244 - Lori Beth Bisbey - A Realistic (and Encouraging!) Timeline for Anyone Healing From Sexual Trauma
“The message a lot of people get is that you can't get better, that you can go from victim to survivor, but that's as far as you're gonna go––and it's bullshit.” - Dr. Lori Beth Bisbey
For the sake of mutual safety, this episode is preceded by a content advisory regarding sexual trauma and minor-attracted persons, more commonly labeled as pedophiles. Please take care of yourself as you need, even if that means skipping this conversation.
Your body belongs to YOU. I open with this power-stance of a statement because I didn’t get that message as a child, adolescent, or young adult. In fact, I’ve only just begun to really grow into that knowledge as I heal from sexual trauma. Here’s another a-ha! from this episode: healing takes time. I’m grateful to folks like Dr. Lori Beth Bisbey for repeatedly reminding me of these essentials. Lori Beth is a psychologist, accredited advanced GSRD (gender, sex, and relationship diversity) therapist, sex and intimacy coach, author, speaker, TV personality, and podcast host who helps folks create and sustain their ideal relationships. Lori Beth has been a champion of sizzling sex without shame for 35+ years, and her work destigmatizes fetishes, BDSM, and non-monogamy.
“My Involvement in this area came from my own life experience, which is not unusual for psychologists or therapists,” Lori Beth begins. Her professional endeavors grew out of an intense sexual trauma that she detailed with remarkable candor in her memoir. “The reason I can tell that story and I'm not in floods of tears is because those memories are no longer live. I don't downplay them…but they're not live.”
Lori Beth’s healing journey provides encouragement for survivors of sexual trauma alongside a healthy dose of reality. “The timeline [of healing] is heavily influenced by your ability to engage. It's also influenced by finding the right kinds of therapy, really being willing to confront the bits that you are ashamed of, that you feel horrible about, that you judge yourself about.”
Time out for a deep breath as authentic agency often feels hella uncomfortable for some survivors to reclaim. “Trust yourself,” advises Lori Beth. “Trust that you can tolerate it, that you're gonna make it, you're not gonna die. You won't get stuck there. You’ll come out the other side.” That said, allowing another human to be in the healing process with your whole self (kinks included) takes time. “We don't often talk about that as part of healing,” Lori Beth says. “I had eight years of therapy before I had the stuff that really worked.”
Time is relative; so is your healing.
RECOMMENDED EPISODES
CWH193: Liz Dubé - Sexual Healing, One Bedroom At A Time
CWH135: Nicoletta Heidegger - Sluts and Scholars, Healing Sexual Trauma
CWH117: Tristan Taormino - Creating Shame-Free Inclusive Spaces with Sex Out Loud
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Dancing the Edge to Surrender: An Erotic Memoir of Trauma and Survival
LaidOPEN: The Complexity of Desire, Shame, and Trauma with Dr. Lori Beth Bisbey
GUEST CONTACT AND BIO
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Dr. Lori Beth Bisbey (she/her) is a psychologist, accredited advanced GSRD (gender, sex, relationship diversity) therapist, sex & intimacy coach, author, speaker and tv personality currently starring in Open House: The Great Sex Experiment, CH4 in the UK. She has been working with people for the past 35 years helping them to create and sustain their ideal relationships containing sizzling sex without shame. She has a weekly podcast, The A to Z Of Sex® since 2016 and is currently touring the UK speaking about kink, fetish, BDsM, and non-monogamy.
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