CCChat-Magazine_Issue-27-Survivors-Speak

S: When I work with survivors, that's a
big part of the work because they often
blame themselves and look inside and
feel bad and it's crucial to make sense
of what happened. So we look at each
segment of the power and control
wheel and we name the behaviours
and break down what was happening
in those moment to moment
experiences and what tactic was being
employed to keep them vulnerable. I
think it's very hard for survivors when
they're in the early phase to be able to
articulate this.
M: Oh yes, definitely.
When we can't express something in
words, it's often because our brain
goes offline, we've gone out of our
window of what we can tolerate and we
can't articulate what we've been
through because we've gone out of our
ability to process what's happening.
M: That’s such a brilliant way of
explaining it. Certainly what I found is
that for me to be able to articulate
something well, I have to be able to
explain it in a way that makes sense to
me and a lot of the stuff that happened
just didn't make sense. On an
intellectual level it sort of made sense -
he did this because he wanted to mess
with my head, he did that because he
" When we can't express something in words, it's often
because our brain goes offline, we've gone out of our window
of what we can tolerate."
S: And it takes maybe years to be able
to put it into words and describe it and
that makes things even harder when
you're trying to explain what happened
if somebody asks a survivor, what
happened, they know in their body and
emotionally, that what happened was
horrific but trying to articulate an
internal trauma … whereas if you're
looking at a picture of physical assault,
it's just easier for people to
understand.
M: I actually think that struggle to
articulate, I actually think that that is
evidence.
S: I think it's a very clear indicator, this
is a definite post traumatic symptom
and a universally understood element
of trauma.
wanted me to live in fear but on an
emotional level? I just can't reconcile
that, does that make sense?
S: It makes a lot of sense and when we
are talking about interpersonal abuse,
relational abuse, people that we have
close contact with, it becomes really
messy. I mean, most survivors I speak
with, we talk about still feeling a
connection and care for somebody who
harmed us greatly, and it’s incredibly
confusing.
M: I’m so glad you said that because
it’s something that is rarely talked
about, the fact that you can still care
for someone who has abused you but if
there is an assumption that, if you still
care, it’s because you’re addicted to
them or you enjoyed being abused and
the reality is that abusers aren’t
Making The Invisible Visible