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Video transcript

We explore the social context of image-based abuse and learn tools for processing our emotions, understanding our responses, and healing from trauma. We remind ourselves that we are not to blame. 

Image-based abuse and rebuilding ourselves

 Hello everyone! Welcome! This is Paz, and I’m here with Mehak, Nooreen, and Francesca. Today we've brought the team together to welcome you officially to Bloom. We are so glad you are here and are joining us for this part of your healing journey. 

 Today’s introduction is going to cover a few different things.

 Without further ado, let’s get started! This right here, the faces you’re seeing now, are the Bloom team - a team of survivors and allies. We’re all here today, but we’ll be splitting into pairs to make the course videos, so it’s us you’ll see in them. Now let’s get started with our introductions! 

So, I’m Mehak, my pronouns are she/her. I’m based in Delhi and Mumbai in India. I speak Hindi and English. A fun fact about me is that I absolutely love The Powerpuff Girls. Ever since I was a girl I wanted to be Buttercup, I think I still want to be Buttercup. If I see merchandising of her I get really intrigued to buy them. That’s a fun fact about me, what about you Francesca?

I feel like I’ve learned something about you, I didn’t know about that until now. I’m Francesca, my pronouns are she/her. I’m from the UK, I’m based in London. I speak English and I’m trying to learn Spanish but it’s going very badly and slowly. A fun fact about me is I love football, I love watching football, I love playing football. But I’m also extremely competitive which is a big factor in playing and watching football. So, that’s mine. Nooreen, what about you?

 I love that, Francesca. Hi everyone! I’m Nooreen, my pronouns are she/her. I’m Bangladeshi, I was born in the United Arab Emirates and I’m currently based in Edmonton, Canada. I actually speak Bengali, Urdu and Hindi fluently and outside of that I can get some French and Arabic. And a fun fact about me which is quite random, I really enjoy dancing. When I was in elementary school in grade one I did a dance performance with two of my friends in the annual function to Barbie Girls by Aqua. So, I'm not at all excited for the Barbie movie coming out soon. What about you, Paz?

 I love everything you said about yourselves, I didn’t know that. I’m Paz, I’m from Argentina. My pronouns are she/her, I live one hour South of Buenos Aires in a city called La Plata. I speak Spanish, English and Portuguese because I lived in Brazil - in Rio - for a couple of months.  I worked there. And a fun fact about me is that I have a Tiktok account, an anonymous Tiktok account with just a couple of followers where I only share music that I like. So yes, that’s it. 

 That’s so cute. So many cute facts about each other and It’s lovely to meet you all, even if we can’t see you. 

Let’s start by telling you a little bit more about what Bloom is. Our courses were made with two intentions: 

 Within each course, our team will pass on key information and give you the tools that will support you to cope with trauma. 

Through our material, we hope to embolden, acknowledge, and enable everyone here to process their experiences, understand their coping mechanisms, banish shame, recognise patterns in their lives — and be able to build new ones. You are the expert in your own recovery, and the insights you bring to this space are very valuable. 

We also know that trauma is personal and that our stories and needs will vary. The experiences we bring to this space may be different —  from a one-time traumatic incident to long-term experiences of violence, abuse, or harassment. Our experiences as survivors will also depend on our gender identity, our sexuality, where we live, if we’re disabled, if we are racialised within our society, and more. 

We may have experienced oppressions which are in and of themselves traumatic. We may understand the effect our experiences have had already, or we may not. Whatever you are coming here with, welcome. You’re in the right place. 

 With that covered: how does this all work?

Our Bloom courses are divided into sessions, which we record as videos.

We have written and edited captions for all our videos, which you can enable by clicking the ‘subtitles’ or ‘closed captions’ button at the bottom banner of the video. Click the option that says ‘English’ without ‘automatic’ next to it. Each video also comes with a transcript, and this will have links to any other courses and content we talk about in the session.

While our courses are divided into sessions and weeks, you can take Bloom at whatever pace works for you. If you need to step away from the course for a while, that’s totally fine. Take as many days, weeks or months as you may need. You can also pause these videos at any time, go get food or a drink, and also step away if you need to reflect.

As our first wellness tool, we start every session with a 

Grounding exercises can help to bring us back to ourselves and the present moment when we feel distressed, overwhelmed, or disconnected from our bodies and the world around us. They engage with our senses — sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste — and may involve different visualisation techniques or even sometimes our bodies, to help ground us in the here and now. 

Everyone’s needs and preferences are different, so it’s totally fine if you can’t do one. But that’s why we do a different one each session, to help us all find the ones that work for us. Any time a session feels uncomfortable, or you get triggered during a video, or really at any time you need it, you can use one of these exercises to bring you back to sensations of the present.  

