December 12, 2009
When You Know People who Want to Hurt You
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Do you know people that truly want to hurt you?
Do you know people that are willing to hurt you on purpose?
Do you know people that would hurt you over and over, again and again?
Did this happen to you when you were a child?
Is this experience still happening for you as an adult?
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What a scary concept.
What a horrifying way to grow up.
It’s one thing to know that you have been hurt by mean people.
It’s a completely different thing to know that there are people that want to hurt you on purpose. And that they’ll do it – and that they have done it. And that they’ll do it again and again and again. As many times as they can, whenever they can.
That’s a completely different concept than to say, “I got hurt once.”
For something to be a “one of” experience, it can be terrible, but it’s a one-of. It doesn’t have to happen again. It happened. It’s over. That’s it.
But to know that there are vicious, sadistic people in the world who want to hurt you, and to know that these people are so incredibly cruel that they want to hurt you many times… and they will hurt you every chance they have…
THAT is a completely different situation.
There is no safety in that situation. There is no reason to believe it won’t happen again. There is not end in sight, and there is no place to rest. You can’t let your guard down. You can’t relax. You can’t stop preparing for the next time. You can’t get away from it.
There is danger, insatiable danger. Life becomes equal with danger.
How very different it feels when the perpetrators are insatiable. How very exhausting it feels when you know that you might have gotten through it today, but they’ll do it again tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.
Repeated, ongoing, incessant danger, trauma, abuse, and neglect changes a person.
It changes their view of the world.
It changes their view of themselves.
When your reality is knowing that abuse will be there, that the abusers are not going away, that the abuse will continue, that the abuse will always continue – that abused person has to learn a new way of survival.
In order to get away from the abuse for awhile – which of course, is important, because if you can’t mentally or emotionally escape the presence of the abuse or its effects, it would be far too much – many survivors create other selves.
If you can’t separate the abuse from you, separate yourself from the abuse.
Create a self that knows nothing of the abuse. Create a self that doesn’t worry or stress that the abuse will be around the next turn, or that it will happen again later tonight. Create a self that can enjoy the now, the day, the work, the school, etc. Create a self that can think about academic things, logical things, creative things, fun things, everyday normal things. Create a self that can enjoy petting a cat or enjoy sipping a cup of tea or reading a book or dancing to the radio.
In the situations of chronic, unending abuse scenarios, a survivor with the ability to dissociate and to split into other personalities is tapping into an absolutely incredible psychological defense. It makes a place to go in your head and in your life-experience where you can feel safe. It makes a place where you can be far from danger. It makes a place where you can get through the day without having to worry about being hurt five minutes from now.
I understand that creating this kind of separation from and denial of the abuse can, in the long run, become a troublesome issue when it becomes time to recognize the abuse in order to stop the abuse. But that point belongs in a different article.
At this point, I am just appreciating the value of being able to separate yourself from ongoing, repeated, unstoppable abuse (and the constant knowing of that abuse, and the constant fear of more abuse) by creating a place in your head that allows the abuse to be stopped.
This has been important. It has saved your sanity in many ways.
Living in constant fear, in constant worry, in constant dread, in constant hypervigilence of more pain and more abuse results in adding more and more problems to already existing problems. The body doesn’t do well under this kind of stress – medical illness increase, stomach issues increase, headaches increase, etc. When the body feels like it is constantly fighting for survival, it responds by secreting chemicals and hormones that it wouldn’t normally do if it felt safe. A body in constant fear is different from a body that feels safe.
Emotionally, the person who feels constant danger is going to have more depression, more anxiety, more self-injury, more extreme fear, more panic attacks, more mental health issues, etc.
Waiting in between blows has it own cost.
It doesn’t feel safe in these in between times. It feels on edge. It’s waiting. It’s wondering. It’s knowing it will happen again. It’s a long ways from feeling safe.
Having people in your life who want to and will hurt you over and over and over has affected you in more ways than you might realize.
It emphasizes, to me, the importance of learning what safety is, and what safety feels like.
It emphasizes how important it is to find someone in your life who doesn’t hurt you over and over.
It emphasizes how important it is to keep safe people safe – including both children and adults.
It emphasizes how important it is to not let anyone or anything interrupt your need to have someone genuinely be safe with you.
It also shows me how hard it is for DID survivors to believe that safety exists in the first place.
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For Trauma Therapists:
As therapists, if we do nothing else, we need to provide a sense of safety for our clients.
We need to prove to our dissociative trauma clients that each time they show up in our presence, they will be safe.
We need to provide a consistent place of safety to counterbalance a life full of constant danger.
We need to be understanding, compassionate, patient, and gentle with their fears.
Sure, there is a place to confront and challenge, but do this in an atmosphere of safety. Make sure your clients know they will not be hurt, even if they are being confronted.
