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Coping Strategies<br />

Anita Gera<br />

I<br />

m a survivor. If you’re reading this, you are very likely to be one too. We have<br />

got this far: we have survived the abuse we encountered and here we are.<br />

However, I know only too well how very hard getting even to here can be,<br />

and I know that we all need a little help now and again so I’m going to tell you<br />

a bit about the three most useful coping strategies I have found, as they may<br />

help you too.<br />

“If you don’t need them, share the information – you never<br />

know when it may be just what another survivor needs to keep<br />

going.”<br />

If you don’t need them, share the information – you never know when it may be just what another<br />

survivor needs to keep going.<br />

The first thing to know, to absolutely grasp with every cell in your body, is that you are not alone. It’s<br />

not some horrible nightmare that has only happened to you: you’re not the only one this happens to.<br />

Knowing this is the most important fact you have now that you are a survivor. There are others out<br />

there who have been through similar, though of course not the same, trauma as you have, who will<br />

understand and who will not judge or blame you in any way (unfortunately, some of those who have<br />

not experienced abuse may not always understand).<br />

When my situation exploded, and I lost my two young children (whom I now haven’t seen for over 3<br />

years), I thought it had never happened to anyone before me. I now know that there are armies of<br />

mothers around the world who have lost their children to their abusers and I talk to many of them<br />

regularly: we understand each other and know how bad the pain is. I am grateful to know them and<br />

to call so many of them friends – without this trauma we would never have found each other so that<br />

is one good that has come out of the bad. And: we know that we are not alone.<br />

Secondly, know that there is no shame in being abused: your abuser should bear the shame and, in<br />

a just world, would do so. It’s not your fault, you did nothing wrong, made no wrong choices, so there<br />

is no shame for you to bear. Abusers are cunning and horribly intelligent when it comes to luring<br />

victim-survivors into their traps. Even if you knew that abusers could act in this way, if it’s happened<br />

before, some abusers will still be able to ensnare you again: it is never your fault, it’s theirs. Too<br />

many of us feel shame at ‘admitting’ that we were abused, raped, violated… but it is society’s fault<br />

for putting the blame on the woman rather than on the man who abused her.<br />

Once you start learning about victim-blaming, about how insidious it is and how it permeates so<br />

much of the world around us, you will wonder how you didn’t see it before. For every rape victim who<br />

is asked what she was wearing, for every mother asked why she didn’t leave her abuser and keep<br />

her children safe, for every girlfriend told that she shouldn’t have done/said/worn/eaten/drunk/not<br />

done / not worn etc<br />

It’s not YOUR fault.<br />

Making The Invisible Visible

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