Why Self-Care is So Important to Rape & Abuse Survivors | Including An Etsy Gift Guide | Merry Christmas 2024

For Christmas this year, the Shake My Hand Campaign wanted to put this article together with a quick discussion on why self-care and self-love is so important to everyone, but particularly; to survivors of rape and/or sexual abuse. The post will also include a gift guide of items from Etsy UK which we would recommend as being great for self-care – for full disclosure, this gift guide is not sponsored nor commissioned in any way. We hope that it inspires you to treat yourself to a little something that will help you to feel even just a little bit better…

Often in rape and/or abuse, the offender (the abuser or rapist) will say or do things that influence the survivor to consider themselves unworthy or as less important, less special, and undeserving of anything positive or pleasant. For me (Aimee, Campaign Founder), personally, my abuser/rapist repeatedly told me that I deserved what he was doing to me. That I deserved the pain he was inflicting and that I had done nothing in life to make me worthy of any alternatives. He frequently assured me that if I were to report the abuse and rape then I wouldn’t be believed, and he said that this was because no one else thought anything of me. He said that if I was believed by people, they would just be convinced that I was deserving of it and wouldn’t care how I felt about it anyway.

His assertions had me convinced that he was right because for the entirety of the six months that the abuse lasted, he was – in the worst way possible – the most important person in my life. The most influential person in my life. I distinctly remember one particular instance in his first-floor office, and I just stared out of his massive window and thought about what would happen if I ran at it. Would it smash? Would I fall to the ground? Would I die? Then, I thought: ‘what if I did fall and just ended up really badly hurt? How else can I make this stop?’ And found myself contemplating what medication I could buy over the counter in a pharmacy or something.

I was fifteen when those suicidal thoughts and feelings started, and I recognise that these days… Well, there’s numerous stories of children a lot younger than that age actually taking their own life. But at that time (2006) stories like that actually weren’t heard of or talked about so I felt pretty alone in those thoughts and feelings. Alone and scared. Scared because I was convinced that suicide was the only way out of what was happening – I could see no end in sight. I couldn’t envision an end to the pain and the trauma, and even when I contemplated the unlikely chance of it ending in some way, I hated the thought of living with these memories. I couldn’t picture myself getting through each day knowing what had happened to me. Knowing, and being powerless and completely out of control in regard to having those memories. I couldn’t regulate them. I couldn’t tell them when it was an inconsiderate or inappropriate time to come to the forefront of my mind. How could I live like that?

Fortunately, the abuse obviously did end – a lot sooner than I had envisioned… My abuser and I had been arguing and I’d shouted “think of your wife and children” just as his employer came out of his office nearby and he asked why I thought I had the right to speak to my abuser like that. Finally, the entire thing just fell out of my mouth, and I told him everything and was promptly called a ‘manipulative liar’ and ordered to leave the premises. As you’ll know if you’ve read the ‘The Story’ page on our website (if you haven’t, you can read it here) whilst waiting for my Mum to take me home, I heard laughter and looking down a nearby corridor, I saw my abuser and his employer shaking hands – hence the name of the Campaign – and laughing! As if my self-esteem hadn’t already been low enough?! I felt completely defeated and when my Mum came, I made the difficult – yet somewhat easy – decision of lying and telling her I had no idea why I was being sent home. I guess my abuser and his employer realised that telling my Mum would open a huge dramatic situation that could render them in a lot of trouble and so they avoided her questions around their rationale for making me leave. And so, with all of us staying silent, I was faced with the concept I had been so afraid of, life with the memories.

One of the largest difficulties I’d say that I have faced in the seventeen years since the abuse finished (2007), has been with my self-esteem and self-worth. Despite the fact that the abuse lasted for ‘just’ six months, and it has now been over a decade since it finished(!), my abuser’s words still ring around, vibrating off different places in my head and pinging around in there as though they’re the only thing in there! The only thing that matters. Here’s three big reasons why it sometimes actually is the only thing that matters:

1. Being told the same thing for six months understandably renders it unforgettable.

2. My silence about the abuse meant I had no one to convince me these things weren’t true.

3. Dismissing it, feels like a contradiction against how important it all is/was.

The irony in this aspect of my mental health journey was around the fact that my coping techniques with the memories of the abuse and its impact on my mood and thoughts, became self-harming and the impact these instances – especially my suicide attempts – had on my loved ones ended up causing my self-worth to deteriorate even further. I was self-harming because I felt I didn’t deserve anything positive or nice. I felt I was only worthy of pain and hurt and being in really difficult situations. But doing these things, and seeing the way they affected my loved ones, I felt like an even more terrible person. Even more worthy and deserving of pain, distress, upset, and horrible things. With these detrimental thoughts on my worthiness, how could anyone be that surprised when my third suicide attempt in 2012 landed me on life support and then sectioned under the Mental Health Act for two and a half years?! To me, it was almost a natural next move.

