Poetry as Therapy

Poetry is another form of art-therapy that women use to express their feelings in a therapeutic way.

I began writing poetry when I was around 12 years old, right after my first abuse. It was a way that I could release some of the pain I was feeling and yet keep it hidden away from the world.

Here is one example of a poem I wrote when I was in my early teens:

ALONE

Alone and scared, is anyone there? she cries in the night, doesn't anyone care?

left all alone, with her shame, she must face, No one can know, she is such a disgrace, Numbing the hurt, behind the pain she tries to hide, Maybe no one will see her tears or the scars on the inside,

This morning she woke, just like any other day, Tonight her innocence is gone, stolen away,

Was it something she said? was it something she did? She blames herself for the position she is in,

"Where is God?" she thinks, "Doesn't HE even care?" She looks around for him, but doesn't see him there,

Feeling dirty, like garbage, like someone whose bad, She thinks to herself no one will ever want me, Maybe "He'll" take me back..

After all, he did this, maybe he likes me, in some way, I have nothing left to live for, I guess I can take it another day....

As I look back on that poem, I cringe... and think, wow, what a sad and lonely place I was in at that time.

Are any of you in that place right now?

What I have discovered in the emails I get, is that we all are in different places in our recovery, but we all have one thing in common... we all are sisters in recovery. We all feel the same pain from our sexual abuse. The pain is the same..no matter how small or extravagant the abuse. The pain is the same. We all experience it..and we all deal with it the best we know how!

Poetry is a wonderful way to therapeutically deal with your feelings. It lets you get out on paper the emotions you are feeling inside. I know that when I was a teen-ager, I wrote poems almost every single day!

It kept me alive at the time..and it certainly kept my sanity!

I am sure that many of you have written poetry as your "art-therapy"!

I would love for you to share some of your poetry on this site for other recovering women to see and relate to.

It would be such a gift for your sisters in recovery!

What a blessing you all are to me!

Keep writing and expressing yourself..do whatever it takes to get healthy my sisters!

God bless you all!

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This video is a poem about child sexual abuse. It is very touching. May it inspire you to help you write more of your own! It is called "The Silent Child".