| Some years ago, an internet friend of mine asked me for advice concerning an appropriate Christmas present for a woman he and his wife were helping while she left an abusive marriage. I tried to delicately hint that her husband had to also be raping her, given the description I was hearing. I failed to be subtle and he did an internet search and verified that what I was saying was true: she had all the markings of a seriously traumatized rape victim. What I told him was that at some point she would divulge this to him and he needed to deal with his own feelings before then and not make the discussion about his feelings. He needed to respect the fact that she had already survived a lot of terrible things and yet found the strength to leave and start rebuilding her life. It went like I predicted. He was able to be supportive and she made great strides in the following months towards putting her life back together. It's fine to validate that a person was, in fact, victimized so long as the focus is on "That person did you wrong" and not on pitying the person who was mistreated. The problem is that this is old news to the victim but new information for the person they are telling. And the person they are telling typically has a very big emotional reaction. After that, the conversation is about that person's feelings, identity and mental models, not about the feelings, identity and mental models of the person disclosing that they were assaulted. The strong emotional reaction of the person receiving the information helps to keep victims silent and trapped in their silence because these reactions either burden them with dealing with this new person's feelings etc or it makes the victim feel guilty of emotionally and psychologically harming other people in their attempts to try to get help of some sort. Having been victimized, most survivors are pretty horrified at the idea of knowingly and intentionally hurting other people. This is a huge barrier to reaching out for support. Validation is really powerful and healing. Just don't make your feelings and your identity their problem. By identity, I mean in part things like insisting you are a nice, good, caring, helpful, knowledgeable person while doing counterproductive things. A lot of people feel a tremendous need to have their own goodness validated in such situations and it often comes at the expense of the person who confided in them. Don't try to fix them. Attempting to fix them just reinforces the idea that they are broken. Listen. Validate that what was done to them was terrible and wrong. Give them breathing room to feel their feelings, whatever they are, and validate that it is okay to feel whatever they feel about that. If it is hard for you to hear and if you have no idea what to do, say so in a way that doesn't blame them, such as "No one has ever confided something like this in me before, so I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm honored that you would entrust this information to me. I'll do my best, but I'm sure to make some mistakes." Then, if they give you push back on something, respect that. Don't try to insist they are wrong and broken and you are right. That's kind of rambly and I'm not at my best today. Hopefully, there are a few useful takeaways in there that will serve your needs. |