Tag Archive for: Sex Abuse

PTSD And Trauma: Not Just For Veterans

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When we think about posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it’s typically in the context of active duty service members and veterans—for good reason. Dangerous and potentially traumatic situations are common occurrences in the context of military service. However, it’s important to note that PTSD is not exclusive to this type of trauma.

In the U.S., about eight million people experience PTSD. While any traumatic experience can lead to PTSD, there are a few types of trauma that are the most common. Examples include sexual assault/abuse, natural disasters, accidents/injuries to self or other, or being in a life-threatening situation. When you consider these examples, it’s understandable why people would associate PTSD most frequently with military service members. However, this assumption can be problematic.

If people believe that only service members and veterans can develop PTSD, the recognition of symptoms and treatment can be delayed. The fact is: Anyone can develop PTSD when they experience or witness a traumatic event—adult or child, man or woman. Anyone.

How Do You Know If You Have PTSD?

About 50% of all people will go through at least one traumatic experience in their lifetime. But not everyone will develop PTSD. In fact, the majority won’t. However, it can be difficult to distinguish between the typical symptoms that follow a traumatic event and when it has reached the point that a condition like PTSD has developed.

It’s common for people who experience trauma to have nightmares or flashbacks for a few weeks and then gradually improve. It’s when those symptoms don’t improve and begin to interfere with a person’s life that a mental health evaluation should be considered. A person who experiences the following intense symptoms for more than a month may have PTSD:

  • At least one “re-experiencing” symptom (flashbacks, bad dreams, frightening thoughts)
  • At least one avoidance symptom (avoiding thoughts, feeling, places, objects or events related to the traumatic experience)
  • At least two arousal and reactivity symptoms (easily startled, feeling tense, difficulty sleeping, outbursts of anger)
  • At least two cognition and mood symptoms (difficulty remembering details of the traumatic experience, negative thoughts, distorted feelings, loss of interest)

It’s important to note that PTSD-related symptoms may not occur immediately after the traumatic event; they may not surface until weeks or months afterwards. Another major, key difference between typical reactions and PTSD is that while most will remember the fear they felt during trauma, PTSD can cause a person to actually feel as if they are reliving that fear.

What Should You Do After Trauma?

If a person feels supported by friends and family after a traumatic event, it can reduce the risk of developing symptoms of PTSD. It can also be helpful for a person to join a support group, so they can share their thoughts, fears and questions with other people who have also experienced trauma. Using healthy, positive coping strategies—such as exercise, mediation or playing an instrument—can also be helpful.

If symptoms persist, it’s essential to seek treatment. Those with PTSD typically respond better to structured therapies such as:

  • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) – helps a person replace their negative thoughts and behaviors with positive ones
  • Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EDMR) – exposes a person to traumatic memories with varying stimuli, such as eye movements
  • Exposure therapy – helps a person safely face their fears so they can learn to cope with them
  • Imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT) – is a new treatment for reducing the intensity and frequency of nightmares

If you or someone you know is having a difficult time coping with trauma, these interventions can make a huge difference. PTSD is treatable. It’s more effective if treated early, but it’s never too late to get treatment no matter how long ago the trauma occurred.

Trauma is a part of life—it affects most people at some point. But that doesn’t mean it’s a mundane experience that can be ignored or brushed off. The key is to check-in on symptoms and seek care from a mental health professional if they persist.

Whether you’re a military service member, veteran, salesperson or elementary school student, PTSD has the potential to develop in any of us. And if it does, please know that help is available. No one should face PTSD alone.

Laura Greenstein is communications coordinator.

https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/November-2017/PTSD-and-Trauma-Not-Just-for-Veterans

Loving a Trauma Survivor: Understanding Childhood Trauma’s Impact On Relationships

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Survivors of childhood trauma deserve all the peace and security that a loving relationship can provide. But a history of abuse or neglect can make trusting another person feel terrifying. Trying to form an intimate relationship may lead to frightening missteps and confusion.

How can we better understand the impact of trauma, and help survivors find the love, friendship and support they and their partner deserve?

How People Cope With Unresolved Trauma

Whether the trauma was physical, sexual, or emotional, the impact can show up in a host of relationship issues. Survivors often believe deep down that no one can really be trusted, that intimacy is dangerous, and for them, a real loving attachment is an impossible dream. Many tell themselves they are flawed, not good enough and unworthy of love. Thoughts like these can wreak havoc in relationships throughout life.

