Welcome to The Survivor Archives Mindsay Page.

You're Invited... We've found a way to reach out to survivors of trauma in a different way each week!

Here at mindsay.com, we wish to spread our mission, and to ask for your help in keeping it going. We're featuring survivors of abuse and trauma on our website. This is done in order to share their experience, strength, and hope with our readers. So many of us feel alone. We get to the point where we feel stuck, and hopeless. We feel like it's never going to get better. We feel like giving up. We hate ourselves, and we feel guilty and responsible for our own trauma, abuse, and the feelings and thoughts that stem from it. We feel powerless.

But we're not any of these things. We never have been and never will be. But, as survivors, we need to unite and help eachother in our healing. We need to reach out and break the silence that keeps us in pain and isolation. For these reasons, we're looking to feature survivors of abuse/trauma, and we ask whats helped them. We do this in order to shed some light through the darkness of the past, towards a future of guidance and transformation.

Note: All featured survivors must be 18 years or older to participate for liability reasons.  It is important to note that we respect the right of any featured individual to remain anonymous.  Any information shared with us, that is not intended by the survivor to be shared within their archive, will be kept permanently confidential.  We can not emphasize enough that The Survivor Archives isn't a place to share any detailed, explicite descriptions of past abuse or trauma.  We focus on the here and now and primarily on what has helped one to heal, cope, and maintain functioning.   In this way we want to spread hope for healing to all readers.
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How Can I Help?
We're looking for as many volunteers as possible who are willing to complete an archive for eventual posting on our website.  The greatest gift that we can give each other as survivors is hope.  Hope that we're not alone.  Hope that we're not on this journey in vain.  And hope that healing is possible.  That is my personal mission. But I can't do it alone.  That is why a dear friend and I have completed the contruction of The Survivor Archives.  And that is why I'm asking for your help now.  Each week I work with survivors in the construction of their archives.  Each week I post a new Archive to be read by our growing audience.
 
What is an Archive? 
An archive is a expression of a survivors healing. 

It includes the following:

• Bio: Each survivor offers a short bio of themselves, explaining where they're at now in live's, how've they've made it to where they presently find themselves, and what goals they have for the future.  In biographies we ask that concentration be placed on the story of each survivor's healing more so than of their past abuse. We ask who they've become? What matters to them today? What are their goals in life, and what have they accomplished thus far? We want to concentrate not on what they haven't done - but on what they have done. We ask to keep focus on what they do have in their lives, rather than what they don't.

• Q & A:  They answer a series of nine questions such as "What is the best advice you've ever received in healing?", "What has and hasn't worked in their healing?" and "What has been their three biggest obstacles in their healing?"

• Artwork done in therapy, such as a painting or poetry is shared. Personal expression is an extremely important aspect of healing.  Abuse clouds it's victims in burdens of verbal and emotional secrecy.  Its wasn't okay to feel, or speak.  So, a very important aspect of healing is expressing those bottled up emotions and words.  The pain, fear, anger, and grief must be released, and this is often done through writing, painting, drawing, poetry, music, photography, etc.  Journal entries are very acceptable.  There are no limits in art, and in the minds ability to speak out.

• Letters are written by each survivor for their archives to an aspect of their abuse - such as to their abuser, to themselves as a child, to a child being abused, etc. This last section will hopefully allow featured survivors with a chance to do some inward reflection, and allow themselves to open up on a very powerful level. A letter written sometime during the course of therapy is perfectly okay to use, and even encouraged.  However, there are no by limitations on who or to what this letter is addressed to.

Could I Be Featured?
Yes!  We're looking for as many volunteers as we can get.  Ask and I'll do all I can to see that it happens.  You'll first need to fill out a request form and once it is accepted you can begin working on it.  Then, it is my job to help you in perfecting your archive until it is ready to be posted.  Theres no time limit.  It can take you the next five years and we'll be perfectly okay with that.  As long as you'll eventually complete it, that is all that we ask.   For any questions you can contact us at survivor.archives@gmail.com.

Questions or Comments?
For any other questions, please send an email to 'The Survivor Archives' at the following address: trauma.survivors@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Joanna Doane & Kristin Kathaleen
Authors
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The Survivor Archives
URL: http://survivor-archives.squarespace.com
Email: trauma.survivors@gmail.com