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Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse
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Following the publication of our first book ‘Click, Click’ in 2011 we were invited to speak to various groups around the country. We were often asked if we would write another book. We were also asked repeatedly how did we get over our abuse?
Given that our first book took almost twenty years to complete and took so much out of us, we were shocked at the prospect of attempting to write a second one, but after several discussions we realised it wouldn’t be the same as the first book because people were looking for a map to navigate their pain. The focus would be on healing as opposed to the story of our abuse. We knew we could only benefit from trying to find the answers people were looking for, so we decided to embark on our second publishing journey.
In 2019 we self-published ‘Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse’. Helping others who suffered as we did has always been a driving force and although the book exists as a direct response to the questions people asked us at our speaking engagements, no one has benefited from this book more than us.
The seven steps we recommend in the book can be used in any order. We encourage you to start wherever you are comfortable and do what fits your own personal journey. Each step suggests methods/actions and are a reflection of the steps we took but never documented before. They helped us understand ourselves and our behaviours and ultimately break free from the past.
We know that childhood sexual abuse wreaks havoc on the lives of its victims. Everyone who has experienced it will have a unique set of impacts and as a result will need their own tailored therapeutic intervention.
It was shocking but also exciting to us each time we uncovered yet another way we had been damaged or altered from our abuse, because once it was identified it could be explored, understood and over time it lost its power. Once we saw the benefit to our lives, we were eager to share what we found and the more we uncovered the more we realised our book could help more than childhood sexual abuse survivors.
Because all forms of childhood abuse and trauma, cause similar psychological damage, we began to realise the information, exercises and tips in our book could not only help victims of C.S.A. but be of great value to anyone who is trying to identify or recover from any form of childhood trauma. We could also see the benefit to therapists or frontline workers or indeed anyone who has to work with, or care for, trauma survivors.
We share our personal experience at the end of each section to help separate theory from facts in relation to how the impacts of abuse play out in real life.
It is important to consider different perspectives when it comes to this topic. With that in mind we have included a personal story from a mother whose child was a victim of abuse, and another where the child was an offender. We also have a personal story from a young woman who struggles more with her relationship with her mother whom she believes knew about her father’s abuse and did nothing to stop him.
We provide information partners may find helpful when living with adult victims of childhood sexual abuse and discuss how both are affected while navigating the counselling process.
We hope this book supports you on your journey and that it clears up some of the confusion that surrounds abuse for family and friends who are equally struggling to deal with the impacts of this horrendous crime.
We have incorporated inspirational quotations throughout the book that you can take with you throughout your day. May they inspire and encourage you to remain true to your journey with the knowledge that you do not need to live a life defined by your abuse.
We do not claim to have all the answers. The only thing we are absolute experts on is our own experience. We feel our stories are somewhat unique in so far as we offer three perspectives from three personality types and bring what we believe to be a fair representation of how sexual abuse damages the lives of its victims, and how that damage ripples out into communities and beyond.
Our journey of healing has at times, been extremely difficult. Uncovering the past that we believed we had buried forever may seem unnecessary to some but resurrecting the injured parts of ourselves was not only necessary but very worthwhile. It helped us find out who we really are. It made us stronger and enabled us to become better versions of ourselves.
We discovered that pain draws energy inward, whereas empathy and forgiveness enables expansion, growth and freedom from suffering.
Take care
Joyce June and Paula
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Maya Angelou
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT WHY GO BACK? 7 STEPS TO HEALING FROM CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE
Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse, written by three sisters, Joyce, June and Paula Kavanagh is a distillation of wisdom of these three women. The wisdom is hard earned.
They were all severely harmed and damaged by the sexual abuse perpetrated by their father who manipulated each of them, individually and secretly. The women were entitled to be warped and embittered by that damage. Instead what we see in this book is how each of them, individually and in strength with each other, have confronted the harm done to them, slowly and painfully have healed and have learned how to manage and cope. More than that, they have learned how to lead strong and fulfilling lives.
They share their findings from that experience with us in this book, knowing that what they have written can help others who too have suffered sexual abuse and it can help those who haven’t but want to understand a bit better.
There has been far too little spoken by survivors. This is typical of the hidden nature of sexual violence which society didn’t want to know about. This book shares the tools that helped them to heal and move forward. They give insights which will help those who know and love people who are survivors some insights into their suffering and the slow journey of healing.
The authors, and their friends who also contribute, are grounded and clam. They speak to us with wisdom and without bitterness. They speak with common sense, kindness and understanding, without ever forgetting or trying to excuse or explain away the gravity of the abuse perpetrated on them. It is a book worth reading and keeping.
Noeline Blackwell – CEO – Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.
Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse is the second book by the Kavanagh Sisters. It is informed by their own experience of sexual abuse by their father and of the journeys they undertook to heal from the trauma and deal with the impact on their adult lives.
