by Christine Sandor

Created on: August 03, 2009

Moving on from a history of childhood abuse is a step by step process. It involves above all patience with yourself and the willingness to allow your feelings without judgment. This is by no means an easy task but with time and a good support system around you, you can take back your life.

Moving on from abuse is in fact a process of taking back your life. As a child the adults had the power and they abused their power when they hurt the child that you were. As the target of the adults' rage and anger, your power was taken away. In the twisted way that abuse is played out, however, and in the way a child's mind works to understand, you came to believe that you were to blame for the abuse.

Children must make sense of their surroundings. They seek to understand their environment and as children view the world around them as if they were the center of that world. Because of this point of view, children of abuse must conclude they were somehow responsible for what happened to them. Even as adults, that belief lingers and the survivor struggles with the belief they somehow deserved the abuse or caused it by their behavior or even by their thoughts. One of the steps then in the moving on process is to see the perpetrator as completely responsible for the abuse.

When an adult survivor is able to begin to see the child as innocent and the target of the abuse, it is easier to begin the process of taking back the power over themselves and their lives. It is necessary to move through certain portions of the healing process in order to move on with one's life. Understanding that as a child you did not have control over the situation and there was virtually nothing you could have done is also the first step in understanding how incredibly brave and courageous the child you were had been.

It is not always necessary to relive each abusive situation, however it is important to begin to nurture the broken child within. Picturing the little one that you were and seeing yourself nurturing and caring for her/him is another important step. By comforting and caring for the child within you begin to learn to love and forgive yourself. You may even want to envision removing the child from the abusive environment and letting the child know you are in charge now and you will not allow anything bad to ever happen to her again. In time, your inner child begins to trust again and learns that you will keep her safe.

Another key step in the process of moving on is changing one's

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