Maybe you’re a parent, wondering how this could have happened to your child. Or a partner, hearing someone you love disclose that they were raped in the past. Or a best friend, hearing a story poured out over a night with tears and wine. What do you say? How do you cope? How do you move forward supporting your loved one, and still take care of you?
If you are a parent, having a child disclose trauma to you can come with all sorts of feelings, ranging from grief to anger to shame and back again. And you can’t talk with your child about it, because this is about helping them feel supported, so what do you do with your feelings? How do you take care of yourself so that you can take care of them? Especially when there are so many resources in the community for your child, but it might be hard to get the therapist to talk to you, or give you much information because of your child’s privacy. I get it, I respect it, and as a therapist I do the exact same thing for my survivors, but know you need a place to go too.
Being a partner of a survivor can be incredibly difficult – C-PTSD or PTSD is a tough thing to live with and you may not know which way to turn to help them. You may not even know how to manage your own reaction to learning about your partner’s trauma, and feel helpless because you can’t go back and protect them. How do you handle it when they get triggered? And dealing with the feelings about the fact that something you said or did was the cause of that trigger? It’s not something you should have to learn to navigate alone.
Reach out for help now!