If you have experienced any kind of trauma, you know how isolating and distressing it can be. We want to offer support so you feel less alone, and more able to cope with the chaos and the pain.
If you’ve chosen to stay with a partner who’s betrayed you, you need to feel you’re safe – and that’s hard thing to assess. So how can you judge if he’s being honest today, and if he’s truly committed to being different now?
There has to be a sense of genuine remorse, and a genuine desire to put things right. What are your gut feelings telling you here? It is often hard to know, or to trust yourself. Ask yourself:In the cold light of day, do you think he’s genuine? What are the types of things which make you think he’s changed? Try to be concrete and specific here.
Your partner should communicate he owes you a huge debt. In fact, he owes you a huge debt that can never be repaid. And the focus of his life (at least, at this point in his life) should be making up to you for all the heartache he has caused. Ask yourself: Do you feel he is doing this? Is he doing it freely, of his own volition? Or do you feel he feels manipulated, or pressurized, into “acting” sorry? Is he doing it simply because he fears being exposed, or of losing you (and perhaps the children and/ or a lifestyle he is comfortable with)?
Is he willing to be honest and accountable? Is his life an open book now? Has he put some checks in place so he doesn’t fall back into the same old patterns, or will know what to do in order to walk away from temptation? Do you feel this strategies and plans are sufficient to give you peace of mind? Ask yourself: What gives you confidence that he wants to be an open book in front of you? What gives you confidence that he will resist temptation if it crosses his path in the future?
Does he let you ask him questions – even though they make him squirm? Is he willing to be honest about everything he’s done? Does he close down conversations when they become too threatening? Do you feel you have ‘the whole truth’ now? Note: If you feel he’s being cagey or evasive, then this should sound a warning bell.
Has he looked at all the reasons why he did the things he did? What kinds of self-understanding has he arrived at? Ask yourself: Has he identified his triggers? How has this self-understanding led to changes in the way he lives his life? What do those changes look like?
How has he changed in his relationship with you? Do you feel he truly loves and wants to be with you? Do you feel you’re more attached, and more connected as a couple? Ask yourself: What makes you feel valued and treasured by him now? What kinds of things show he respects you, and wants you to feel respected? Do you feel he would put your wants and needs before his wants and needs?
Has he lied or been dishonest in any way at all (since you discovered the betrayal, and learned he’d lied to you)? Has he been honest and reliable in the very small things (like calling you when he says he will call you, or picking up milk if he says he will pick up milk)? Ask yourself: What makes you think he really would tell you everything? Try to be concrete and specific here.
“The truth is: I don’t have trust issues. I’m just very aware. I’m not pessimistic. I’m just realistic. I’ve seen human behaviour at its best, and at its worst. So, now, I just sit back and observe. I’ll never fall victim to words again. Because it’s really about behaviour. Behaviour never lies.” – Sylvester McNutt
After experiencing a traumatic event, you can go from being someone lives a normal life, to someone who can hardly function anymore.
This is very common. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy.
However, you are likely to need professional support as you seek to work through, and recover from, the trauma.
Some things to bear in mind as you embark on this journey include:
1. It’s important to find the right counselor: Relationship matters. You need to feel a connection with your counsellor. You need to feel understood and accepted by them. You also need to feel that you’re in a safe place, and that your counsellor is competent to work with trauma.
2. Feeling safe and building trust isn’t easy: It is normal to experience anxiety when you first talk to a counsellor. You are making yourself vulnerable by opening up to them. It is likely to unleash a whole gamut of emotions such as shame, guilt, embarrassment, anger, rage self-loathing. Remember, here, your counsellor is on your side. They want to help you recover from the heartache and the pain.
3. Counseling isn’t just sitting in a room and talking: There will be difficult questions, painful memories to explore, facing up to what experiences mean, challenges to how you see and feel about yourself, learning new thought patterns, and even homework to do. All of this will, ultimately, help you to move on.
4. There will be times when you will relive the trauma: Be prepared for this … Because, the truth is, the only way out is through. Avoidance and suppression may protect you for a while. However, the memories you are trying to forget will have to surface, and be faced, and worked through before you feel you’re getting better.
5. Learning how to cope with triggers is hard: Learning to recognize, and cope effectively with what feels like endless triggers, is going to take time. The surges and swings in emotions they provoke can feel overwhelming and debilitating. But you will make progress. So hang in there. Keep on working.
6. The stages of grief are only a guideline: Trauma survivors carry so much grief! And there’s no timeline for moving through that grief. There are nightmares, flashbacks, memories, strong emotions and deep pain. And each new awareness can unleash the grief again. It is very tiring, and can be discouraging.
7. The trauma will stay front and foremost for a while: It affects every area of your life, and impacts almost all of your relationships. You will suddenly remember – and be knocked off course again. Yet, this deserves your attention. It has altered everything changed your. Be patient. You are healing. It won’t always be this way.
“It will hurt. And hurt. And hurt. Then, one day, it will hurt less.”
