From Surviving to Thriving on the Journey to Wholeness
Darlene Ouimet CTACC
I am so excited to have been invited to be a contributor to this amazing network. As a result of sexual abuse, I developed dissociated identity disorder and started to have serious depressions by the age of ten. I was struggling with an eating disorder, drug addiction and alcohol dependency by the age of 16. I found some help for addictions when I was 23 and managed to get married and have 3 children but the dissociative identity and depressions got worse as the kids started to grow.
Feeling worthless and giving up all hope I started to make plans to leave my husband and 3 young children. I confided in my friend who convinced me to try therapy one more time. I had nothing to lose this time and I didn’t hold back anything in my sessions. My therapist used a model of causal therapy; looking at the roots of the trauma and how my belief system was full of false things I believed were truth. The details of my life came out and through the process of recovery I realized that many things in my life had contributed to the serious problems I was having. I believed hundreds of lies that were fed to me and the therapy process became one of realizing what those lies were, where they were born and then replacing them with the truth. I got stronger and began to see light at the end of the tunnel. In the end it was the truth that set me free and I got my life and my identity back.
I made a complete recovery from dissociated identity (including multiple personality disorder) and chronic depressions. I went back to school and got my certification in life coaching with a specialty in relationships. I developed a passion to share my process. I was invited to be a regular inspirational speaker at mental health seminars accepted an invitation to join that counseling firm as the Director of Client Relations.
Today as a mental health advocate, what I bring to the community of survivors of any kind of abuse or mental health struggle is a message of hope and a new way of looking at the past in order to move forward. Realizing the impact I was having on clients at the seminars that I was speaking at, I decided to increase my reach, and start sharing my story and recovery on the internet. My blog “Emerging from Broken” has quickly become popular in the survivor community. My co-author Carla Dippel and I offer unique insights and have a way of cutting through the false beliefs that victims of abuse hold deeply in their hearts inspiring healing and hope for wholeness.
I look forward to meeting you and to sharing recovery on the journey to wholeness.
Darlene Ouimet
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/icpm
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