This is a must-read book for anybody thinking of taking that first step into counselling but fearful of what it might involve. It will also help those who are in the throes of recovery work and who are wondering if the pain and struggle will ever end. It is also essential reading for any professional who works with adult survivors so as to increase their understanding of what is helpful and what is not.
The Kavanagh sisters are inspiring in their zest for life and they hold out the possibility that there is indeed life after sexual abuse. Buy this book.
Maeve Lewis – Executive Director, One In Four
” Human, Touching, Informed, Wise Resource.”
“It’s an amazing human, touching, informed, wise resource….a book for anyone and everyone who cares about child sexual abuse and those who battle with it.”
Sexual Violence Centre Cork via Twitter
“Turning Tragedy into a Source of Great Strength”
“Child sexual abuse and rape can leave a legacy of human pain and suffering that can reach far beyond childhood. What we see in the book is how Joyce, June and Paula tackled such tragedy as they regained their power over its awful legacy, turning their tragedy into a source of great strength. This is why Joyce, June and Paula’s book is so important.”
Dr. Marie Keenan, Lecturer at the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University of College Dublin
“Definitely a Book I Would Recommend for Any Stage of Your Healing Journey”
I finished this book last night. I’ve had it a few weeks but wanted to take my time reading it and I’m glad I did. I’ve read a lot of stuff about abuse and its effects on the victims. I’m constantly educating myself to try and get awareness of what is happening in my life.
So, I have to say this book makes you feel like it’s personally written for you. It explains a lot about how growing up and becoming an adult and carrying behaviours with you from the past. It explains from Joyce, June and Paula’s experience just how each thing affected them n their own personal lives. It explains a lot about personal growth, relationships with family ad friends, sexual relationships and about moving forward. The title ‘Why GO Back? ‘makes sense because you can’t really move happily forward if something from the past is holding you back.
It has great questionnaires that make you think about certain aspects in a different way. It’s simply written which is what I love most. No big fancy words that you don’t understand. It’s definitely a book that I would recommend at any stage of your journey as it gives you advice from when you tell someone for the first time right through to the police station, court process and afterwards. It’s definitely a book I will keep and read and refer to again and again. xxxx
Shaneda Daly, Survivor and Founder of Survivors Side by Side
“I’ve just finished your 7 Steps book. Such an impressive read, in particular how you take the academic writing on abuse, boil it down to a conversational tone and offer it to the reader in an accessible way.
Derek Scally
Irish Times Journalists
Hi ladies,
I purchased you book ‘Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse’ and I am glad to have the physical book, it deserves to be read in paper. I am loving it, being challenged by it and heartbroken by it. I think it is fast becoming one of the most important books in my life so far.
I am a qualified therapist although I now live and travel with my husband and children and do not practice as a therapist. I will be contacting my training course in Cork to recommend it as an addition to their reading list. It is a very useful book for ‘learner counsellors’.
Your book is amazing it is fantastic for me. I am sitting here in the sun in Spain reading the bit about mothers and yours in particular. I am bawling as my mother died of Alzheimer’s a year ago and I am still grieving and processing the implications for me.
I can see myself in all three of your accounts. Your journey is fantastic, your continuing dedication to your journey is stunning and your raising the very unpopular views on perpetrators, forgiveness, partners of perpetrators, secondary victims etc, is outstanding. You are such an enormous contribution to an issue which is so common and so damaging because as a society we want to monstersize people instead of exploring the subtlety of pain and suffering.
God bless you all and the amazing work you are doing.
Mary Cooney, Therapist & Humanistic Integrated Counsellor
“A wonderful, practical, effective approach to trauma(of all kinds)
Inspirational, courageous, insightful, wise and maybe most importantly of all, GROUNDED. A wonderful, practical, effective approach to TRAUMA (of all Kinds).”
Donal O’Leary via Facebook
“A Big Thank You”
I have downloaded ‘Why GO Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse’ and would just like to say a big thank you…what an amazing book each and every page and word seems to be written especially for me….and I know I am not alone in feeling like this….
I have to admit that it does not make for easy reading, but I decided that my way of dealing with this was to have my book open on my laptop and have a note page open too so that when something in the book spared a reaction in me I go to my note page and write down exactly what I am feeling…it has been such a help and maybe by sharing my experience it will help someone else somewhere…I do hope so.
I have also ordered a hard copy of this book as a present for a very good friend and will be ordering a hard copy for myself too at a later date.
Again thank you
Ruth Balbirnie
“Helping and Achieving Healing After Child Sexual Abuse.”
A very easy book to read. Very well written following their first book, this book focuses on helping and achieving healing after child sexual abuse, some beautiful personal stories in this book and I particularly found the pieces referring to their Mother very poignant. Wonderful writing.
Elizabeth Doyle via Amazon.com
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The Print Version of Our Book Is Available From The Following Outlets