Survivors of sexual abuse have a need for social connection to give them the support to heal – something that has become more elusive as we all hunker down in our homes in the midst of a pandemic. In this interview with Debra Graugnard, Janet Bentley, talks about the power of connection in healing from sexual abuse and complex PTSD, the challenge of maintaining social connection in these times of isolation and the additional support that survivors need.
Janet is the creator of the foundation, Courageous Survivors and author of Don’t Expect Me to Cry, a compelling memoir of her struggle as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. If you or anyone you know is a survivor of abuse or struggles with Complex PTSD, you should definitely join in this conversation.
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The Power Of Social Connection In Healing Trauma With Janet Bentley
I have with me on this episode, Janet Bentley. Welcome, Janet.
Thank you, Debra.
I’m so happy to have you here. Janet’s going to talk to us about The Power of Connection in Healing from Sexual Abuse and Complex PTSD. I’m excited from the depths of my heart because there are a lot of special challenges for people who struggle or in the healing process or even have long healed from conflict from abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and complex PTSD.
There are extra challenges in this time of isolation. Janet has some beautiful insights that she’s going to share with us. I’m grateful to you for being here to share your wisdom and to give that extra boost of hope and encouragement that many of us need during this time. Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
I read your bio and you’ve done some wonderful and amazing things to support survivors. I want everybody to know how much you’ve done. Janet Bentley was raised in Southern California and lives in Scottsdale, Arizona where she created and manages the foundation Courageous Survivors. She is a survivor of child sexual abuse.
Her driving passion is to be a lifeline to survivors. She has found that sharing her story has been key to healing her own pain and exposing this epidemic. Janet has written her memoir called Don’t Expect Me to Cry: Refusing to Let Childhood Sexual Abuse Steal My Life. It was published in October 2018 and has received numerous literary accolades.
She has been interviewed on several podcasts and I’m grateful to have you here. She has a powerful message to share. She is a member of RAINN, which stands for Rape Abuse and Incest National Network. She’s a member of their Speakers Bureau. She’s a facilitator of Darkness to Light Stewards of Children child sexual abuse prevention training.
She is an Ambassador for NAASCA, which is the National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse in Colorado. Janet in her spare time enjoys nature, reading, hiking, and riding her bike. Welcome, Janet. Thank you for being here.
Thanks.
Can you start out about your journey, but only as much as you feel comfortable to share and also feel would be a benefit to others. How did you come through what you came through and your story? How did you come to be doing the work that you’re doing now to help others?
Thank you to everyone that’s joining in and thank you, Debra. It is always an honor to be able to share my experience and hopefully impart some hope to somebody else. My journey has been a long one. I came from an abusive environment growing up. I grew up in a home where addiction was rampant. My family, they were alcoholics and drug addicts.
My father sexually abused me from the age of four. That’s the earliest I can remember. I often wonder because these things don’t happen at a certain age just because we remember them at a certain age. It was a scary environment and it was filled with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of neglect.
I feel like I searched for so long as a child for a way out in my mind. I’m the oldest of eight. I am one of the only ones that have not gone down the destructive path that most of my family has. My dad killed himself when he was 44.
My mom died at 50. I have a brother that committed suicide at 24 and another brother OD’d and it goes on and on. That’s in my immediate family. There was a lot of this going on the outsides as well in the extended family.
We were born needing connection. Living without connection is like dying. Share on XWhat I did though is I determined that I wanted to escape, that I wanted to get out of there and the way to do that was to be anything except like them. Although, that was survival. That was a way that I survived. I searched for that. I look back on it and I see myself as grasping onto anything I could get, like a teacher’s praise or I got straight As in school.
I went down the perfectionism route. I thought if I did that, I’d be better or whatever. I searched for it in religion. I got involved with a friend who belongs to a fundamentalist church, which I didn’t realize at the time I was eleven.
I would go with her family to church that turned out to be a nightmare experience as well, unfortunately, because it was a shame-based religion. I ended up being raped by one of the elders there. This is in no way against religion or anything like that, but my experience. It felt cultish and it’s easy to get to children that are looking for love and acceptance and I fit the category.
There was that. I graduated from high school. I got married and I had two kids. I left home when I was seventeen. One weekend, I bought a car. I left home, found an apartment, and I was gone. That was my way of getting the heck out of there.
Though I felt guilt at leaving my siblings there and all that, but I had to get out for my own sanity. I jumped into a relationship looking for that love, looking for that acceptance, and looking for that self-esteem.
Are you looking for security too?