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In the psychiatric hospital I was detained to, the ward I was on specialised in my diagnosis at the time of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and that meant the facilitated Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) as this was the recommended treatment for someone with a Personality Disorder diagnosis. We had sessions twice per week – one group session where I was with the Therapist and all the other girls on the ward, and one 1:1 with just me and the lovely, outgoing and empathetic Therapist they had there. A full DBT course/cycle is supposed to be 6 – 12 months, but I had mine for around two years (they waited to start me in it for around six months when I was first admitted so that I’d had some stabilisation, and my medication was at helpful doses.

The coping skills we were taught in the Therapy were lifesaving for me. But the trickiest bit I experienced to the whole thing was the feeling that I was stupid for not considering using these methods as alternatives to the self-harm and suicide attempts, I was engaging in instead. I mean, the things I was doing demanded a lot of effort and thought, whereas these DBT coping mechanisms seemed so much more ‘natural,’ almost. Easy. And much less troublesome! They weren’t exactly about to lead to hospital admissions, Capacity assessments, sedations, restraints, or seclusion rooms! So, why hadn’t I thought to do them? Because they were even things I knew how to do! It wasn’t like we were being taught special skills with particular qualifications required in order to be able to do them efficiently and effectively. So where was my excuse? Why had I lacked this thought? And the only answer I had, led back to my thoughts and feelings related to my self-worth and what I thought I was deserving of.

Eventually, at some point during those two and a half years – though I’d say it was around the time I created I’m NOT Disordered because it was born from a productive 1:1 with my Key Nurse where I agreed to begin writing about the abuse for the staff to read. It felt like a huge step forward into recovery and I decided I wanted to start documenting my journey and took another step forward – this time, into my blogging career! From that point, I think, everything else started to help too. The medication, the general help and support from staff, the empathy amongst the other inpatients, and the DBT. I finally started cooperating and engaging in the ‘homework’ we would be given from the Therapy sessions, and I finally began seeing rewarding improvements in my mental health as a result of these things. In our DBT homework, once we’d learnt a new skill, we had to keep a diary sheet where you had to document when you used one of your Therapeutic skills and detail why you used it, and the impact it had.

The Therapist told us from Day One that when we reached a point where we couldn’t complete the diary sheets – where we couldn’t think of the skills we’d used and why we’d used them, it meant we were ready to finish Therapy because it implied that these skills were coming so naturally to us that it didn’t even register that we had used them. That it wasn’t even a conscious decision to use them. That we didn’t even have to decide or choose which to use. This is almost exactly what happened for me – except the one thing that was a bit different was that I did still recognise that I was using the skills because I noticed – and was so grateful for – the difference. I realised how much more positive, happy, and productive I was thinking and feeling. That the trauma-related hallucinations were disappearing or becoming much easier to cope with, and I was a lot safer and healthier in a physical sense too.

Overcoming my terrible thoughts on my self-worth felt like a really huge achievement – one that came with the real sensation of defeating my abuser/rapist. As though I could finally say; “everything you said wasn’t true.” I knew it. I believed it. I felt it too. I felt that change and that sense of defiance and defeat. I felt that I’d won. And which specific elements of DBT helped me to reach this point in my mental health recovery?

1. Mindfulness – an entire DBT Module which you can read more about here: The particular elements of this which helped my self-worth was Wise Mind (which you can read about here) because it teaches you the difference between emotional mind and reasonable mind – well, it’s actually the middle-ground to the two. In using your Wise Mind, you can be aware of your emotions, whilst also recognising the facts and logic surrounding it. So, for example, it helped me to look for the evidence around my worthiness – either facts that proved my abuser to be right or to be wrong. Facts and evidence that could help me to rationalise my detrimental thoughts on my self-worth – which, under this skill, I could still experience and recognise, but whilst using Wise Mind to help me not to act upon the thoughts and feelings in a negative and unsafe way.

2. Self-Validation – which comes from the Emotion Regulation Module of DBT (you can read more about the Module here and about the skill specifically, here): This skill was all about accepting the emotions you’re experiencing without giving yourself a hard time for them. So that rather than think I’m unworthy and then feel stupid or just even worse for thinking and believing this – mostly because I deemed it to mean that my abuser was right and that I was weak for agreeing with him – I used this skill to recognise my very valid rationale for this belief. The valid contribution to my thoughts of the fact my abuser had convinced me of it. It was like saying; “it’s understandable why I would think these things; and this means there’s nothing wrong with me for doing so.”