 It’s not necessary for you to do this activity, but we’ve designed them to provide opportunities to reflect on the material from the sessions. Outside the sessions, you’ll see 

This includes definitions we talk about in the sessions, graphics to summarise our content or support your learning, articles and quotes we want to share, and more. 

You can also directly talk to our team and reflect through our 

, which you can access through our Bloom platform.

A more specific introduction to the material we’ll cover in the course you’re taking will come at the end of the video. But with all this in mind, our course values are: 

. We know that healing isn’t linear and that everyone’s recovery is unique. The information in our courses is for survivors at different stages of recovery to use as is most helpful. 

 We don’t use trigger warnings, as discussing the effects of trauma is the core of our work. But we do give an overview of our material in the session goals at the beginning of every session so that you know if any upcoming material might be difficult for you. 

Each video also has a transcript, with the material divided under different headings, which you can read before watching the video. This means you get to learn in the way that works best for you. Overall, the course-specific introduction will set up what kind of material you can expect from the course. 

 As we just said, we don’t experience trauma in isolation from the world around us, and we know that our experiences as survivors will have been impacted by our identity and the way our identity is treated by society. We are always trying to amplify the voices and experiences of survivors who are less often heard, such as survivors from the Global South or with migrant or refugee status, as well as survivors from the LGBTQIA+ community (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual and any gender that isn’t the one assigned to us at birth or any sexuality that isn’t heterosexual). This includes disabled survivors, sex workers, and more. 

Our material has been written or checked by a trauma-informed therapist. We operate on a strict policy of no pseudoscience! The information we cover on the science of trauma and the trauma response, and the psychological and sociological material of our courses is up-to-date and backed by research. We’re always learning, updating, and revising here at Bloom. 

 Before we go into the course-specific introduction, we have a couple of disclaimers about what you can expect as part of Bloom. 

Bloom’s courses are not meant to replace professional services. 

However, there may be many reasons why therapy is not an option for you. Know that there are other kinds of support out there, such as support groups and helplines. You can find our global 

 of support services by clicking on ‘Immediate help’ at the top of the Bloom platform. 

Bloom has been widely researched, double-checked, and verified by our professional therapists and team of trauma-support workers, survivors and allies. The information and advice that we cover about trauma, abuse, and everything else is psychologically-informed, and, perhaps most importantly, informed by our own team of survivors, who have included resources and stories of their own recovery. 

However, this programme is not meant to substitute the individual attention and training of an accredited counsellor or agency. As an additional resource, Bloom supports you as you learn and heal, whatever that might mean to you.

If therapy is accessible or affordable for you, do explore it as an option. There are many types of therapy out there, and we trust that you can find one that suits you best, as well as a therapist who helps you grow. 

So if you or a young person in your care is at risk of immediate harm, please do contact an organisation that can support you directly. As we just said, you can find local support services by looking at our 

If you have any questions about this, you can email us at team @ 

 or message us through our social media on 

We also wanted to give you a reminder that 

when browsing on Bloom. You can check out our 

We use the word healing in our courses. By this, we don’t mean that you are broken or need to return to who you were before the abuse. We consider healing to be a non-linear journey, with no final or ideal destination. You define what healing means to you. 

 We will do everything we can to help you cope or reclaim your own power, whether this means managing your symptoms, mourning the past, or untangling the present. It can also mean learning to hope. Whatever your journey here, we can’t wait to get started. 

Thank you so much, everyone. We’ll see you soon. Stay tuned for a course-specific introduction! 

Hello everyone! This is Francesca and Mehak here. You’re now in the video introduction specifically for 

‘Image-based abuse and rebuilding ourselves.’ 

 Welcome! We’ll take a couple of minutes to share more specific information about the structure of this course, and what to expect. 

‘Image-based abuse and rebuilding ourselves’

 course has been created for everyone who has experienced or survived such abuse. These could involve our images and videos, those of loved ones, and those of the abuser, as well as entirely fake or digitally manipulated material. It can also be material taken from the internet. This might be sent to us directly, shared with others, or uploaded on different platforms. 

The abuser can be a current or ex-partner, as well as a colleague, friend, family member, or a stranger. It can even be a group of people. Image-based abuse doesn’t only happen online, and it’s not only sexual. It can happen to anyone, including people with disabilities, younger adults, sex workers and indigenous people. 

