This is true for anyone working in the field of mental health, or crisis intervention, and it’s also true of advocates. I’ve seen it too many times: “While compassion fatigue can happen when helpers are unable to replenish and restore emotionally and physically (Figley, 1982), vicarious trauma is the shift you experience mentally from…
As I read this, I couldn’t help but compare it to the hundreds of stories where the opposite was true. People are so afraid of saying the wrong thing or so uncomfortable with the idea of mental health issues that they run the other way. They disconnect from someone who so desperately needs connection. Someone they love is feeling all that embarrassment and pain and no longer has anyone to connect to and remind them of their value, their humanness.
As the title of Elizabeth’s post says, we need each other.
As the article explains, we feel empathy for people who are most like us. Children and other victims may not look like us as much as the abuser does. We might even know the abuser and not know the victim. The mentally lazy thing is to let our familiarity with the accused abuser blind us to the reality of what is happening. The way to get out of that is to focus on the humanity of the victim just as much. When you have empathy for everyone, regardless of whether they are like you or not, you can react to the situation in front of you instead of your bias about the people involved.
Everyone deserves that. No matter how different they may be from us.
This is a Season 9 (06/07) Episode that aired only last week in the UK. A package is delivered to One Police Plaza featuring suspected child pornography, but when an ex-con with a record for burglary is ruled out as the suspect, Benson and Stabler re-investigate until the child and his mother are traced. When…
This makes sense. Even something as common and necessary as background checks are only going to catch people who’ve already been caught before. It’s a good thing to do, but it leaves that gap. What doesn’t leave a gap is having policies and procedures in place that prevent anyone from being able to abuse kids when working with your organization. If being alone with a child is simply not acceptable for anyone, that closes those gaps.
As the article goes on, that means rules like not giving kids gifts, not driving them home, etc. That’s what works, and it has to just be the culture in the organization, no questions asked. Create that culture, and you’re making the best effort to protect kids that you can make.
So here I am, in my 40’s, trying to heal and put my life back together. The problem now is that I’m having a ton of emotional distress trying to process all of these factors: the abuse, the bullying, relationships, and my mother. At this point I’m just not doing a very good job of…