3. Balancing Emotional Urges – which also comes from the Emotion Regulation Module and you can read more about this specific skill here: This skill is specifically aimed at acting oppositely to the emotion you’re experiencing so it’s basically the skill that had the goal of ending my self-harming behaviours and suicide attempts. It’s about finding a way to ignore or channel the behavioural urge from the emotion in a different and alternative way that is safer, healthier, more positive, and productive. It can help to consider whether the behaviour that the emotion is urging you to utilise as a coping mechanism or a response, is effective – particularly when considering it alongside any long-term goals, intentions, plans, and aims e.g. would self-harming right now, help me to have a happy Christmas and stay committed to the festive plans that I have already made with my Mum? No, so why do it? The skill recognises that this change might not happen overnight, that it might take practice, and it might, initially, be about delaying the behaviour e.g. putting off the thoughts of self-harm for a day or two but still ending up doing it, before you reach a point where you can completely defy the emotions.

4. Distraction – which is a skill found in the Distress Tolerance Module of DBT and you can read more about the Module here and about the specific skill here: Using this skill typically means you can put space/time between your thoughts and emotions and acting upon them. It allows you the opportunity to do something that will make you feel happier, more productive, energised, and stronger to a point where you are more able of safely coping with the thoughts and emotions if they return after engaging in a distracting activity. In utilising this DBT skill, I’ve had to discover – through, what’s felt like, lengthy practice – which activities are best for which emotions or thoughts. I mean, if I was feeling angry and sad from being triggered with memories of the abuse and rape, then a good activity would be to watch a movie or a TV programme. Whereas, if it’s about my self-worth and feeling I’m unworthy of self-care, the best activity is one deemed as being good self-care e.g. having a shower, washing my hair, doing my make-up, or getting cosy in my pjs with a blanket on the settee. So, if you were to try out this skill; please don’t be disheartened if you try one activity and it doesn’t work, that doesn’t render the skill unhelpful; it might just mean you need to try something else. Sometimes you need to be creative with this skill.

5. Self-Soothing – another skill from the Distress Tolerance Module and you can read more about this specific one here: This skill is incredibly similar and along the same lines as the previous one because it’s about engaging in an activity alternative to a behaviour or activity you might have otherwise utilised – one that might not be the healthiest or the safest. The difference that I found between the two though, was that self-soothing activities were actually a lot harder to try out specifically because I was using them to tackle my thoughts on self-worth and self-care, so they were more directly relevant. A more direct and obvious contradiction to these most troublesome and detrimental thoughts, feelings, and beliefs; and this made it a lot more challenging and took a lot more effort to find self-soothing activities that were effective and efficient in doing what I needed them to do. In making the changes and improvements that I needed them to.

6. Finally, Actions Based on Values – again, a skill from the Distress Tolerance Module and you can read about it specifically here: I utilised this skill in connection with the belief and thought on what I would tell others if they were in my situation, with my experiences which had affected their thoughts and feelings in the same way mine had. So, if someone came to me who had been abused and they told me their abuser had regularly told them they were unworthy of things and now they believed and were self-harming to cope with that, I would encourage them to think otherwise. I would reassure them that their abuser was wrong. I’d work at helping and supporting them to see the error in this belief and judgment. To see that they deserved to self-soothe and use distracting activities. That they were worthy of feeling better than they were right now. That they definitely didn’t deserve any pain or other negative consequences to their self-harm. So, why should I be any different? Why am I excluded from this advice and encouragement? Why am I (in such a negative way), special?

Aside from DBT, another, most helpful thing in my life that really helped me to overcome the negative thoughts and feelings surrounding my self-worth, was my blog. If you don’t know; I have a blog called, I’m NOT Disordered (www.imnotdisordered.co.uk) and it actually just reached over 1.8 million readers! The feedback I’ve received from so many readers and professionals and organisations who I’ve collaborated with on content, has been phenomenally helpful with this area of my mental health. Initially, when the beliefs were still strong and prominent, I struggled to accept their compliments and positive opinions and thoughts on my blog’s content; I felt totally unworthy of them, and I couldn’t even see what they saw. I couldn’t see how what I was writing and the posts I was creating could be so helpful to others. I couldn’t see how they could be of such a quality and have the desired and very ideal effectiveness and efficiency.

I think this was mostly because I didn’t feel as though I was putting much effort into the content; I think because I’m quite a creative person and really naturally enjoy writing, it’s been hard to deem blogging as hard work. To view it as needing any sort of effort or dedication. But that has definitely changed over the years (my blog will be twelve years old on January 6^th!) and I’ve come to recognise and have the distinct sense that I am actually putting a lot of thought and time into my content creation so I’m feeling a lot more worthy and deserving of the positive comments and feedback. So, I guess my advice from this, is to try to find some sort of project or commitment that will boost your self-esteem and lead to you receiving praise and useful comments that help build you up in terms of any skills, interests, and passions you might have.

With that, comes the end of this lengthy article! I hope it’s been helpful in some way and that you’ve found a sense of empathy and understanding from my account of my journey/story in terms of both the abuse and rape and my mental health difficulties. However, if you’ve been triggered or affected by this article in some negative way, please see our Help Directory: Help Directory | Shake My Hand

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the whole Team here at Shake My Hand!