You might be wondering if you’ll ever recover because the struggle has gone for on so long. You might be thinking that you’ll never recover. That the damage is too deep. That the scars will never heal. But that is not the case. Things will gradually get better. It’s just that we can’t see it when the darkness closes in. The whole thing is a nightmare. One we constantly relive. We feel so tired and weary. Is there no hope of relief?
These feelings are all normal. It’s a roller coaster ride. It’s utterly exhausting. You feel so weak, so tired. But all of us go through it. We’ve experienced that pain. The sense of desperation. The sorrow. The despair.
But then you turn a corner, and you see a shaft of light. A ray on the horizon. A break in the dark night. You feel a little stronger. You feel that you can breathe. Perhaps you can recover. Perhaps you’re going to heal.
“I keep so much pain inside myself. I grasp my anger and loneliness and hold it in my chest. It has changed me into something I never meant to be. It has transformed me into a person I do not recognize.”
Almost everyone who’s experienced trauma will resonate with these painful words.
We experience a pain we never knew was possible.
And we react in ways that shock us to our very core.
If you feel this way, you are not alone. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy.
You are not the only one.
These are normal reactions to traumatic life events.
So what kinds of things might you be struggling with?
1. Re-experiencing the pain at unexpected times. Suddenly being hit by, what feel like, uncontrollable emotions.
2. Being highly reactive. Over-reacting to minor offences, or to seemingly neutral or insignificant events.
3. Your feelings and reactions are all over the place. These can change in an instant from numbness to rage … to feeling desolate and abandoned and alone … to feeling indignant … and all things in between.
4. Feeling you can’t cope with every day life. Feeling you can’t cope with the simplest tasks. It all feels too much; you have zero energy.
5. Wanting to withdraw and isolate yourself; you simply don’t have the strength to deal with anyone.
6. Having low self-worth and low self-esteem. Feeling you’re unloveable; worthless; despicable; a failure; and can’t do anything right.
7. Being tormented by obsessive, and unwanted, thoughts related to the trauma, and the mess it’s left behind.
8. Feeling really angry that this happened to you, and ruined absolutely everything.
9. Feeling worn out and exhausted from months of broken sleep, and months of being wakened in the night with anxiety and/ or panic attacks.
10. Feeling like you have no future, and there is nothing left to hope for. Believing that it is stupid and pointless to want, or hope for, anything at all.
If this describes you, then be gentle with yourself. It’s going to take a while, and the journey will be rough.
Be patient with yourself. Do not judge the way you feel.
Just take it very slowly. One day, you’ll start to change.
And, unexpectedly, you’ll realize you have found yourself again.
Check out our Certificate and Diploma in Counselling Skills.
We also offer more specialist training in areas like trauma counselling, crisis counselling, couple counselling, addiction counselling, counselling children and youth … and many more.
Work online at your own pace.
Visit our website for more information: onlinecounsellingcollege.com
“What seems to be hard about secrets isn’t hiding them, but living with, and thinking about, them.” – Michael Slepian
There are secret traumas that are hard to share, and because we can’t share them, we don’t get the help we need, and we end up carrying the burden alone.
Secret traumas like incest, sex addiction, or abuse, being married to someone who’s committed a crime. The list of possibilities goes on and on.
But what happens when we have to keep this secret to ourselves, and we can’t share the torment with anyone at all?
1. We feel overwhelmed by anxiety and shame … And that anxiety and shame has nowhere to go. It just keeps on building up inside of us.
2. We feel that we exist inside a bubble of some kind where we’re acting out a role in front of the world … while no-one really knows what we’re struggling with.
3. We’re repeatedly assaulted by traumatic memories, distressing reactions, and unwanted strong emotions. Also, we’re likely to experience poor or broken sleep.
4. We feel this is too massive to explain, or talk about. In our heart we are convinced there is no-one in our world who could understand our struggle, or know what we’ve been through.
5. Although there might be times when we feel “normal” again, the effects of the trauma never fully go away. And we’ve learned that this is just a hard reality for us.
What Might Help?
While it’s true there might be few who would really understand, it is crucial you find someone to share your feelings with. Don’t let the long-term impact build up and harm your health.
But if there’s no-one at the moment who you feel can fit that role, and there’s no-one you feel able to trust your secret with, there are a few other things that you could maybe try. They include:
1. Journalling. Write down all the feelings, the memories and fears. Write when you are triggered, and say what triggered you. The very act of writing will often bring relief, and a degree of detachment from what’s now in the past.
2. Check out podcasts, blogs, or join an online group. All of these will help you to feel you’re not alone. You’ll see that there are others who have suffered just like you, who are trying to work through all the trauma and the pain.
3. Find a hobby that distracts you from the memories. These can help to keep you focused on the here-and-now. This can help to stabilize when you feel you’re tossed around.
4. Get some exercise. This releases ‘feel good’ hormones which can help you to relax, and it counteracts the build up of anxiety and stress (as well as being good for your overall health).
Don't Lose Hope 