Yes, absolutely. I never found what I was looking for because what I’ve learned in the last few years is what I was looking for is inside of me. It’s looking for something that I have a big part in giving to myself. I never dealt with the trauma. I never talked to my ex-husband about it. It wasn’t until my mom died. I was in my early 30s and my kids were young and I fell apart when she died.
I had a two-year mental breakdown. I was depressed. I started going to therapy with a psychiatrist who also did therapy. The first time I ever talked to anybody about what had happened. It was an avalanche of emotions, flashbacks, and memories. It was a difficult time. I ended up with multiple suicide attempts and hospitalizations. It was a dark time for me.
I also found during that time pills, which seemed to take away what they did. It was by accident how I started taking them. I had some Valium from a dentist and I ended up taking it and I thought, “This isn’t doing much.” I took a little more until I realized I could medicate those emotions away. That began another journey. That relationship ended.
I’m in my mid-30’s. I met my husband who I’m still married to now. We got married in ‘98. He’s from England and I moved to England to be with him to work at immigration on both ends of both countries. I stopped therapy, meds and everything. We were there for a few years.
Things were good. I was missing my kids. We knew we had to come here. He was going to miss his kids and it was emotional, but we ended up coming back to Northern California at the beginning of 2000 or Y2K.
We moved up there and that was when I was diagnosed with PMDD. It was hitting me hard. It’s an extreme form of PMS. I was not myself for two weeks out of the month. One of the ways they treated it was with a high dose of antidepressants. That was amazing. It got me into seeing psychiatrists because they were the ones prescribing the antidepressants and things started to get better.
Things were going good again. We moved around. We moved to Arizona, North Carolina, then New Jersey. In 2012, we moved back to Arizona. During that time, I had a cancer diagnosis. I had chemo and radiation. My husband and I were going through some real ups and downs, mostly because of my health issues. It was a rough time.
During all this time, since I left that first therapist, I never got back into therapy. I saw a psychiatrist for meds and had those prescribed, but never dealt with the trauma, the underlying stuff that was still causing all the pain. Fast forward to Arizona. I’ve been diagnosed with major depression several times and the depression took over again.
It was bound to eventually do that because I hadn’t dealt with what was underneath the surface. The end of 2014 changed my life. Through a series of circumstances, I became suicidal again. My husband and I were worried and what that led me to was going to a treatment center for trauma called The Meadows in Wickenburg, Arizona.
That’s all I can say. It dug deep into what was causing all the pain and everything. I met some people that I feel like they’re my family. It was the beginning of my healing. I left and in 2015, I attended an IOP, which is an Intensive Outpatient Program. That was in Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s still run by The Meadows.
During that period, I had another depression lapse because I was still drinking to medicate. I had gotten into this habit of every night, which then depressed me, which then let my depression worse. That went on for a couple of years.
At the beginning of 2017, I felt the depression coming back strong again. I didn’t want to go back there. I had tried a couple of different therapists who wanted to do certain therapeutic modalities with me that didn’t work. I would quit and not go back.
I hadn’t found the right place or the right thing. In the meantime, I had started writing again though. A dear friend of mine named Brad, we went to be trained for Darkness to Light in San Diego. This was in 2015. We got trained for doing the Stewards of Children sexual abuse prevention training.
During that two-hour one way, but we had a round trip, so it was four hours total, we talked and we shared stories. I told him that I had kept journals and had started writing. He was like, “You should get back into that. This could help somebody.” I thought, “I wonder if I could do that.”
I dug all my journals out and it took me until 2018 to get all that together, get my journals in and bring it up to date. That was a healing experience, a cathartic experience, and a painful experience. During that, leading up to the beginning of 2017, it’s what had caused me to slip again. I was still drinking.
I was still medicating, but at the same time writing and reliving all these memories. I thought, “I want to try one more time to get a therapist.” I looked at Psychology Today. I did a lot of research and found a therapist. I read what he did.
I read his philosophies and it seemed to jive with mine. I sent an email off and that started my real healing journey and I still see him to this day, twice a week still. During that time in 2018, that’s what led up to my book. I got the courage to publish it. I got the courage to go for it and put it out there.
One of the things that had led up to that was the inner child work that I started doing, which was emotional for me. When I was first asked what I thought about little Janet, I was like, “I hate her.” Learning self-compassion for her has been one of the most healing, but most emotional experiences. However, she got her voice.
This book, that’s the inner child. If you haven’t figured that out, it’s me with my inner child. I feel like the sexual abuse that I experienced stole much of my life, hence the subtitle. She ended up getting a voice and getting to tell her story and start a real road of healing.
