6/13/14, 1:27 AM What Survivors Need from Loved Ones

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What Survivors Need from
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We are all unique individuals. No two people's stories,
reactions, pain, or recovery will be exactly the same. However,
there are many things we do share in the recovery process. Get to
know the survivor in your life and allow them to guide you as they
walk through this painful, yet very rewarding and life-changing
walk of recovery. Following are some of the things I needed from
my loved ones. You may think of other areas of needs as you read
through this list. Please forward them to me and I will add them.
Survivors need to be loved and accepted. Survivors often see
themselves as unlovable. They believe if anyone really knew them,
they would reject them. Finding out out that someone could love
me even when they knew my deep hidden secrets helped me
begin to love and accept myself, and helped me to finally believe
that God really loved me unconditionally. For so long I would
distance from anyone who got too close to avoid the pain of
rejection. Now, I can let people in thanks to the people in my life
that loved and accepted me regardless what I was going through
or what I revealed to them.
Survivors need nurturing. For many survivors the nurturing,
protecting elements were missing in their childhood. Instead they
were thrust into a confusing adult world where they were used for
the sexual gratification of others. This can cause confusion
between nurturance and sex for survivors, especially when those
others may have been the very people who should have met the
nurturing needs of the child. For me, this caused fear and
confusion...fear that any attempts to nurture me meant sex was
wanted, and confusion about my own needs...believing that my
desire for nurturance meant I wanted sex, causing much shame.
Survivors need to be believed. It is crucial that the persons
story of their abuse is believed, particularly when they have tried
to tell someone in the past and were not believed. Their pain can
be compounded when, as sometimes happens, they are accused
of lying and called wicked for making up such terrible stories.
Telling is a very courageous step and survivors need affirming and
validating.
It is not unusual for a survivor to vacillate back and forth between
denying or minimizing the abuse and believing it themselves. For
myself, I always knew about the abuse, but I desperately wanted
to continue believing it was no big deal and that what the abusers
did to me wasn't that bad, even though I believed it was that bad
for other survivors. It can be difficult to continue believing a
survivor's story of abuse when this happens, but understand that it
is hard to admit that those that were supposed to love us betrayed
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6/13/14, 1:27 AM What Survivors Need from Loved Ones
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is hard to admit that those that were supposed to love us betrayed
us, and we may have spent most of our lives living with denial and
repression. It takes time to come to terms with what happened
and face it honestly. The survivor needs patience and
understanding during this time.
Survivors need to know the abuse wasnt their fault. When
a child is sexually abused, the responsibility for that abuse is
totally upon the adult. The child is the innocent party, yet many
survivors carry round with them a crippling burden of guilt and
shame. They feel that there must be something wrong with them
for the abuse to have happened, or that they must have provoked
it or deserved it. They may have even been told that as a child.
Survivors need to grasp that it wasnt their fault and they dont
need to feel guilty or ashamed. This may need to be repeated
many times before it is fully integrated into their belief system.
Survivors need to break the silence. Many survivors are told
by their abusers that if they tell, something bad will happen...their
family will be harmed or even killed, if it is a father or step-father,
that the mother will not believe it or that the survivor will go to jail
or to a home, or even that another sibling will be abused if they
don't cooperate. This generates such fear and, coupled with the
trauma of the abuse itself, ensures the secret is kept, often for
many years. Survivors need to be helped to break the silence in a
safe and secure environment so that the fear can be dispelled and
healing begin.
Sometimes, loved ones fear that the survivor is dwelling too much
on the past, or erroneously believes this is all recovery groups or
counseling is all about. This is not true. Some may need to repeat
their memories of abuse over and over as they attempt to come to
terms with it, but this won't continue forever. In reality, in all the
groups I've attended and facilitated, the actual accounts of abuse
rarely come up. Most of our time is spent dealing with our present
lives, how we are affected, difficulties in our relationships, and
finding ways to heal and change for the better.
Survivors want their loved ones to understand what happened to
them and validate them. If you consider a healthy person who is
attacked and raped even once, they would scream, fight, take the
attacker to court, talk to a counselor and/or others who have been
through the same thing. They would have the police support and
the court system. They feel unsafe, violated, are easily triggered,
and may purchase a gun or take self-defense classes as a way to
deal with ongoing fear. They would be allowed to talk it out and
get support for the trauma they've been through. All this is
permissible and understandable with an adult rape or attempted
rape survivor.
The child survivor who is just now as an adult dealing with the
abuse, has not been allowed to scream, fight, take the abuser to
court, get support or therapy, talk to those who have been there
to help them understand their feelings, find ways to deal with their
ongoing fear. Instead, these feelings and memories have simmered
below the surface until now. But in reality, for some of us, it is as if
it just happened in reference to our feelings and surfacing
memories. The survivor needs to be given the space and
permission to talk about what happened without restraints.
Survivors may need professional help. There may be a need
for the survivor to talk to someone who is experienced and
qualified in dealing with survivors of sexual abuse. This can be a
counselor, pastor, or psychologist who is able to help them move
through the healing process. No matter how good a persons
support network is, there may still be a need to seek professional
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support network is, there may still be a need to seek professional
support to make sense of the complex nature of healing and its
likely effects on the survivor and those around them. And if the
survivor is suicidal, get help immediately for your loved one.
Survivors need a support network. Many survivors feel lonely
and isolated, even in the midst of a close family, so its very
important that they be encouraged to build and maintain a
network of supportive, positive people who they can turn to,
especially in times of crisis. This support network can include their
partner, close relatives or friends, and within those there should be
one or two who are able to cope with the demands of supporting
someone through their crisis of healing.