And if you meet a traumatized client who was able to feel safe with another therapist or another person, do NOT ruin or delete the sense of safety the survivor built with that other person. It is amazingly important that any sense of safety was built in the first place. That was not built easily, so respect the effort that went into that relationship. Don’t ever take that away from them.
Dissociative trauma survivors have not felt enough safety in their lives.
To destroy or damage or delete any sense of their safety causes them harm.
Build more safety for your clients – don’t take away what they had.
Safety is precious. The more, the better.
———-
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
pilgrimchild said,
December 12, 2009 at 11:00 pm
I want so, so much to just have 1 place that is safe. Just any place. I always have a stomach ache, all the time. Its like I’m always waiting for the world to cave in. It could at any minute, still. There really isn’t any safe place to go even inside my head. There just isn’t and I want a place so much. And I want a safe person. I don’t know if there is such a thing as real safety because I’ve never felt safe anywhere.
jo
kiyacat said,
December 13, 2009 at 12:43 am
OMG that was hard to read. it just went right to the core of all that is forgotton (deleted) from the host and known by the rest. the flood of tears that followed… Had to walk away, take a break, have a piece of chocolate. Stop the memories just under the surface threatnening to break through. I will check out the crisis links offered here in a moment (tho the chocolate is doing its job well).
I did have a therapist that undermined my safety from the T before her. She could never find something non-cruel to stay and acted as if the T “gave” me to the new one, like she was therefore above my former T (I had made the change to try and work with the DID dx). It made me more protective of my first T.
It is so complicated – how one moment in therapy can be safe, and the next minute can seem like the world is ending. Now with my 5th therapist, we just went thru a rupture and it was awful. I’ve never cried so hard in front of another person. T said it was like she was killing me, and couldn’t understand how i felt so hurt. I think at this point we’ve both silently decided to not go near that conversation again. Too volitle.
Kiyacat
muffledones said,
December 13, 2009 at 10:12 am
The sense of safety w/a therapist is never just ‘there’. Its painstakingly built.
Thats where a strong good T is so important. A T that will stick w/you even when you try and drive them away. A T that will be willing to work thru any and all probs you have w/them. A T who will be straight up and honest w/you. A T that is fully ready to apologize and admit their mistakes.
Good T’s are out there.
I been lucky.
There is safety out there. Never 100%. But there is kind people out there.
I look at people, and sometimes when I interact, they are so kind.
I look at people interacting, I observe every nuance. There are people out there who do not hurt, or try not to. We all hurt people now and then, not meaning to. Like my T used to allus say, she say yes I WILL hurt you, but not on purpose. We tend to sometimes hurt those we care about accidentally, cuz the relationship is so much more, so it easier to accidentally hurt each other. BUT the important thing, is for us to talk thru it. To know we can and will talk thru it and be OK. That is how I came to trust that T, cuz she never bailed on me, even though, 1000x I kept thinking she would.
That was huge.
There is bad out there, there is evil out there, but there is good out there too.
I keep hunting for the good.
Hope evryone is OK.
vickilost said,
December 13, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I shut down often in therapy. THe air gets loud and I shut down. When I come back my therapist is always saying that this is a safe place no one is going to hurt you in here. This post has made my think about why she is saying that.
kodismom said,
December 13, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Two years ago on Dec 12, my husband’s T, who we were seeing together, told me to get out, refusing to see me after keeping me waiting for 40 minutes (he usually runs at least 20 minutes late), because my h had temporarily forgotten the appointment. Husband has a mild brain injury and because the T was virtually never on time, he didn’t have it fixed in his mind to be at the office at appointment time sharp. He got distracted at work. T had seen me alone for all but 5 minutes of a session before, while h waited in the anteroom (no receptionist). I had to suggest we check for him. T said after that, if one or the other of us clients were late, he would go ahead and start and the late person should just come on back.
Two years ago, the last time I saw this T, he ushered me out, and told me he would bill us $135 for the no show. Later, after I wrote him two letters asking for an explanation (he ignored the first), he said he could not see me alone without h’s permission – even though we had signed all kinds of releases and he had done just that previously. Two years ago, on Dec 12, he had my H on the phone, but didn’t ask him how long it would take him to get there (10 minutes, tops) or if it was OK to meet with me. He just told me to get out and that we would be billed his undiscounted rate. He was putting on his coat because we were the last appointment of the day, and since he had allowed his schedule to be running 40 minutes late, I think he just wanted to go home. I became depersonalized and experienced flashbacks and hallucinations after leaving the office. When I am in the office and hear his voice or see him, my body starts to shake and I feel sick. I was abused by a caregiver.
My T, who dx me, referred me and H to this T, his partner in the practice, to work on issues that were getting in the way of my work with him. His partner, the one who kicked me out without explanation, is the senior partner, wrote a book on treatment of dissociative disorders and is an all-around big-shot in the field regionally. It is entirely reasonable that he would know how being called a no-show, booted out, and being shaken down would affect someone like me. I simply could not “take it in stride.” My littles had been seeing him for 6 months and trusted him. The betrayal was massive, yet he acted like he was blameless, that I lacked understanding of “the rules” or that my safety was of no consequence.