 In this course, we’ll be looking at why and how image-based abuse happens and the impact it leaves on our lives. We’ll focus on our healing and on rebuilding ourselves after this abuse. We know from research that survivors often experience more than one type of image-based abuse.

e might experience nonconsensual taking, threatening, and sharing of intimate images all at the same time

. Likewise, we often see image-based abuse happening alongside and intersecting with other abuse, like exploitation, bullying, harassment, blackmailing, extortion, domestic abuse, sexual violence, and stalking, both on and offline. 

In the aftermath of such abuse, how do we heal our relationship with our emotions, our mind, our body, our sense of identity and even technology? This is what this course is all about. For many of us, image-based abuse might be ongoing. Due to the nature of this type of abuse, it can sometimes last for long periods after the initial incident. Some of us may also be living with abusers and may not be in a safe space. Please do take care as anything we share should be adapted to your particular situation. 

This course is 7 sessions long, not including this one. We’ve tried to keep each video under 20 minutes. All of our bonus content is under 10 minutes. You know yourself best, so you can take this course at whatever pace works for your healing journey.

As we said earlier, this course is fundamentally intersectional. We try to make our content reflect people’s experiences of image-based abuse and being a survivor may be very different based on our contexts. This depends not only on our personal experiences, but also on our class, age, race, caste, gender, profession, nationality, disability, ethnicity, and sexuality, as well as other factors, such as our body shape and skin colour, including how these interact.  

Who you are and how you identify does not and should never affect your right to live a life free from violence, harassment, or abuse. With Bloom, we know that recovery cannot be done in isolation, and we need a breadth of people to offer advice on practical and emotional support after trauma. 

We want you to keep in mind that we will never underestimate the courage it takes to sign up for a course like this or overlook the trust you’ve given us as we work through these topics. We might question what we’ll remember in recovery. Often, we wonder what we can handle. This is normal! However, we will never mention or present information without a purpose. Many of our Bloom team are survivors themselves, so we know that talking about trauma and abuse can bring up a lot of unknowns. 

Be flexible and kind with yourself, as you take this course. For more support in your part of the world, explore our

Thank you for joining us on this course. We can’t wait to get started. See you in

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Overview

Abuse can happen to anyone — and it’s never our fault. In this course, we discuss abusive tactics, the cycle of coercive control, the science of trauma, and how abuse can affect our boundaries, relationships, and coping mechanisms. We empower ourselves to build positive self-esteem with tools such as journaling, somatic practice, and creating a sense of community. This course was recorded in 2021 and has been re-edited for release. Some of the video quality isn't up to our Bloom standard, but the course contains our usual high-quality, trauma-informed content to support your healing journey. 

Recovering from toxic and abusive relationships

Hello everyone! Welcome! This is Zoë, Nooreen, Dina, Beatriz, and Flora and today we've brought the team together to welcome you officially to Bloom, and to our course on ‘Recovering from Toxic and Abusive Relationships’. Or if you’ve been in another Bloom course with us, welcome back! We’re happy to have everyone here with us. 

Next week, we’ll be getting to our proper content, starting off with a week that introduces us to the concept of abuse, how it can manifest in different types of relationships - and the tools we have within ourselves and environments to live beyond our trauma. 

But for now, we want to expand on what you might know about our courses from our website, explain our course values, tell you about the structure of the course, and of course introduce you to our course facilitators. We’re all here today, and some of us are survivors ourselves, and allies - we’re the people who will be presenting the videos. We will also have Lakshmi facilitating the course with us, but she couldn’t make it today, so she’ll introduce herself in one of our future videos! 

But for today, I’ll start. My name is Dina and my pronounce is he she and her I'm from Syria and I'm based in London I speak English and Arabic and for the fun fact when I was uh not when I was young when I started traveling I started collecting um all my flight tickets and all the tickets to any place I visited and now when I look at them it's like oh I'm collecting them so I'm taking them and throw them which is bad but um yeah that's for me what about you Beatriz?

Hi everyone! Thank you Dina. My name is Beatriz, my pronouns are she/her. I am from Colombia and currently based in Santa Maria, Colombia. I speak Spanish, that's my my native language and I also speak English, a little bit of Italian and I can understand French but don't make me speak it. And a fun fact about me is that, well, when I travel I like collecting designer postcards. I am a designer so I try to go to little shops and just get things made by local designers, yeah. And how about you Zoë? 

Yeah, yeah, oh gosh, I love that you must have a really nice collection, maybe that you can display somewhere. That would be so cool. Yeah, I'm Zoe, my pronouns are she/her, I'm from California in the USA but I'm based in the UK in London. I speak English and like Beatriz well, I used to speak French but maybe don't ask me to speak it but I can understand it, so if you read it in the chat, we will understand that. And continuing our fun fact theme of things that we collected, when I was growing up I collected kind of these kind of like porcelain fairy statues that I really loved. I was just obsessed with them and I just have a very vivid memory. Also a travel thing of one time going through security and when they scan your bag, and the bag had to be rechecked for some reason so seeing it go through the scanner and the little fairies showing up on the screen, like these four little fairies that I got when on my trip, showing up displayed their little fashion on the screen for the monitor. So that's me. How about yourself Flora? 