When early childhood relationships are sources of overwhelming fear, or when absent, insecure or disorganized attachment leaves a person feeling helpless and alone, the mind needs some way to cope. A child may latch onto thoughts like

  • Don’t trust, it’s not safe!
  • Don’t reach out, don’t be a burden to anyone!
  • Don’t dwell on how you feel, just move along!

These ideas may help a person cope when they hurt so badly every day and just need to survive. But they do not help the emerging adult make sense of their inner world or learn how to grow and relate to others. Even if the survivor finds a safe, loving partner later in life, the self-limiting scripts stay with them. They cannot just easily toss them and start over. These life lessons are all they have (so far) to survive the best way they know how.

Noticing Trauma’s Impact On Behavior and Mood

Many times, trauma survivors re-live childhood experiences with an unresponsive or abusive partner (an important topic for another article). This often happens without the ability to see the reasons why they feel compelled to pursue unhealthy relationships. Beneath awareness is a drive to revisit unresolved trauma, and finally make things right. Of course, childhood wounds cannot be repaired this way unless there are two willing partners working on changing those cycles. But if these forces remain unnoticed, survivors can get caught in a cycle of abuse.

Even with a safe partner, a trauma survivor may

  • Experience depression
  • Develop compulsive behavior, an eating disorder, or substance dependence to try and regulate their emotions
  • Have flashbacks or panic attacks
  • Feel persistent self-doubt
  • Have suicidal thoughts
  • Seek or carry out the adverse behavior they experienced as a child

Partners of trauma survivors may want desperately to help. But partners need to “be clear that it is not your problem to fix and you don’t have the power to change another human being,” says Lisa Ferentz, LCSW in a post for partners of trauma survivors. Rather, know that both of you deserve to connect with resources to help you find comfort and healing.

Seeing Trauma’s Impact On Relationships

It is important to recognize unhealed trauma as a dynamic force in an intimate relationship. It can super-charge emotions, escalate issues, and make it seem impossible to communicate effectively. Issues become complicated by:

  • Heightened reactions to common relationship issues
  • Emotionally fueled disagreements
  • Withdrawal or distant, unresponsive behavior
  • Aversion to conflict and inability to talk through issues
  • Assumptions that the partner is against them when it is not the case
  • Lingering doubt about a partner’s love and faithfulness
  • Difficulty accepting love, despite repeated reassurance

In a relationship, a history of trauma is not simply one person’s problem to solve. Anything that affects one partner impacts the other and the relationship. With guidance from therapy, partners begin to see how to untangle the issues.

Many people do not even realize that they have had traumatic experiences. Trauma-informed therapy works by helping couples begin to see how they experienced traumatic abuse or neglect, and how it still affects them, and impacts their current relationships. This approach enables the therapist to provide specific insights to help couples separate past issues from present ones. Progress often comes more readily through a combination of individual sessions and work as a couple.

Trauma-informed therapy helps partners give each other the gift of what I and other therapists call psychoeducation – learning to understand each individual’s story, how it impacts their relationship, and how to process thoughts and emotions in healthier ways.

The Importance of Self-Care For Trauma Survivors and Their Partners

Trauma survivors and their partners have different needs for support. How can one respond when the other is grappling with mental health issues? How do you calm things down when overwhelming emotions get triggered?

It takes therapy for couples to find answers that are most healing for them. But some general tips for trauma survivors and their partners that can help are:

  • Have a really good support system for each of you and the relationship. Make time for family and friends who are positive about your relationship and respect you and your loved one.
  • Find a trauma-informed therapist to guide you as a couple or as individuals in your effort to better understand yourselves and each other.
  • Find resources outside of therapy such as support groups or other similar activities
  • Take time for psychoeducation. Learn about the nature of trauma, self-care and healing techniques like mindfulness. For example, one helpful model is Stan Taktin’s “couple bubble.” This is a visual aid to help partners see how to become a more secure, well-functioning couple. Surrounding yourself and your partner with an imaginary bubble “means that the couple is aware in public and in private they protect each other at all times. They don’t allow either of them to be the third wheel for very long, at least not without repair. In this way, everybody actually fares much better.” See More Helpful Resources below.

Communication Tips for Partners of Trauma Survivors

Building a healthy bond with a trauma survivor means working a lot on communication. Grappling with relationship issues can heighten fear and may trigger flashbacks for someone with a history of trauma.

