Flourish_therapy

26/12/2025

25/12/2025

🤍❄️🎄

20/12/2025

Delayed onset trauma....

So much was going on for me in this pic. I was 12. I was doing drugs and drinking. I was being exploited and r***d. I thought it was all totally normal. Cool even.

Delayed onset trauma is where we only become traumatised once we process and recognise what has happened, and can happen years/decades later.

It’s completely normal and very common for women and girls in abuse. You often don’t even know what you are being subjected to, and if it is normalised, minimised, or even glorified, you might not have any specific trauma responses whilst it is happening to you, it all comes later on.

This means you can ‘appear’ to be ‘coping’ or ‘unaffected’ by whatever it is that is being done to you in the moment, but you can later on process and reprocess what was really happening, and then become distressed, traumatised and feel totally crushed by it all.

This journey of processing your own trauma can come at any point in your life, and it can happen over and over again.

A trauma informed anti-pathology approach to this is vital - because this is totally normal. This is not mental illness. This is not a disorder. You can be retriggered and need to keep reprocessing for years, and it’s natural.

Interestingly, the international research on child sexual abuse and exploitation actually shows that the majority of kids being abused will use ‘positive’ coping mechanisms like working harder at school, trying to be ‘good’, being quiet, engaging in sports etc - which means no one notices!

We only get taught that children being abused show ‘negative’ coping mechanisms - but these are actually comparatively rare. It’s much more common for kids to normalise abuse and cope with it by just conforming, or by seeking positive affirmation and validation at school and home.

So if you have even an *inkling* that a child around you is going through something, don’t expect or wait for ‘negative’ coping mechanisms, behaviours, or disclosures - they might not come for decades.

And if any of this applies to you - remember that delayed onset trauma is natural, very common and completely rational. This is not something to pathologise or diagnose.

All my love,

Jess x

19/12/2025

15/12/2025

There are so many paths to healing and pursuing the full, flourishing life we want...and just because you're not experiencing that doesn't mean you're not on the right path.

Struggling isn't a sign of being wrong or even missing out on something, rather it's a very real part of the process of being in a human body, and experiencing human realities.

Let this be your reminder that you're not alone if you're walking through a painful part of your journey. May we all find the courage we need. 🤍

🌿Lauren + Luke Smallcomb

09/12/2025

This is an inevitability.

Feels relatable? Purchase "Golden Child" on Amazon today. 📖✨🤍

🌼Lauren Smallcomb

06/12/2025

It's hard to attune well to yourself when you are so diligently attuned to your partner (or parent, child, coworker, friend, ect...)

🌿Lauren + Luke Smallcomb

04/12/2025

Quote:

🌿Luke + Lauren Smallcomb

03/12/2025

03/12/2025

Quote: Brené Brown

🌿 Luke + Lauren Smallcomb

28/11/2025

I watched Oprah’s podcast on ‘the rising Trend of going No Contact with your family’ last night. I thought it was a fair, respectful open discussion all round given the vastness of the topic and the limits of a 75 minute broadcast.

I really empathised with the people who were asked their reason for going No Contact with their parents. How do you condense multiple decades of invisible control and degradation into one sentence? The hospice nurse captured it powerfully by answering “it was a million cuts that bled me dry”.

The discussion concluded that the world is a very different place now. The era of unquestioned obedience, of ‘honour thy mother and father’ at any cost, and of allowing abuse to slide in the name of family is over. This echoes precisely what I wrote about in my article last week, ‘Time’s Up on Parents Who Abuse’.

There was no mention of the family scapegoat, and no open discussion of high-control abusive family systems that target one member. That’s the piece mainstream society is not quite ready to face, but we’re getting closer.

And in the near future, the mainstream will have no choice but to come out of denial about what is happening behind the closed doors of the family home: gang bullying, daily humiliation, smear campaigns, forced exile and how this obliterates a person’s sense of self.