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Help for partners
Helping a survivor as he/she processes his/her abuse-related issues can put a strain on any relationship. The journey is tortuous not only for the survivor but for anyone who cares for him/her. As a consequence of their abuse, survivors commonly experience difficulty with trust, intimacy and relationships in general. As a survivor's issues are being actively addressed these difficulties can be highlighted. Emotions can be chaotic, reactions erratic. It can be difficult for the survivor to cope at all, let alone engage in an ongoing relationship. For those who have been sexually abused, difficulties around sexual relationships may have already arisen. When memories are active or specific issues are being confronted, these difficulties can become extreme.
Recovering from the repercussions of abuse can take a long time – often many years and during that time, abuse issues can at times, so overwhelm the survivor that he/she cannot cope with the practicalities of everyday life. Emotions swing wildly, moods change from fear through anger and loss and sometimes even lead to severe depression or suicidal thoughts and actions.
Partners are often left to sit by helplessly as they watch their loved one struggle with internal issues that even they don't fully understand. When a survivor is actively dealing with abuse issues, he/she may withdraw from ‘normal contact', communicating even less than usual. This can leave a partner feeling unloved and unappreciated. Any partner can feel inadequate in this situation - at a loss to know how to help despite the best of intentions and confused by the change in a person they felt they knew intimately. Partners often want to fix things but they can't. No one can. The process must simply take its course.
Recovering from the effects of childhood trauma is gradual and has frequent ups and down. It does not occur in a linear way and sudden apparent deteriorations can be confusing for any partner. A partner's attempts to help can sometimes be rebuffed with anger or withdrawal. At times during which the survivor is struggling to survive, the partner might have to take on all of the chores of the household.
In a family setting, the duties and load involved with caring for children can also fall to them as well as the job of explaining to the children, situations which the partner might not understand. When a survivor is struggling to look after him/herself, he/she is not able to care for anyone else and that includes other family members.
Just as survivors can feel alone on their journey, so can their partners. They too can feel as though there is no one to talk to, as if no one who understands. Memories strike out of the blue, moods change but the changes a survivor experiences, often do not relate to anything in the present. They are internal and related either to the process of healing or to behaviours learnt at the time of the abuse. Remember: survivors were betrayed by the very people they should have been able to trust, by those who were close to them, those who were meant to protect them. Although it is often difficult to achieve, it is important for partners to try not to take a survivor's reactions personally. The behaviour of a survivor in the midst of dealing with his/her abuse often has little to do with what the partner is or is not doing. Their behaviour probably does not reflect their feelings towards their partner at all.
The best advice to a partner is to be as supportive as you can be while at the same time caring for yourself and attending to your own needs. Everyone has needs and partners have to be able to express their needs too so that they can be acknowledged and honoured. Partners need to nurture themselves.
Supporting a survivor demands lots of energy. Partners need to find someone to confide in. Partners need someone who can listen to them, someone to whom they can express their anger and their hurt; a counsellor, an empathic listening friend, a partner of another survivor. Partners need to find not just people who can support them but activities that make them feel good. Plenty of rest, time out, permission to relax, take in a movie, listen to the radio, read a good book… anything that can help a partner replenish him/herself so that he/she can find the resources to continuing supporting the survivor.
Communication is vital in any relationship and partners need to keep the channels of communication open. That way the survivor knows how the partner is feeling and vice versa. It's not easy. Gently does it but the rewards are there.
Partners helping us…Partners have to negotiate our moods: deal with our panic attacks, depressions, suicidal thoughts and even attempts. They have to nurse us through physical ills, stand by us when we quit work or can no longer look after the house or family. We will often push them away as we withdraw into ourselves. After all isolation is what we knew best as a child. They observe helplessly as we struggle to accept memories that we didn't even know were there. Our partners are our lifeline, and we test them to the limit.
The journey is difficult and confusing and we sometimes discover that the relationship cannot withstand the pressures our journey puts on it. Sometimes it does not survive and we must continue our journey alone. Partners who stick around and share aspects of your journey; the partner who is there to help you through your pain, to wait until you are prepared to talk, to support you without question; these partners are worth their weight in gold. As you acknowledge and come to terms with your abuse issues, and start to move forward a partner's patience is eventually rewarded. What often ensues is a deeper, stronger and better relationship than you ever dreamed possible.
Personal account:
It was a near-death experience that caused my wife to start recovering memories of abuse in her childhood. Had we ever had any inkling before that? Well, in retrospect, I guess there had been some indications in the course of our 23 years together, but really they were little signs: irrational fears at times, about all sorts of thing; being over-protective of our children; contrasting vulnerability and aggressiveness - but that was all. Neither of us thought that there was anything hideous lurking in the past. Facing death in a runaway vehicle was the trigger. Over the following months she stared reliving traumatic childhood events in the form of flashbacks. Those moments were really scary, but we agreed it was better to open up the old wounds than try to cover them over. And anyway, you really don't have any choice once it's started - you just have to confront your past, despite the emotional rollercoaster it brings. We've been walking on broken glass for two years now, and I think we've still got a way to go, but there's no other way to handle it successfully. It takes guts, and she's been extraordinary.
How have I coped? I have to admit it's been tough. I've been on overload too. But I'm a long-distance runner and cyclist by training, and I guess I have stamina and high tolerance of pain. In those sports you get to accept that you have to take the pain for any long-term gain.
I've often been unsure of what to say in particular situations, of what to do for the best. I've always tried to be supportive, to make her feel sure that I'll be around no matter what. You have to take one day at a time, you have to wake up every morning with a strongly positive attitude, just so you can make it through the day. It takes real self-discipline.
The advice I would give a partner is: read as much as you can about recovering traumatic memory and all the best books on child abuse. Find a Bessel Van der Kolk video. Immersing yourself in the subject will help both of you.
Alan Robinson
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