That brings me up to where I wrote the book. It’s been the beginning of a journey that I can’t even describe the blessings and the things that I’ve learned and that I’m still learning. That brought me to that. I’m wondering where I should go from here as far as what you think would be best to talk about.
First, I want to acknowledge some of the people who are commenting on the chat. Brad is here and I want to thank you, Brad, for planting that seed for her to write this book because I bet that’s the same, Brad.
He says, “You saved my life. Knowing you are there always gives me the strength to live on.” Norma says, “A beautiful book cover, fitting and powerful.” If you reading the blog, be sure to visit the website.
I have a question for you in terms of writing the book. What would you say is the importance of writing? You said you kept a journal for a long time. What would you say the role of journaling played in your healing process? Journaling versus putting it together into a book.
The journaling kept me sane. The journaling gave me an outlet for all the crazy feelings and fears that I had going through all of it especially after my mom died and after my dad died. That was another thing. I realized it wasn’t until after my mom died that I felt safe enough to talk and to deal with this.
Going back to all those journals and getting that into a book, I’m grateful that I kept those journals. There were many things that I forgot. Not experiences necessarily, but the emotions and it helped me to see where I was now and how far I had come.
Be brave enough to put yourself in situations where you would meet people, as scary as that can be. Share on XThe challenge was I know when I first started putting them into book form or into a form where I was going to write a book. I got this software program that my husband downloaded for me and I was getting it all organized and I started writing it.
I was like, “How do I get this across? How do I express all of this in a way that is going to be readable and relatable to everybody?” Also, I know when I first started, I thought I would write it in its final form in the back of my head. The perfectionism took over and I remember asking Brad. I don’t know if he remembers this, but I remember asking him, “How do I do this?”
He had a creative writing teacher that said, “Just write and edit later.” That’s what I decided to do. I dumped it all. It was edit and rewrite. My husband was helpful. When I was doing this, he read it over and over and caught so much stuff and suggested certain things. He was my biggest editor. It was an interesting process.
Brad is saying, “You taught me to talk to someone.” One of the things that I know that you want to share about is the power of connection. Here we are in a time of isolation. I’m wondering how this process of journaling and writing might fit into that or not.
I feel like I’ve learned the importance of connections in the last few years of my trauma therapy. That is one of the biggest gifts that my therapist has given me. When you’re a child or an adult, the complex trauma, when it’s throughout your whole childhood and your life, one of the ways that you protect yourself is to isolate.
One thing my therapist has taught me is that when you’re a child, the connection is life. Without connection, you die. You’re born needing that. You’re born requiring that, but when you’re traumatized and abused, the way you survive is to go into yourself.
What I did is I blamed myself, not consciously, but I figured the opposite of dying, I had to do something. To survive death, blaming myself and going into myself was surviving. If I was at fault, I had a little bit of control. I could be better. Maybe they would love me.
Maybe they wouldn’t hurt me. Maybe they wouldn’t rape me. Maybe they wouldn’t do these things if I could be better if I was perfect. That’s what I did for many years is to try to be better and to be good. At the same time, then fast forward to when you’re an adult, your nervous system has learned that from such a young age.
Also, let me backtrack a bit. The connecting to your body, the dissociation from my body, to not be there, that was a big survival coping mechanism for me. As an adult, when you’re in a situation where you need a connection to heal and to thrive. It doesn’t feel safe. The nervous system is like, “This isn’t safe.”
I would tell myself, “No, the way I’m safe is I can kill myself. The way I’m safe is I can disappear from this world. That’s safety to me.” In reality, that’s not ever what I wanted to do. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be connected to people, but I didn’t feel worthy.
I didn’t feel good enough. I didn’t want that abandonment. I didn’t want that rejection that I had always received, even though in reality, as an adult, the likelihood of that was much less, but it didn’t matter. That’s where I went.
Patterning had already been established and your nervous system was remembering what it had learned. It’s conflicting with what you knew as an adult that you needed.
It basically comes down to what my biggest need was my biggest fear. That is such a core issue that is hard to overcome. I start therapy and he starts preaching connection. I say preaching in the kindest way because he knew that would be healing. I couldn’t depend on him. You can’t depend on one person for everything.
I was always at one extreme, either shut down or hypervigilant. I was never in the middle of that functional place. It started slowly. I started risking being me, risking being a friend, risking someone saying, “I don’t want to be your friend,” by putting myself out there. Slowly but surely, it started happening and now, this pandemic.
