Sharing – Validation Is Important in Supporting Trauma Survivors

I love the way Vanessa describes this:

“Survivors are all around us. They are us. How do you know who has trauma? You don’t. Trauma doesn’t look a certain way. We don’t wear it on our faces, we wear it internally.

It isn’t OK for survivors to walk around silently, bogged down by shame. They don’t have to”

It’s true, there are people all around you right now who have experienced horrific traumas in their lives, and the reason you don’t know is that they don’t feel safe talking about it. They’ve lived years, even decades, with this truth, only to be met with invalidating remarks like “Why can’t you just let it go?” or “you should be over that by now”, “it wasn’t that bad”, etc.

When your trauma, the thing you are struggling to overcome, is met with that kind of response you aren’t going to rush out to talk about it, which is a shame because talking about it to people who can be validating to us is one of the best ways to actually heal from it and have it no longer dominate our daily lives.

If only society would learn that instead of dismissing us and expecting us to come back when we aren’t “such a downer”.

https://themighty.com/2021/01/validation-is-important-in-supporting-trauma-survivors/