I almost left the practice altogether. I had to do a lot of work to regain trust in my own T, and the safety of the office environment is totally compromised. T shields me with his body if the other T happens to pass in the hall. I am sorry to have rehashed this, but I am having anniversary issues and your post touched a very raw nerve. I have had probably 15 therapists over the years, and I had a lot of hope around working with this expert, this great man, finally being diagnosed and being “in the care of” him and my own T, like there would be a synergism in the approach. Part of me is telling us we are “reactive” and a whiner.
missatoo said,
December 13, 2009 at 7:38 pm
This was really thought-provoking because i dont think I have ever really been able to understand true safety. I have felt safe fleeting times, mostly with my T. But whenever anyone would talk about safety it was something i could never really imagine, not truly. In group T, they would say things like imagine a safe place inside, and we never could–it would actually make us more upset. it just didnt exist for us.
one of the things we are working on with our t is how we re-enact things within that rlationship. i think it prevents us from ever really experiencing tht true sense of safety. we are always afraid somehow that he could change or we could do something to change that. maybe we will get to the bottom of this, but it is truly sad when we think about the fact we have never ever been able to understand what that feels like.
hopefortrauma said,
December 13, 2009 at 8:58 pm
This post made us feel something.We really do not know what it is. But it made water come out of the eyes. We are trying to find safeness in our life. So far we can not find it anywhere.
muffledones said,
December 14, 2009 at 11:53 am
I didn’t used to feel safe cuz I wasn’t safe from parts attacking other parts.
I wasn’t safe w/in myownself.
Sometimes my physical body paid the price.
But its getting better now.
So there’s hope.
vickilost said,
December 14, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I still dont ffeel safe with my own self I never know whats going to happen at the moment and i am getting hurt at night and get new cuts up my legs I think the lead up to xmas is a bad time feels unsafe.
kiyacat said,
December 14, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I am getting the same thing too… with internal safety. I got thru my problem spot the other day, and have had another trouble spot that I have managed to work thru. But I know Dec-Jan are hard for me (as is summer). Each Jan I have a real hard time being or feeling safe internally. And typically those are the months my T is out of town or country. It makes us both nervous about my safety and last year nearly got me hospitalized (but the system freaked out, so T didn’t push it). I do know that it is my responsibility to keep my system safe… and i really do my best. There is more communication now and between that and the meds (which make us forget *everything*) I’ve not had as bad an issue lately – just in thoughts, if that makes sense.
Trust with T is still undermined from the summer’s rupture… some walls have gone back up. But there are some external factors changing now which helps ease the tension.
thelittlestsurvivor said,
December 14, 2009 at 9:25 pm
This was really hard to read. I was in my hometown today, and i saw my great uncles brother. The scary thing is he looks just like my great uncle, the man who molested me for 11 years. i was terrified. i nearly we my pants in the middle of the Wal Mart. I can’t talk about this much more.
pumpkin said,
December 15, 2009 at 2:53 am
I am so glad to have found this blog. I have DID and live in England. I will post more soon xoxo
gobbies said,
December 15, 2009 at 5:58 pm
The thing that amazes me is just how easy it is for a safe person or place to suddenly feel unsafe. An unreturned phone call, an air of distraction, an ill-chosen phrase, a look… just about anything can, at least temporarily, undermine our sense of safety. It is odd that it is just so hard to find and so hard to build, but so very easy to lose.
juliewtf said,
December 16, 2009 at 10:49 am
Totally agree with you gobbies…
One little thing can play over and over again in our
thoughts…we will react to it, at least inwardly, think
about it, decide whether it is right or not. But it does
undermine, even temporarily,
nubivagant said,
December 16, 2009 at 1:30 pm
i tried reading it many times now and i can’t. it’s too scary. i feel like the world is too scary.
nubivagant said,
December 16, 2009 at 5:17 pm
i was finally able to read it all. it started out so scary that i did skim the very first part some. i had a therapist that did things that made everything feel less safe. it makes therapy now so hard. she didn’t like my inner forest. i don’t know what she said but i know that i thought no matter what my inner forest would always be safe. that because it was inside me nothing from outside could ever hurt it. and i told that therapist about my forest. there was a forest fire. a big scary fire. i didn’t know that my one safe place could be hurt. i had a great therapist after and i guess she helped me feel safe and the safer i felt with her the more my forest grew back. then she left. she moved away. it is so hard to trust therapists now. the one i have now she likes my forest. she wants me to feel safe. she tries so hard to help me feel safe. i really want to feel safe again. i do have my forest but it has never felt as safe as it did before the fire. nothing has ever felt as safe since then.
-swarm
sallysmith86 said,
December 19, 2009 at 12:01 pm
sometimes when the badness gets really really big even teddy not feel safe we like safe but safe gets real scary
us