We’re in a challenging time. Before we jump into that, I want to point out. You used the word you speaking for yourself, but I want to say to anybody who’s reading who can relate that what you’re saying, it’s a natural, normal part of how the nervous system operates, how the psyche operates and how we survive or help people survive such things.
If you’re a person who has experienced these things and may find yourself in a struggle and judging yourself or finding yourself in similar patterns that Janet is talking about, understand that this is natural and normal. It’s a way that your body and your psyche survive and cope. It’s not a broken thing. Janet, I appreciate you sharing the depth that you did and explaining that.
If you can talk about how with this pandemic and if you could say even a little bit more about how did you bridge to connection? Where did you find a connection? That is a courageous step to risk being you, being seen, and being loved or not.
It’s scary when you’re not used to it. I love what you said and I’m glad you said what you said because I was self-critical by feeling broken, by feeling like I had these patterns and I wasn’t “normal.” What you described is this type of self-compassion. It’s something I’m learning still. No wonder I was like that and we developed those patterns.
People that have experienced abuse, it saved our lives so good for us. Bridging it was scary. I personally was attending a group that helped. I still didn’t reach out to anybody in the group at first. It was The Meadows alumni group. I started twelve steps to stop drinking. I went to Pills Anonymous to find out how I could stop using pills as a medication for wanting to disappear.
The encouragement that I received for that, I went into some of these situations, some of these groups and some of these places and lo and behold, there were kind people waiting to welcome me in. They were waiting to share experiences and be my friend and well. I have a good friend named Martha, and my therapist still reminds me of this every once in a while.
A few years ago, I was in Flower Child having lunch with my husband and my granddaughter. I knew her from a group that I went to and she was sitting across with another friend having lunch. I was like, “Simon, that’s Martha.”
He was like, “You should go and say hi.” I’m like, “I don’t want to go and say hi.” It frightened me to death. I don’t even know what my fear was. It’s that fear of being rejected, of whatever. I did it. I started pushing myself. I started walking through the fear through support from therapy and other places. I went and said hi. We are best friends now. We are soul sisters.
The way I did it was taking a chance and putting myself in those places. Being brave enough to put myself in situations where I would meet people, as scary as it was. It’s like what Brené Brown always says about courage. It’s not a lack of fear. It’s fear but going anyways. When you find out you’re not rejected, that helps you a little bit the next time.
Some new information into that nervous system patterning like, “Maybe there’s a different way.” Here’s what Martha said about you. “Janet is one of the most courageous and inspiring individuals I have ever known. I have learned much from her and I’m forever grateful that she is in my life.” That’s beautiful.
Another layer of encouragement there for those of us who might see that person and say, “She wouldn’t want me to bother her. She wouldn’t want to hear from me. I’m going to sit over here.” What a beautiful thing that you have the courage and that you took this step. It sounds like that was a step and you’ve continued.
To reiterate, you found specific groups where you could meet people who were perhaps struggling with these similar things and would understand. You could have people to take those steps with. Connection. I’ll speak for myself. I’ve found myself and I also hear other people saying that, “I can take the step within the space that I’m in once so-and-so changes or if so-and-so would only get it.”
Often, they have no clue and they’re not going to get it. We’re not doing ourselves any service to stay in the little bubble that we’re in and wait for other people to change so that we can feel safe and better to make the changes we need to make. I love that you have sought out those groups and took those steps in a safer environment.
What are you finding now, as we’re in this time of isolation, in terms of how to stay connected, the needs for connection? How we might recognize if we’re having needs or if those close to us are having needs or this connection, how we can first off recognize when we need it?
For me, I found on and off through the ups and downs through this whole thing. I’ll be in a good place and I’ll start to feel a little bit isolated and everything. I have to say that even though I feel like I’ve come so far and I’m still healing from all of this, but it’s not easy to let go of those coping strategies. They’ll probably be with me forever. They’ll get better.
During this pandemic, the triggers, the climate, the news, and all of it, I find that the old coping strategy of disappearing, shutting down, being isolated calls me at times. It’s like, “I don’t want to get up this morning. I don’t want to make an effort. I want to disappear and wake up and I’ll be gone. That leads me towards disconnection and depression.
Don’t let physical isolation stop you from connecting. Make calls. Use whatever technology is at your disposal to talk with people. Share on XOne of the most positive things that I learned or feeling is that even though that calls me and the healthier I get sometimes, the stronger that gets. It’s like, “You’re letting go of me. You need me.” I don’t want to go back there. I might slip back a little bit, but I talk to my therapist. I said, “I’m starting to feel like I want the isolation again.”