That's so cool! I love. I wish I could see scans of, scans of bags as they go through because I feel like there's loads of interesting things in there. So, my name's Flora and my pronouns are she/her. I'm from England and France and I'm based in London in the UK. I speak French, Italian, a tiny bit of Spanish and a tiny bit of Arabic and then obviously English. And something that I used to collect, I used to be obsessed with collecting keys. I thought they were really magical for some reason. So I have like a whole box of all different kinds of keys, only the pretty keys you know, like modern keys are for some reason I was pretty discriminatory about the keys that I used to collect. But now I collect first editions of books, so I haven't got very many because obviously depending on the book they're quite expensive but my favourite copy is The Old Man and the Sea. I have a really beautiful hand-painted copy which was an 18th birthday present from my mum, so yeah, an ever-growing collection.

That sounds wonderful Flora. Hi everyone I'm Noreen and my pronouns are she/her. I am Bangladeshi, I grew up in the United Arab Emirates and I am currently based in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. Apart from English I speak Bangla, which is my native language and I can also speak a bit of Hindi and Urdu and like Zoë and Beatriz, I understand French, but I wouldn't be that great at speaking French. And I understand a bit of Arabic. Fun fact about well, something that I've collected growing up, so I can be a bit sentimental, so I like collecting things from events or things that you know, take, that has taken place over the years. So I remember I still have that box of events I went to like in the first time I went out with my friends, or the first time the first concert I went to. And I remember this, the first concert I ever went to was a Coldplay concert, it was their Viva la Vida tour and they had like, they threw out like I think paper butterflies everywhere. So, along with the ticket I still have those paper butterflies. Yeah, I just remembered that and I, you know, so tickets are small things that you can actually put in a box. I have a tendency to like, it just reminds me of like, good memories. 

So, yeah along with that, we are also using today’s introduction to lay out our legal process, and what you should expect in the weeks ahead. 

Bloom’s courses are not meant as a replacement for professional services. 

Bloom has been widely researched, double-checked, and verified by our professional therapist and a team of trauma-support workers. The information and advice that we cover about trauma, abuse, and everything else is psychologically-informed, and - perhaps most importantly - informed by our own team of survivors: who have included resources and stories of their own recovery.

However, this programme is not meant to substitute the individual attention and training of an accredited counsellor or agency. Bloom is an additional resource, meant to support as you learn and heal - whatever that might mean to you.

Likewise, another brief disclaimer: Bloom is not a crisis service, and there are very rare occasions when we may share information you give to us over chat with another organisation. Specifically, if you, or a child or young person in your care, is in immediate danger, we will speak with you about sharing your information with authorities in your local area who can help. We will always try to discuss this first with you if it happens - your safety and wellbeing are our priority. If you do not provide us with relevant contact details we may not be able to follow up with agencies who can offer you if you are at risk of harm, so if you are concerned about your safety, please provide us with your details over message that we can use in case this happens.

! Specifically, our courses were made with two intentions: to both 

. Our team will pass on key information, offer advice, and give you the tools that will enable you to cope with your trauma. Ultimately, we hope to embolden, acknowledge, and enable each person to build their sense of self-worth, banish shame, and to make the best choices for their own lives.

We also know that trauma is personal, and that our stories and needs will vary. 

The abuse we’ve witnessed or experienced could have come from a friend, a family member, romantic partner(s), a carer, a person of authority like a medical professional, or someone else.

 We may understand the effect this relationship has had on us, or we may not. Whatever experiences of toxic or abusive relationships you are coming here with, welcome. You’re in the right place. This programme is intended for anyone who is still living with an abuser or in an abusive situation, or has left an abusive relationship. If you’re not sure if that is you, that’s fine too: we hope this space can help you process some of those uncertainties, whatever kind of traumatic relationship you’ve experienced.

We are also going to be available to talk to you 1-on-1, outside of these videos. Your safety is important to us, as well as your trust. We won’t be asking you to talk about traumatic events. You can decide how much or as little as you want to say about your day or your past. 

However: if you are going through a legal case, we want you to consider the details of what you send us, if we discuss any traumatic experiences - because some courts place limitations on what information can be shared with whom, if it relates to an active case for example. Be open about your circumstances, and we can work out the boundaries that are best for you. 