For this, I found my therapist, pastor, and my support group a
necessary part of my recovery. Supporting a survivor requires a
great deal of love, time and patience, which will be stretched to
the limit at times. Its important for supporters to think through
whether they can make this kind of commitment and are able to
offer nonjudgmental, unconditional love.
I was blessed with pastors, friends, and family members who knew
what I was going through, gave me space when needed, but
simply let me know they were there. It was a relief to have people
around me, that although may have had no prior dealings with
survivors, allowed me to be who I was, set my own pace,
encouraged me, and allowed me to grieve and heal. They were
willing to learn from me and didn't push their own expectations or
opinions on me. This also helped me begin to trust others.
Survivors need time to heal and may need encouragement
to hang in there. If we consider that some survivors keep the
secret of their abuse for 10, 20 or even 40 years, we should not
expect them to heal in a matter of weeks, or months. They
themselves will need to be helped to understand that dealing with
such traumatic material is a long-term process and we should
beware of setting time scales. This can cause problems when the
allotted time has elapsed and healing is not complete. I know I
was discouraged when I wasn't 'healed' in three months...the
amount of time I gave my therapist to 'fix' me. I'm glad I had
people around me who encouraged me to continue and let me
know it was okay that it was taking more time than I thought it
should have.
It is also hard work facing the trauma, emotionally, mentally, and
physically. There may be times the survivor feels like giving up. At
these times, they need to be reminded of the progress they have
made and the rewards of continuing to heal. There will always be
areas in our lives that need improvement and change, but there is
an end to the awful pain and trauma that comes up during
recovery. By stopping the process, the survivor will remain affected
by those areas not fully recovered in. But continuing on will result
in freedom from the pain, the shame, the anger, and the other
ways abuse has affected their lives thus far. Encourage them to
become 'overcomers'.
I now liken the recovery process for a survivor as it is for a patient
who is diagnosed and recovering from cancer. The cancer may
have been there for many years undetected. Then finally, a lump is
felt, or other symptoms become more noticeable. Finally a doctor
is sought and diagnosis made. The cancer requires surgery and
chemotherapy or radiation treatment. Now the surgery removes
the cancer, but there could still be cancer cells in the body, so the
chemotherapy is necessary to remove any last traces of the cancer.
The patient is weakened from the surgery, then further weakened
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The patient is weakened from the surgery, then further weakened
from the chemotherapy. Friends and family will notice the patient
is getting worse, not better, and if they didn't know better, would
think the treatments were killing, not helping, their loved one. The
patient becomes sick, tired, and after each treatment, may have
severe bouts of vomiting, weakness, and fatigue. But then after a
year or so, the patient is diagnosed as cancer free, chemotherapy
can be stopped, but the patient has to be observed closely for
relapse.
Abuse is like the undetected cancer that shows up with symptoms
often ignored. But the symptoms are draining the life from the
survivors emotional, physical, mental self. The survivor often
seems worse when therapy begins, but that doesn't mean the
therapy isn't working or the therapist is bad. It just means that the
'cancer' of abuse, with all the suppressed feelings, fears, and pain
is now being exposed. It is coming to the surface where it needs
to come so that it can be dealt with and recovered from.
Survivors need to grieve and may need permission and
encouragement to allow that grief to surface. There are many
losses associated with the affects of sexual abuse. These can
include loss of childhood, loss of innocence, loss of nurturing,
protecting parents, loss of trust, loss of privacy, personal space
and boundaries, and much more. Each of these losses must be
identified and grieved over in the same way as we would grieve
over the loss of a loved one. Each stage of the grieving process
must be gone through and healing takes place as the process is
completed.
This is the time I needed my supporters most. I needed help to
understand what I was feeling and why. I needed help in releasing
the anger and pain. Sometimes all I could do was draw a picture
or write a poem. But it was important to me to share these deep
feelings with others. I felt like there was no one there to share
them with when I was a child who would listen, care, and nurture
me. Part of my healing involved having someone there to share my
pain with as it came out, and it was healing to have them cry with
me, and although uncomfortable at times, become angry when
hearing about what was done to me.
Let the survivor know you are there for them. Allow the
survivor to tell you what it is she/he needs from you at the time.
Don't assume or try second-guessing. Encourage the survivor to
take responsibility for letting their needs to known and getting
those needs met.
Don't be afraid to express your compassion or feelings of
outrage, or other feelings that get stirred up inside. There
is probably nothing more comforting than a genuine human
response. Just make sure your feelings don't overwhelm theirs.
Respect their boundaries. Survivors may not have boundaries,
or may have very strict boundaries for their protection. As they
heal, they will learn how to set and maintain healthy boundaries.
Respecting their boundaries will facilitate the feeling of safety they
need.
Give lots of positive messages. They say it takes 40 positives
to counter one negative message. Survivors have internalized
many negative messages and it will take a lot of positive messages
from their loved ones to help them begin to change the way they
think about themselves and others.
See the survivor as a survivor and not as a victim. Continue
to see them as a strong, courageous person who is reclaiming
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to see them as a strong, courageous person who is reclaiming
their own life.
Learn and grow with the survivor. Accept that there will very
likely be major changes in your relationship with the survivor as
they heal. They are changing, and as they do, you may need to
change in response. This can lead to a healthier, more fulfilling and
intimate relationship if you see this as something positive in your
relationship and not as a threat.
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