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Sharon Brubaker - Grief Counseling Specialist

Santa Clarita Grief Counseling Expert: The #MeToo Movement, Grieving Sexual Abuse

A Santa Clarita grief counseling expert is talking about the “#MeToo Movement” that has swept social media in recent years, and raising awareness about her belief that sexual abuse, assault and harassment are all grieving experiences.


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“Everyone doesn’t know that a sexual harassment or a sexual assault or a child abuse sexual experience is a grieving experience — it causes a loss in our heart,” said Sharon Brubaker, a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist.

Sandi Atmore, also a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist, seconded this, sharing her own history of being sexually abused as a child as an example.

Related: Santa Clarita Grief Counseling Expert: How To Help The Griever

“A lot of times when people hear my story, they think, ‘Oh it must have been so traumatic,’ and they use the word ‘trauma,’” she said. “I really like to use the word ‘loss,’ because what I needed as a child was safety and stability and emotional connection, I needed to be reaffirmed, I needed to know who I was — and I lost all those things. I lost safety and control, I didn’t have personal space or boundaries. All of that was lost, and grieving it actually helped me to really heal and to live a very different life.”

Brubaker also experienced a sexual abuse incident when she was 12 years old and won a sexual harassment case against a workplace co-manager as an adult, and noted she has experienced the benefits of grieving those experiences.

“Because I’ve grieved every one of those sexual encounters … it makes me freer to share about it, because it’s not connected to me,” she said. “I feel like it’s an out-of-body experience, like you’re telling someone else’s story once we’ve grieved it.”

The rise of the #MeToo movement on social media has raised awareness about the prevalence of sexual abuse and assault, and even helped women and men alike to recognize that they may have been a victim in the past without fully realizing it, according to Brubaker.

“I feel like many people that were posting #MeToo were people that experienced sexual abuse when they were growing up,” said Atmore, noting that children often think the experience is “normal” because it typically takes place with a parent or trusted family friend.

“The child is kind of seduced into maybe a game or it’s made to be like it’s attention or something special,” she continued. “As children, we also kind of innately know that people who are bigger than us are supposed to know more, so as a child (there’s) that idea of like, ‘Well, I guess this is right.’”

Then as the child gets older, they may even think that similar sexual harassment or abuse experiences in the workplace, etc. are normal as well, according to Atmore.

“A lot of times when we’ve grown up and sexual abuse has happened and we felt like it was normal, then when we are in the workplace situation and there is a sexual assault, sometimes we don’t … recognize that this is sexual assault, because it was already normalized when we were younger and we carry that forward,” Atmore said.

Brubaker views the #MeToo movement as a way for tens of thousands of women and men who have experienced sexual abuse, assault or harassment — including herself — to “(put) our foot down” and say “enough is enough.”

“We are opening our eyes, we’re opening our heart and we are saying we cannot do this anymore,” she said. 

Ed. Note: This article is a KHTS Community Spotlight based on the latest “The Grief Recovery Hour” with Sharon Brubaker, a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist. 

Santa Clarita grief counseling expert Sharon Brubaker has over 11 years of experience as a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist. The grief counseling expert specializes in the Grief Recovery Method in Santa Clarita, and offers an 8-week education program that she teaches in person, utilizing her free eBook titled “Grief Recovery.” As a grief counseling expert, Santa Clarita residents dealing with loss or other unfinished business who desire a lasting change can be guided on their journey of pain to find healing in their lives.

Sharon Brubaker

Certified Grief Recovery Specialist

27772 Avenue Scott

Valencia, CA 91355

661-212-0720

Sharon Brubaker, Valencia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMWPBnapYIc

Grief, Santa Clarita Grief Counseling, Grief Counseling, Grief Recovery, Recovery, Sharon Brubaker, Dealing with Loss, Unfinished Business

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Santa Clarita Grief Counseling Expert: The #MeToo Movement, Grieving Sexual Abuse

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