Finally, a brief note on the material we will cover. This is a trauma-informed course on Recovering from Toxic and Abusive Relationships - meaning the material is designed for survivors of domestic abuse, and emotional or interpersonal trauma. We don’t put trigger warnings at the beginning of every session - we give an overview of what we will cover every session at the beginning with our goals, so that you know if any upcoming material might be difficult for you. That being said, if we believe a session will cover a slightly heavier topic than usual, we will give you a heads-up in the session. 

We will do everything we can to help you cope or to reclaim your own power - whether this means managing your symptoms, mourning the past, or untangling the present. It can also mean learning to hope. Whatever your journey here, we can’t wait to get started: leading you through your own discoveries, challenges, and recovery. 

Thank you so much everyone - we’ll see you soon.

Week 1: Anyone can be abused

Week 2: Why we stay — the mind and body in abuse

Week 3: Discovering our self

Week 4: What abuse is really about

Week 5: Difficult emotions

Week 6: Staying, leaving, coping, and what happens next

Week 7: Relationships and reflections

Trauma can leave us with many different complicated emotions, fears, and concerns. Based on narrative therapy and journaling techniques, we explore how to identify triggers, understand the science of trauma, re-build self-esteem, work through shame, and recognise the ways we’ve already been resilient.

Work through this course with the support of the Bloom team from July 18th to August 20th (5 weeks). 

To get this extra support, register to receive our messages via 

encouragement, quotes, articles, reflections, and reminders

. This means you'll be taking the course at the same time as others - all while remaining 

. You can use the 1-1 chat to connect with our Bloom team at any time. 

Reclaiming resilience in your trauma story

Flora: Hello everyone! Welcome! This is Flora,  and I’m here with Snigdha, Nooreen, Zoë, Dina,  Beatriz, and Tiffany. Today we've brought the  team together to welcome you officially to Bloom.

Dina: The hardest part is over -  you’ve signed up, clicked play, and are ready to start one of our  courses, or maybe more than one! We are so glad you are here today and joining  us for this part of your healing journey.

Snigdha: Today’s introduction is going to cover a few different things. 

If you’ve seen our introduction video before, it’s the same except for this last section, so you can use the timestamps to skip to this part of the video if you want to.

Zoë: Before we do any introductions though, we  want to share our first piece of important news, because it might help you watch the  rest of this video. We have written and edited captions for all our  videos, which you can enable by clicking the ‘subtitles’ or ‘closed captions’  button at the bottom banner of the video, and click the option that says ‘English’  without ‘automatic’ next to it.

Beatriz: And without any further ado,  let’s get started by introducing ourselves!  

Team Introductions Bloom is a service offered by Chayn, a multi  award-winning charity supporting survivors of gender-based violence around the world since  2013. We create online resources for survivors to get the help they need to understand  and escape abuse, and heal from trauma. Chayn is run by and for survivors, and we’re so  excited to welcome you into our community today.

Flora: And this right here, the  faces that you’re seeing now: we are the-- we are the part of the Bloom team. We are a team made up of many survivors ourselves,  as well as allies. And we’re all here today, but we’ll be splitting into pairs to make the course  videos, so you’ll see us weekly in the videos.

But more on that later, let’s get  started with our introductions! So, I'm Flora and I am from  the UK. My pronouns are she/her  and I am based in London. I speak  English, French, bit of Italian, a tiny bit of Spanish, but maybe don't message me in Spanish! And a  fun fact about me is that I can do the splits! And I'm going to hand over to Beatriz.

Beatriz: Wow Flora, splits? Sounds amazing! Hi, I'm Beatriz, my pronouns are she/her.  I am Colombian and I am bas-- based in Santa Marta, Colombia. I speak Spanish, English, Italian and a little  bit of French, but I-- I understand, mostly. And a fun fact about me, is that I love dancing, I dance a lot of Folkloric dances  from Colombia and I also delved into Samba, Flamenco and Salsa. Now what about you Snigdha?

Snigdha: Hi, I'm Snigdha! My pronouns are she/her. I'm from India, I have always lived in this  small town in Rajasthan, which is called Pilani. And I can speak Hindi, English,  a little bit of Punjabi. And a fun fact about me is, like  Beatriz, I really like dancing. So I have trained in Kathak, which is  a classical North Indian dance,for around 10 years.

Zoë: Oh my gosh, that's incredible!  I'm so jealous of both of you for being able to dance, I so  wish I could I could dance. I'm Zoë, my pronouns are she/her, I live in London  in the UK, but I grew up in California in the USA. I speak English and like Beatriz, I can understand  

French, but it's been a number  of years since I spoke it, so my skills are not so good!

