The reading hits hard when those survivors explain how they resist different kinds of abuse. For example, Joanne did whatever opposite as her father asked to respond to his abusive behavior and Pam will imagine the ear of a blue elephant when her father sexually assaults her.

Domestic violence is way more harmful than we think. Self-identity, independence, will be incomplete due to it, making them even difficult to adapt to adulthood. For those who have been sexually abused and domestically abused still have to live with the perpetrators, their path of recovery will be even harder.

As Allan Wade said it was important to show that persons continue to resist, no matter in a physical or mental way. Yes, we have to resist and stop to make it happen again. Healing from sexual abuse can feel awful. If healing begins by telling, then we have to encourage victims to talk and make telling safe.

Something I learned from the passage is that feeling broken suicidal is not limited to the traumas of child sexual abuse, it can be more.  If someone willing to talk about their stories, as a listener, it is important for me to courage and makes them feel “safe” again.

This passage really made my mind pivot away from being close minded but also to be more self-observant. As Wade notions, individuals speak up for themselves and resist when experiencing unpleasant treatment either physically, verbally, or mentally. Personally, I feel that people have to resist especially in the society we live in today in order to be heard and not belittled. It is a shame that things have become like that but it is almost as if, if you don’t, you will be taken advantage of and always be oppressed by your superior (whomever that may be).

In Joanne’s situation, she felt obligated to respect her father and just witness the traumatizing and abusive behaviors he would conduct in their household until she put her foot down. She had to resist her father’s toxic presence and negative comments in order to properly gain the respect she deserved as a person and as his daughter. Until Wade brought it to Joanne’s attention that she was in fact being resistant against her father, it struck her in surprise because no one thinks that acts so minor would be deemed as resistant.

Advocating for yourself and speaking up are forms of resistance, it doesn’t always have to have a negative connotation behind it or essentially be physical. Individuals tend to use resistance as a coping method to withstand  difficulties they are having or any unwanted behaviors from exterior subjects. In some situations, oppression is an underlying idea that some races feel obligated to feel due to their complexion or ancestry. I feel that resisting is a strong action that everyone must take in order to be heard or taken into consideration in modern day society. Everyone resists either if it’s in a relationship, friendship, in a workplace, etc. it is inevitable and quite needed to survive, I’d say.

Resistance is healing. Self healing, if you ask me. It is quite natural and crucial to everyday life for humans.

Reading this article was emotional. I have been for a lot through my life, I was bullied for years in schools. I always regretted going to therapy I didn’t want to be judged. I suffered from depression, some days I didn’t want to get up, I didn’t want to school. But even though I was going through that I didn’t want to go to therapy because I didn’t want to be medicated or be seen as someone who is sick and not capable of doing anything.

I started watching videos on youtube about self-help, then I started to talk about what I was going through with a friend who was going through something similar, I read self-help books. Then after all that I notice that I was not the only one who was going through depression and emotional problems.

Sometimes the healing process is painful and it takes time, and little by little is how a person can be healed.

This reading…was a great way to end such a deep, sensitive and intimate course. I love that healing was the last topic to perfectly tie all the lessons together. This is article in particular was such an interesting read, in a sense that things stated were in a way already known or felt. In life I’m sure most people have came to a point where they suggested to someone or was suggested therapy, or asked what their form of coping was. There is a part in the reading where it states “ the assumption of pre-existing ability; this is the view that persons attending therapy already possess the inherent ability to respond effectively to the difficulties they face.” with this being said..everything makes sense ( to me). I don’t want to state anything as being the ‘answer’ everyone has their own opinions and experiences….There’s a reason why your body vomits when it thinks you consumed poison. There is an innate sense for survival in your body. If you ever get gut feelings (in forms of anxiety or nerves..etc) try giving in to them, especially if its in situation that questions your safety. For those who experience violence within a relationship, homes, or within yourselves (from a person who has experienced this as well)..I just wanted to restate the portion I quoted..  you already possess the inherent ability to respond effectively to the difficulties you face. Let yourself protect yourself. We’re all in the process of healing. 

It’s been a great course Professor Cahen !!

This article is a dark and descriptive summary of some of the types of resistance methods that trauma victims use in order to survive through their terrible experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed Wade’s arguments because they were deeply descriptive and conveyed the micro-nuanced ways in which people protest/resist their state of subjugation.

Wade argues for therapists to help victims in a sort of “re-purposing” their acts of resistance to empower them going forward too. Empowering victims to not think of their acts of resistance as just some “thing” they once did or used to do, but rather to highlight that resistance as a resilient quality in order to encourage them to continue to be self-determinant. In addition to this, Wade says, “Generally, I ask persons to describe how they responded to the violence rather than how they were affected by the violence.” I like this method because it is more strategic in uncovering how that victim felt and what their entire experience was like when they were going through their assault. Asking how someone is affected by the violence they experience seems too forward and disregards the sensitivities and complexities involved with talking about trauma.

In the section of the article titled, “The Qualities of Spontaneous Personal Resistance”, Wade describes Joanna’s (one of the trauma victims) resilience and courageous self-determination to resisting her father’s oppressive actions. I fear that Joanna’s case is only an outlier case of someone that was able to overcome this sort of situation, and I fear that using her situation as a model scenario can be opportunistic for someone looking to transform the message that Wade was trying to convey, to instead mean that if Joanna can be resilient and “simply” defy and succeed, why can’t other women do so too?

One of the key messages that I took away as an everyday layman is to pay attention to when people (of any age)  decide to share their stories with me and to do better with listening to others that are signaling confessions of anything categorically sexually oppressive.