Having people in my life who I can talk to has been a massive support in my healing. Being able to tell my story with my voice has been a huge blessing for me.
I’m also acutely aware of the downside when it goes wrong, however. I know too many survivors who’ve been further damaged when trying to share their story as opposed to getting the support they were desperately seeking. Please, be careful with your story and yourself.
Maybe the most interesting aspect of meeting survivors is how many ways this happened to all of us. I’ve yet to meet a survivor who has said that they tell people about their trauma and are always believed, taken seriously, and encouraged to continue telling their story. It’s not that they don’t occasionally hear that from an individual, but it is always the exception instead of the rule.
As a kid, I needed everything to be perfect, not because I was some overachiever. It was because I knew in my heart and body that anything that wasn’t right could create a violent situation. Any detail overlooked, any warning sign missed, or any wrong word could end up with me getting abused. It became a learned behavior like Pavlov’s dogs. Any mistake created anxiety and fear of repercussion.
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So many survivors want the answer to that first question. They want to know when this will be over and done with, but that’s not realistic. It would be like me asking when will I be “healed” from diabetes. I won’t be. My disease is something that is part of me that I have to manage. I take medicine, I watch what I eat, I don’t drink, etc. That’s not going to end. I fully understand that there is no future version of me where I don’t have to do any of those things.
Similarly, there is no future version of me that isn’t a survivor of child abuse. It happened. There is no cure I can buy that will create a version of me where I didn’t have that experience and be shaped by it. That’s not to say that I cannot have a great life, but I will always have a life impacted by those events.
Post-traumatic growth can happen. Healing from any trauma can happen. It occurs more frequently when the survivor has the financial means and social support to seek help.
This is not something we do on our own. It requires resources. It requires people in our lives to be there with us through it. Ignoring survivors’ current needs and assuming that they will eventually see growth is harmful. It might just be the missing thing, preventing growth.