And, a fun fact about me is that I love musicals, I absolutely adore musicals.  I love singing, I love watching them, and one of my favourite musicals, which I got the opportunity to perform in  a few years ago, is Phantom of the Opera. Over to you, Dina. (Dina: Oh my god!)

Dina: I'm trying to book actually to go to  The Phantom of the Opera, for the next month,

I was like, oh my god, it's one of my favourites!

Dina: So I'm Dina, I live in  London, and I'm from Aleppo, Syria. My pronouns is she and her, and I do speak Arabic, English and a little bit of French, so I understand it more than I speak  it, and a little bit of Armenian. And a fun fact about me, is that at this moment I am so into weight lifting and boxing.  What about you Tiffany?

Tiffany: Wow, that's pretty cool, thanks Dina. My pronouns are -- or I'm  Tiffany and my pronouns are she/her. I'm from New York, but now I live  in Brighton, Colorado. Well, I speak  

some English -- or sorry, I speak English! I understand most of, and speak some  of the English based Creole language, which is Jamaican Patois. And a fun fact which I've been told by people, is that they don't know where  I might be from in the US. I don't and I do have an  accent. On to you Nooreen.

Nooreen: Yes, wow, yeah, Tiffany  if you hadn't mentioned it, it is very hard to pick up your accent and figure out where in the US you're from.  So that's pretty interesting to learn. Hi everyone, I'm Nooreen and  my pronouns are she/her, I am Bangladeshi, I grew up in  the United Arab Emirates, and now I'm currently based in  Edmonton, Alberta in Canada. And along with speaking English, I also speak Bangla very fluently, and I do know a bit of Hindi, French and Arabic. My fun fact is that I have a great sense of  smell, I am a hypersensitive person clinically, so there are certain traits and  certain senses that are quite like,  

heightened for me, so that is, one of them being the sense of smell. So, with that, let's get  started with our session for today. Again, What to expect from our courses it’s lovely to meet you all, even if  we can’t see you! To also move forward, We are going to use today’s  introductory session to let you know what you can expect from our courses.

So let’s start by telling you a little bit more  about what Bloom is for. Our courses were made with two intentions: to inform and empower. During  each course, our team will share information, offer advice, and give you the tools that  will enable you to cope with trauma. By working through our material, we hope to embolden,  acknowledge, and enable everyone here to process their experiences, understand coping mechanisms, find resilience, banish shame, recognise patterns in their lives - and be able to build new ones.  We believe that you are the expert in your own recovery, and the insights on your experiences  you bring to this space are very valuable.

We also know that trauma is personal,  and that our stories and needs will vary. The experiences and traumas that we bring to  this space may be different - so from one-time traumas to long-term experiences of abuse and  harassment. Our experiences as survivors will also depend on where we live, if we’re disabled,  if we are racialised within our society, our gender identity, our sexuality, and more.  We may have experienced oppressions which are in and of themselves traumatic. We may understand the  effect our traumatic experiences have had already, or we may not. Whatever experiences you are coming  here with, welcome. You’re in the right place. As our facilitators may share personal  stories of their own recovery from time to time, we would ask that any personal  information you hear in these sessions not be shared with anyone outside of  the group, now or after Bloom has ended.

Our Bloom courses are divided into  sessions, which we record as videos. Our courses are of different lengths and sessions. We’ll explain the structure of the specific course you’re taking at the end of this video. While our courses are divided into what we  call ‘weeks’, you can take Bloom courses at whatever pace works for you. If you need  to step away from the course for a while or are struggling to keep up, that’s totally fine.  We’ve just grouped our sessions into weeks to represent a pace you can follow if you want, and  because it helps us link some sessions together.

The sessions themselves each have an  activity. It’s not necessary for you to do this activity, but we’ve designed them to  provide opportunities to reflect on and internalise the material from the sessions. As our first wellness tool, we start  every session with a grounding exercise. These involve using our senses, different  visualisation techniques and our bodies to ground in the sensations of the present. Everyone’s  needs and preferences are different, so it’s totally fine if you can’t do one - that’s why we  do a different one for each session, to help us all find the things that work for us. Any time a  session feels uncomfortable, or you get triggered during a video or anytime, you can use one of  these exercises to bring you back to the present.

Yes, outside the sessions,  you’ll see bonus content online. This includes definitions or lists we  talk about in the sessions, graphics to summarise our content or support your learning,  articles and quotes we want to share, and more.

A detailed introduction to the material we will cover in the course you’re taking will come at the end of the video. But with  all of this in mind, our course values are: 

Before we go into the  course-specific introductions, we have a couple disclaimers to cover about what you can expect from being a part of Bloom. First, please know that

 Bloom is not a  replacement for professional therapy mental health support. 