He’s always encourage me to make phone calls. If I say to him I’ve talked to somebody or whatever, he’ll say, “Did you text? Did you call? Did you see them in person?” Each one is a stronger layer of connection. The phone calls are what we have at the moment a lot of the time. I said, “I need to be accountable to start making phone calls. I want to see how that works.”
I have a book. It’s a gratitude journal that somebody gave me and it happens to have three lines. I use it for phone calls. Our agreement is that I make three phone calls a day. It’s funny because he’ll ask me who I’ve called or if I’m keeping it up or whatever.
Martha happens to be one of the people that I can call, but she doesn’t count because it’s easy to call her. I can call her, but then there have to be two more people. I’ve been doing that and it’s amazing. I’m calling people. It’s like a win-win situation. People are saying to me, “I’m so glad you called. I need to call people,” or “It’s nice to talk to someone.”
I’m getting the benefit and it feels like they’re getting the benefit and it’s helping me. I’m hoping that when the pandemic gets easier and hopefully, we can get back to a little bit of normalcy that I’m going to still retain picking up that heavy phone has gotten a lot lighter. I’m hoping. It’s helping me now.
These days we have FaceTime or Duo or Zoom. Anybody can get a free Zoom account. As we know, Zoom is blowing the roof off since this time of isolation. There are many accounts, but it’s wonderful that we can have that.
I know you have a Facebook Group that is called the Courageous Survivors. Maybe you’ve already done this, but put a challenge in there for people to make those connections and to report in their connections. To give that encouragement so that people continue to maintain connections.
Kimberly says, “Janet’s authenticity has allowed me to speak my truth. Her courage inspires me to continue to push forward.” I follow you on Facebook also. I know that a lot of people have been inspired by your writing, by your work, in the work that you do. I only see it on Facebook and I know that you have the three other organizations that you’re a part of.
You speak, you reach out to people, and you support people. What was your number one turning point that when you said you finally found the therapist, the one that helped you to make progress? They pushed you through perhaps a wall that you hadn’t been able to push before. What would you say was the number one thing that helped you or that did that for you?
Do you mean that helped me through that process?
What made the difference? What was it about the therapist or this process that made the difference for you that others weren’t able to reach?
What I got in this trauma therapy with this trauma therapist is someone who understood. He’s a somatic experienced therapist. It’s not sematic experience in the therapy. It’s talk therapy. It’s the titration of the therapy of someone who has helped me through this therapeutic relationship to realize things that I never learned.
I’m learning through this relationship things I never learned as a child. One of those things that I’ve learned is that being in the middle functional place, not being either shut down or too scared is a safe place. I’ve learned safety. I’ve learned the things that are difficult. When you’re a child growing up, even if you’re in a functional home, I would imagine it’s not easy. You have to learn lessons.
You have to learn how to be independent. That’s one thing I wanted to teach my children. You love them, you care about them, but you want them to be okay on their own. Whereas before this, I’ve always grasped two things that I thought would give me that safety or that would give me that feeling.
I’m learning that building a support group through connection, shared experiences, service, and sharing my story enriches my experience and my life. In saying all of that, that is all connection. Also, self-compassion. I have young granddaughters and that’s helped me tremendously in a million ways because I love them to death.
In my therapy, when I can’t see that compassion for myself, I can see it by imagining them, by imagining me at their age, by seeing them like, “Would I have wanted that for myself? Would I talk to them like I talked to myself?” That whole inner child self-compassion piece, which is hard for me. You saw me shaking my head no. I have a hard time taking good in. I have a hard time taking positive in, but I’m learning. It’s those two things.
That’s beautiful because I heard you talk about perfectionism and hypervigilance. What I heard you say was the thing that you got from this therapist was learning that you could be in the in-between place and not have to be perfect or striving, and you can be safe. That’s powerful.
To have a support structure where you can have a connection and put that into a practice where your whole nervous system, your psyche, and your body memory can experience being okay in connection. When you’re not in the perfectionism, the hypervigilance and the other coping strategies is teaching you what you didn’t get as a child.
This is something that you couldn’t learn in your isolation. This is the power of connection. That’s beautiful. Any other words of wisdom that you would like to share?
I don’t know if they’re wise.
All of your words are wise and there are people that need these words. They need to hear it from you and can relate to what you’re saying. They might not have gone through the exact same things that you went through, but they need you and they need your words.
