://www.redfin.com/neighborhood/3099/CA/Los-Angeles/Winnetka/housing-market
https://family.findlaw.com/domestic-violence/domestic-violence-restraining-order-faqs.html
What is Domestic Violence
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What is Domestic Violence?
A pattern of abusive and threatening actions used to dominate power and control over an intimate dating partner or spouse. An abusive partner uses many types of abuse. Domestic violence includes the use of physical,sexual violence, threats and intimidation, stalking, emotional,psychological, financial control and spiritual abuse. The power and control wheel is used to help identify a pattern of abuse.
Types of abuse:
* Physical- Abuse or the threat of abuse of the victim, children, or pets
* Economic- Rigidly controlling finances/withholding money
* Mental-Sabotaging a partner's job by making them miss work, calling them constantly at work, etc.
* Verbal- Use insults that humiliate a partner
* Emotional- Telling partner who he/she can or can't hang out with
* Sexual- Any unwanted sexual activity without consent, including rape, incest, sexual harassment, and molestation. Consent is the presence of a clear yes (not the absence of a no)
The harsh reality is that every year, 1,510,455 women and 834,732 men are victims of physical violence by an intimate partner. On average more than three women a day are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the United States.
• Nearly one in four women in the United States reports experiencing violence by a current or former spouse or boyfriend at some point in his/her life.
Violence and Teens
• 1 in 4 adolescents reports verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse each year.
Violence and Children
• 15.5 million children in the United States live in families in which partner violence occurred at least once in the past year, and seven million children live in families in which severe partner violence occurred.
• In a single day in 2008, 16,458 children were living in a domestic violence shelter or transitional housing facility. Another 6,430 children sought services at a non-residential progra
• Technology has become a quick and easy way for stalkers to monitor and harass their victims. More than one in four stalking victims reports that some form of cyberstalking was used against them, such as email (83 percent of all cyberstalking victims) or instant messaging (35 percent). Electronic monitoring of some kind is used to stalk one in 13 victims.
Ask your self this, Are you in an Abusive Relationship?
If your partner has done even one of these things to you, please seek guidance immediately. Understanding the impact of these incidents is crucial in protecting yourself and your children.
Emotional Abuse
• Ridiculed or insulted your religion, race, heritage, class or women as a group
• Withheld approval, appreciation or affection as punishment
• Continually criticized you, called you names, shouted at you, or demeaned you by telling you you are unable to manage without male help
• Insulted or drove away your family and friends
• Refused to socialize with you
• Threatened to hurt your family, or threatened to kidnap the children
• Controlled all the money, kept you from working, or prevented you from making decisions
• Manipulated you with lies/contradictions or controlled you with his jealousy/possessiveness
• Intercepted your mail or telephone calls, or took away car keys or money
• Punished/deprived the children when he was angry at you, or abused pets to hurt you
• Regularly threatened to leave or told you to leave
• Blamed you for the violence
Physical Abuse
• Pushed, shoved, slapped, bit, kicked, choked, punched or tripped you
• Held you to keep you from leaving or tied you down
• Thrown objects at you
• Locked you out of the house
• Abandoned you in dangerous places
• Refused you help when you were sick, injured or pregnant
• Subjected you to reckless driving
• Threatened or hurt you with a weapon
• Twisted or pulled your arm
• Told anti-women jokes, made demeaning remarks about women, or treated women as sex objects
• Become jealously angry, assuming you would have sex with any available man
• Criticized you sexually
Are you in a cycle of domestic violence ?
Help is available to stop the cycle. If you are in a emergency situation or are in need of a shelter reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE)
Advocacy and education is available in Helping Hands Resource. Please don't suffer in silence. Awareness can save a life.
What is trauma
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What is trauma ( toxic stress) A physical, emotional, and spiritual reaction due to an interpretation of a life event that overwhelms the capacity to cope. Having hidden pain manifest in our behavior.
Hurt people, hurt people.Those who are victims of such things live, with recurring memories of what they witnessed.It infects their sleep, destroys their relationships and their capacity to work, torments their emotions, shatters their faith and mutilates hope.
The wounds of trauma are not visible; their effects are.These wounds of the soul and spirit torment more than one in seven people around the world. When these things happened in our childhood ( Aces) it can hinder us as adults. In order to help someone else, I must first understand my own trauma. Have you experienced trauma?
Understanding Trauma (Toxic stress)
Whos is a trauma survivor? A trauma survivor is a person that has been through a traumatic event as a child or adult.
Survivors experience physical reaction to trauma called triggers. Our body memories trigger the brain into (survival mode) a place where you fight, freeze or run away. Certain smells, pictures, sounds, people, places and life events can be a trigger.
Events that can cause a trauma reaction to the brain.• Divorce• Death in family• New birth• Transitions (moving)• Domestic Violence• Natural disaster• Accident• War.
This information is not meant to treat or diagnose. It is simply euducation and research to help you understand some of the reactions of trauma.
If you are in need of support or education we would love to help you. Send us an email info@hhrcenter.org
http://www.apa.org/topics/trauma/
https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/
https://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/problems/anger-and-trauma.asp
Systems need to change
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