Our content has been informed  by survivor experiences and academic research, and is verified by licensed therapists.  This programme is not meant to substitute the individual attention and training of an  accredited counsellor or agency. Bloom is an additional resource, meant to support as you  learn and heal - whatever that might mean to you. Bloom is also not a crisis service. So if you  or a young person in your care is at risk of immediate harm, please do contact an organisation  whose primary purpose is to support you directly by providing crisis intervention or  safety planning services. You can find local support services by looking at our  global directory on our website, 

, or elsewhere online. If you have any questions  about this, you can email us at 

 or through our social media on  Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

We will do everything we can to help you cope or to reclaim your own power - whether this  means managing your symptoms, mourning the past, or untangling the present. It can also mean  learning to hope. Whatever your journey here, we can’t wait to get started: leading you through  your own discoveries, challenges, and recovery. Thank you so much everyone - we’ll see you soon.  Stay tuned for a course-specific introduction!

Hello everyone! This is Mehak and Francesca here. You're now in the video introduction specifically for 'Reclaiming resilience in your trauma story'. Welcome! We'll now just take a couple of minutes to share more specific information about the structure of this course and what to expect. 

Before we outline the course content though, we need to introduce ourselves too. You just met some other Bloom team members and we're also part of the team. I'm Francesca my pronouns are she/her, I'm from the UK and I currently live in London. I speak english I'm also trying to learn Spanish but it's not going very well. And a fun fact about me is that I used to live in New Zealand for two years!

My name is Mehak, my pronouns are she/her. I am currently based out of New Delhi, India, and I speak Hindi, English, and I also understand script of Urdu. Fun fact about me is that I absolutely love doing yoga. Now we also have our first announcement: we have written and edited captions for all of our videos which you can enable by clicking on the subtitles or the captions button at the bottom banner of the video, and click the option that says english without automatic next to it. 

Okay so finally - what is 'Reclaiming resilience in your trauma story' all about? Our 'Reclaiming resilience in your trauma story' course will explore how trauma can affect us even long after the trauma has passed. But we'll also look at all the tools we have within ourselves to live a fulfilling and peaceful life after trauma. This course is written for survivors of any type of trauma, whether that's sexual trauma, an abusive relationship, or any other kind of trauma. So we'll start the course by looking at a couple of different types of trauma, including childhood trauma and traumatic experiences of oppression. We'll also explore how trauma might have affected our sense of safety, not only in our environments but also in our bodies, our coping mechanisms, our relationships and more. 

Ultimately we'll come to understand that trauma resilience isn't a kind of grit or emotionless strength. In fact it's the opposite: it's how we learn to experience healing, well-being, and joy after trauma. So throughout the course we'll be looking at ways we've already been resilient. 

We know that thinking about and discussing how we've coped after trauma can be difficult. That's why this whole course is made with the outlook of hope: we know that the trauma was not your fault, that you have been doing your best to survive since, and that it is absolutely possible to find healing. And healing means something different for everyone; it isn't linear, it doesn't happen all at once, and it looks different for different people. So wherever you are in your journey of recovery: welcome. You're in the right place. We can't wait to share this part of the healing journey with you. This course is written for anyone who wants to know more about trauma resilience and coping after any kind of trauma. 

So this course is 10 sessions long, not including this one. It's split into five weeks, each week has two sessions. But don't worry - you don't have to take it at that pace. You know yourself best, and what pace works for your healing journey. 

Like we said a few minutes ago in our main introduction, this course has also been made to include survivors of all genders, all sexualities, and is fundamentally intersectional. What we mean by intersectionality is that we try to make our content reflect how people's experiences of being a survivor of trauma may be different based on other identities or experiences like race, disability, sexuality, and more. Who you are and how you identify does not and should never affect your right to live a life free from trauma, violence, harassment, or abuse. With Bloom, we know that recovery cannot be done in isolation, and we need a breadth of people to offer advice on practical and emotional support after trauma. 

We want you to keep in mind that we will never underestimate the courage it takes to sign up for a course like ours or overlook the trust you've given us as we work throughout these topics. Many of our Bloom leaders are survivors themselves, so we know that talking about trauma can bring up a lot of unknowns. 

We might question what we'll remember in recovery, often we wonder what we can handle. This is absolutely normal! However, we will never mention themes that you can't tackle or present any information without a purpose to inform or empower you. As we said in the main introduction, we share session goals at the beginning of every session as well as make transcripts available. This means you get to learn in the way that's that works best for you. 

So thank you so much for joining us on this course. We can't wait to get started right at the beginning with our introduction session. We'll see you there. Bye! Bye!