Learning how to manage communication helps couples restore calm and provide comfort as their understanding of trauma grows. For example, couples can:

  • Use self-observation to recognize when to slow down or step back as feelings escalate
  • Practice mindfulness to raise awareness and recognize triggers for each of you
  • Develop some phrases to help you stay grounded in the present and re-direct your dialog, such as:
    • “I wonder if we can slow this down.
    • “It seems like we’re getting triggered. Can we figure out what’s going on with us?”
    • “I wonder if we are heading into old territory.”
    • “I’m thinking this could be something we should talk about in therapy.”
    • “I wonder if we could try and stay grounded in what is going on for us – is that possible?”

Communication can also help a partner comfort a loved one during a flashback. Techniques include:

  • Reminding the person that he or she is safe.
  • Calling attention to the here and now (referencing the present date, location and other immediate sights and sounds).
  • Offering a glass of water, which can help stop a flashback surprisingly well. (It activates the salivary glands, which in turn stimulates the behavior-regulating prefrontal cortex.)

Healing childhood wounds takes careful, hard work. But it is possible to replace old rules bit by bit. Finding a therapist who can recognize and acknowledge the hurt, which the survivor has carried alone for so long, is key to repairing deep wounds.

Partners may decide to work individually with their own trauma-informed therapist, while working with another as a couple, to provide the resources they need. When a survivor of early trauma can finally find comforting connection with a therapist, and then with their partner, the relationship between the couple can begin to support deep healing as well.

The more we understand about the impact of trauma, the more we can help those touched by it to go beyond surviving, and find the healing security of healthier loving relationships.

More Helpful Resources

Articles and Websites

“Helping a Partner Who Engages in Self-Destructive Behaviors” by Lisa Ferentz, LCSW

“Trauma-Informed Care; Understanding the Many Challenges of Toxic Stress” by Robyn Brickel, M.A., LMFT

Sidran Institute (resources for traumatic stress education and advocacy)

Books

Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship by Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT

Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused As a Child by Laura Davis

Trust After Trauma: A Guide to Relationships for Survivors and Those Who Love Them by Aphrodite Matsakis

Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation by Daniel Siegel

http://brickelandassociates.com/trauma-survivor-relationships/

Help Protect Your Child from Sexual Abuse

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You can help to protect your child from sexual abuse by teaching the following crucial Body Safety Rules.

1. From an early age, teach your child that their body is their body and it belongs to them. Explain that they have the right to say “no” if they don’t want to be kissed or hugged by someone.

In a greeting situation, encourage your child to offer the person a high-five or a handshake (or, with people they know well they could blow them a kiss instead). Other adults may be offended by your family’s stance on this issue, but the best option is to explain your family’s reasons behind this practice.

Keep in mind it is our job as parents and carers to empower our children and not to pacify the occasional disapproving adult and/or relative.

2. Help your child to create a Safety Network. A Safety Network is made up of three to five adults that your child trusts. These are adults your child could tell anything to and they would be believed. The people who have the honor of being on your child’s Safety Network should be adults who will listen to your child’s concerns, who will always believe them, and who are accessible. Remember, it is your child’s choice who they place in their Safety Network.

3. Talk to your child about their Early Warning Signs. Explain that if they feel worried or unsafe, their body will let them know. Their Early Warning Signs may include feeling sick in the stomach, feeling shaky, their heart racing, etc. Explain to your child that if they feel any of their Early Warning Signs, they must tell an adult on their Safety Network straightaway.

4. Always call your child’s private parts by their correct names. Explain that no child, teenager or adult can touch their private parts, that they should never touch another person’s private parts even when asked, and that they should not view images of private parts.

Explain that if any of these things happen, they have the right to say, “no” or “stop,” and then they must tell an adult on their Safety Network straightaway. If that person is not available, they will need to tell another person on their Safety Network. Reinforce that your child needs to keep telling until they are believed.

5. Discourage secrets. Explain that your family has “happy surprises” instead of secrets because happy surprises will always be told. Explain that if someone does ask them to keep a secret, they should tell that person that they don’t keep secrets. Reinforce that if someone does ask them to keep a secret that makes them feel unsafe or uncomfortable, they must tell an adult on their Safety Network straightaway.

A few final hints!

1. Decide on a “family word.” For example, “pickles.” So if your child is somewhere without you or in a situation where they can’t speak up, and they feel unsafe, they can call or shout out “pickles.” This will alert you to the fact that they feel unsafe and need to be removed from the situation immediately.

2. Educate yourself in Body Safety; this includes signs of child sexual abuse and the grooming process. Remember, sexual predators groom both parents and children.

3. Encourage your child’s school to teach Body Safety! And if they don’t, please ask why not.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/help-protect-your-child-from-sexual-abuse_us_5878261be4b03e071c14fbc8