Category Archives: Yvonne Ellis
YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK
Recently I was invited to the University of West London to talk to Level 4 Social Work students. The topic of discussion was resilience. What and how is it developed. As I listened to the lecturer talk about this subject, I realised on a deeper level that adversity has strengthened me. Resilience basically means the ‘courage’ to bounce back. I have had to bounce back from many challenging situations during my life. At the time I was going through them, I felt so weak. I did not believe that I had the strength to make it through all the challenges I faced. Childhood sexual abuse, depression for over twenty years, […]
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From The Pit To The Palace
Over the last few months, I have visited two places that were a huge part of my past journey. A few years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine going back to them. The thought of going back to Seaford, a quaint small town on the Sussex coast known for its small pebble beach, had crossed my mind, yet it wasn’t enough to persuade me to travel the hour and a half to go there. That was until just before my 45th birthday. I decided to organise a day out of London with my family. It was the perfect time to visit Seaford. Over the years, I shared very […]
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A Brand New Resource
I am excited to share my new book with you supporting young people harmed through familial sexual abuse. It is aimed at Practitioners and Professionals that work with children and young people. I created this eBook after successfully delivering my workshop by the same name to 100 Practitioners and Professionals. I was encouraged by the conversations, group working and feedback from the participants within the workshop. It has been an insightful and great learning experience to hear how Practitioners and Professionals empower those entrusted to their care. I am aware of how busy those who work in social work, mental health, police, and other services are. So, with […]
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EXPOSING THE LIES OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
During my 30-year journey to healing from childhood sexual abuse, I discovered certain things I used to believe was not the truth. Many of the thoughts and perceptions I had about my experience came from my distorted view and not having the right information. It has been liberating to break free from the lies my experience left me with. As a survivor that has come through the other side of a hard and challenging journey, I want to share with you three common lies child sexual abuse leaves behind. Things will never get better When I was in the thick of depression, I was not hopeful about my […]
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EVERYDAY COURAGE
Happy New Year to you! I think we can all agree 2020 was a challenging year! Now that 2020 is in the past, I want to encourage you to use 2021 to have everyday courage. I remember times earlier in my journey to healing from sexual abuse that there were things that I thought I couldn’t do. Such as: Face the pain of past Do new things Pursue life outside of my past abuse It’s been amazing that I have now achieved all of these things. When I think about how I achieved them, I cannot remember doing anything sudden or extraordinary. In all honestly, […]
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The Best of 2020
Wow, what a year! It has been quite challenging mentally, spiritually and emotionally at times, but I am glad to say I’ve made it through! I’m sure we can all find plenty of negative things to talk about. Instead, I want to focus on the positive and the best of 2020. This year has been one of recognition and realisation. I won two awards, and this was a new experience for me. Besides being a Women Appreciating Women award recipient, I also received an award from Small business Enterprise for best support organisation (Daughter Arise). Both awards mean a lot to me. It further confirmed that it’s […]
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CELEBRATE YOUR WINS
The journey to reclaiming your life in the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse can be difficult. It can be for different reasons. Because of its unpredictability, sometimes it felt like I took one step forward and two steps back. Maybe you can relate. Do you recognise those days when you turned a corner on something you thought you would never overcome? How about the days where you may feel you have not achieved anything at all? That’s why I believe it’s important to celebrate your wins. A few years ago, I used to struggle to celebrate my wins. I was always too hard on myself. I didn’t appreciate […]
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MY BOOK IS 10 YEARS OLD
October is a celebratory month. My autobiography Daughter Arise has turned ten years old. I cannot believe it has been a decade since I released the first edition of my book. It feels like the time has passed so quickly. The process was a long journey. My book took nearly two years to complete because writing about my childhood was hard and painful. My motivation for writing my book was to voice my experience. God impressed upon me to do it and encouraged me every step of the way. So what’s changed since my book was first published in October 2010? I can tell you many great things […]
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A Difficult Conversation
I recently moderated a panel discussion called Secret Society: An open discussion about child sexual abuse in the black community. I created this event because over the ten years I have been supporting survivors of child sexual abuse, I have noticed amongst black survivors, common challenges that they face. As a survivor of black ethnicity, I wanted to provide a space to have this difficult conversation. I have created many events over the years as an event planner. However, this was my first time doing a virtual event. We are living in unprecedented times with the global pandemic Coronavirus. Many events, conferences and meetings that have traditionally been at […]
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A POSITIVE STORY
I had the great honor of interviewing Davina on the Daughter Arise Youtube channel. She is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Davina shared her story with such poise and courage. It was not easy for her to do. Yet she did it because she wants to let other survivors know there is hope. I spent some time afterwards reflecting on what Davina shared and I want to share with you some positive things I took away from her story. The importance of being believed One of the things that can cause fear in a survivor is the thought of not being believed. I have experienced this so have […]
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