The other thing that, that was a big moment and it’s a good way to end it or bring it all together is that this also comes from the perfectionism or whatever. When I started therapy, I was like, “I want to do this. I want to do this perfectly. I want to do it right. I want to get from point A to point Z and I’m going to be okay. I’m going to be healed. I’m going to be whatever.”
A while back, I realized that’s not how it works. There is not a finish line. I may be in trauma therapy for the rest of my life. I expected if I didn’t do my therapy perfect, I was going to get kicked out. It’s not like that. Life happens while you’re doing all this work. You can have fun. You can live, you can enjoy things and do all that at the same time you’re doing this.
You’re not always in the same place. It might be five steps forward, two steps back. It’s easy to get critical of ourselves, at least I have. It’s like, “What are you doing? You’re listing all of your progress?” No, it’s integrating somehow and I’ll get back on track and keep going. Realizing that was a relief. It gave me some peace like, “I’ll do it as slowly as I need to and the best I can and that’s good enough. One day at a time.
This analogy has been coming to me and I saw it again. I’m thinking of like even the Babe Ruths in life who are ready for the pitch and pointing to the outfield. They don’t hit everyone. They don’t win every game. They strike out sometimes and they keep going. It’s a little bit different, but this is day by day in life. Some days are strikeouts. Some days are walks. Some days are home runs.
Some days we don’t even get up to the plate or pick up the bat or we hide from the ball, as the case may be. Thank you for everything that you have shared with us. I want to ask you to share how people can get your book or the best way that they can connect with you. While you’re thinking that over, does Brad call you JJ?
Yes.
“I have no words. I know we always say if this saves one life. It saved us one life. My life. You, sharing has saved many lives. Call me.” Martha says, “Debra, I want to thank you for having my beautiful friend on your show. Janet is such a blessing and has much to share with this world. Thank you for the opportunity for her to have this space to give to others.”
I agree. Thank you, Martha. Thank you, Brad. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Kimberly. Thank you, Norma. Thank you, Wanda. Thank you, Sabina. For everybody else who has shared in whatever case, thank you for supporting.
Janet, I want to thank you for everything that you shared. Thank you especially for having the courage and for acting on that courage. Taking the action and the steps to break through those barriers and those grooves in the neurological pathways that have been established to take you in a certain direction.
For having the courage to bust out, to carve some new grooves into your neurological pathways, and make those connections. Can you tell people now how to get your book and the best way to connect with you?
I want to say thank you for having me here. It’s been an honor and a privilege. I appreciate it much. My book is on Amazon. You can find it on Amazon. You can also go to my website, which is simple, www.JanetBentley.com. In there, there’s a link to get the book. There are my contact information and my email. That’s an easy way to get to everything.
The book is Don’t Expect Me to Cry: Refusing to Let Childhood Sexual Abuse Steal My Life. Thank you for that courage and thank you for refusing and thank you for sharing all that you’ve shared with us. Thank you all.
Important Links:
- Janet Bentley
- Courageous Survivors
- RAINN
- Darkness to Light Stewards of Children
- NAASCA
- The Meadows
- Pills Anonymous
- Courageous Survivors – Facebook Group
- Facebook – Janet Bentley
- http://www.JanetBentley.com/
- https://www.Amazon.com/Dont-Expect-Me-Cry-Childhood/dp/1732072787
- https://www.Facebook.com/JanetBentleyAuthor/
About Janet Bentley
Janet Bentley was raised in Southern California and currently lives in Scottsdale, Arizona where she created and manages the foundation Courageous Survivors. She is a survivor of child sexual abuse.
Janet’s driving passion is to be a lifeline to survivors. She has found that sharing her story has been key to healing her own pain and exposing this epidemic. Her memoir, “Don’t Expect Me To Cry: Refusing to let Childhood Sexual Abuse steal my life” was published in October 2018 and has received numerous literary accolades.
Janet has a powerful message to share. Janet is a member of RAINN’s (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) Speakers’ Bureau, a facilitator of Darkness to Light’s Stewards of Children child sexual abuse prevention training and an Ambassador for NAASCA (National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse) Colorado.
Is there a topic you would like to hear about? You’re invited to join our discussions in the Facebook community. You’re welcome to introduce yourself and let us know what you’d like to receive. Click here to access the group.
Other Important Links:
- Bridging the GAPS Live Online Course
- Joyfully Living Wellness
- Joyfully Living Store
- Community for Conscious Living
- Community for Conscious Living Facebook Group
- Self-Care for the Soul podcast