Week 1: Foundational Concepts

Week 2: Psychosocial elements of trauma

Week 3: Resilience - the magic trick

Week 4: Coping mechanisms

Week 5: Building a narrative that feels right

Identify victim-blaming myths and understand how sexual violence is facilitated by patriarchal power structures. It is never the survivor's fault.

Society, patriarchy, and sexual trauma

Hello everyone! This is Nooreen and Beatriz here. You’re now in the video introduction specifically for ‘Society, patriarchy, and sexual trauma’ - welcome! We’ll now just take a couple minutes to share more specific information about the structure of this course, and what to expect. 

’ course has been created for everyone who has experienced or survived sexual trauma. This trauma might include physical touch, or might not - it could also involve intimidation, harassment, the intention to harm, or the violation of privacy. This trauma encompasses abuse in relationships; non-consensual contact, like rape; groping; childhood abuse; incest; harassment; exploitation; stalking, online or in-person. It also includes acts of image-based abuse, such as the sharing of photographs without permission; or honour-based violence - which is when communities use violence or abuse against their members as a way of controlling their behaviour to protect so-called ‘honour’ or cultural beliefs. We’ll get more into these different definitions in our first session.

In this course, we’ll be looking at why and how sexual violence happens. That is - what motivations are sexual predators acting on when they commit acts of sexual violence, harassment, or abuse? And how do societal norms excuse and empower these acts of harm? Really, this course is about linking our external experiences with our inner worlds - learning the truth of what happened to us, instead of the lies we’ve been told to silence our voices, and then letting this truth guide us through our recovery. Together. 

This course is 6 sessions long - not including this one. Each of these sessions represents one ‘week’ - but don’t worry, you don’t have to take it at that pace. You know yourself best, and what pace works for your healing journey. 

Like we said a few minutes ago in our main introduction, this course has also been made to include survivors of all genders, sexualities, and is fundamentally intersectional. With intersectionality, we mean that we try to make our content reflect how people’s experiences of being a survivor, of sexual violence, of gender-based violence overall may be different based on other identities or experiences, like race, disability, sexuality, and more. Who you are and how you identify does not and should never affect your right to live a life free from sexual violence, harassment, or abuse. With Bloom, we know that recovery cannot be done in isolation, and we need a breadth of people to offer advice on practical and emotional support after sexual trauma.

We want you to keep in mind that we will never underestimate the courage it takes to sign up for a course like ours, or overlook the trust you’ve given us as we work through these topics. Many of our Bloom leaders are survivors themselves, so we know that talking about trauma, abuse, or past relationships can bring up a lot of unknowns.

We might question what we’ll remember in recovery. Often, we wonder what we can handle. This is normal! However, we will never mention themes you can’t tackle or present any information without a purpose to inform or empower you. As we said in the main introduction, we’ll share session goals at the beginning of every session, as well as send along transcripts. This means you get to learn in the way that works best for you. 

Thank you for joining us on this course. We can’t wait to get started - right at the beginning, with our Introduction session. 

Week 1 

Explore body image, sexual desire, the trauma response, and coping mechanisms after sexual trauma. We will rebuild a sense of identity with recovery tools.

'Healing from sexual trauma' has finished! From May 9th to June 17th, we offered the option to receive 

But don't worry, you can still see all of our videos and material right here on this page, as well as sign up to read the messages

, and no matter when you sign up, you'll be able to see all the messages we've already sent. 

And check out our other courses we're running with the option to receive messages - 'Reclaiming resilience in your trauma story' and 'Recovering from toxic and abusive relationships' - from our main course page!

Work through this course with the support of the Bloom team from May 9th to June 17th (6 weeks). 

Healing from sexual trauma

Hello everyone! This is Nooreen and Beatriz here. You’re now in the video introduction specifically for ‘Healing from sexual trauma’ - welcome! We’ll now just take a couple minutes to share more specific information about the structure of this course, and what to expect. 

In this course, we’ll be looking at our recovery. What do we feel in our bodies and minds after trauma? How does it affect our sense of trust in others, and safety in our bodies? How can it impact our body image and sexual desire? And what can we do to recover? We’ll consider all these questions, learning different techniques along the way, all while knowing that healing means something different for everyone. It isn’t linear, it doesn’t happen all at once, and it looks different for different people. But wherever you are in our journey of recovery, welcome. You’re in the right place. We can’t wait to explore our tools for wellbeing and recovery with you.

This course is 8 sessions long - not including this one. These sessions are structured into Weeks - most weeks have one session, but some of them have two. We did this to reflect how the different ideas link together. But don’t worry, you don’t have to take it at that pace. You know yourself best, and what pace works for your healing journey. 