How to support your friends and family who are traumatised

In the wake of drastic cuts of funding for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, my colleage Graz Amber has prepared a pamphlet for "HOW TO HELP" that might come in handy when people can't get the services they urgently need and might have come to rely on. Graz was so kind to allow this pamphlet to be published here:

Hearing of threats to the ACC Sensitive Claims service, particularly if it is your lifeline, could act as a possible trigger for retraumatisation [stressful and unhelpful re-experiencing of trauma] or secondary trauma [ coping with emotional and traumatic stuff in others takes it out on your body, mind and soul too ]. Here is what you could expect:

How To Deal With Anger

Anger is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a normal reaction to being abused, betrayed, hurt, or otherwise disrespected. The important question is how to deal with anger appropriately. It is really important to remember that:

for many (survivors of abuse) anger is associated with strong feelings of fear, anxiety, guilt, or shame because often abuse was accompanied with anger and survivors don’t want to be like their perpetrators. This is, according to my understanding, often the reason why survivors to repress or suppress anger. However, the refusal to be angry (or give your angry parts room to express anger in appropriate situations, is in many ways the source of many anger problems.

How Multiples Can Show Therapists How To Deal With Anger

Not too long ago people involved in the business of therapy, counselling, self-growth, and change would universally claim that pent-up anger needs to be vented. Armed with sticks, bats, tennis-rackets, towels twisted to rock-hard batons, and telephone-directories clients were encouraged by their therapist to express their anger by bashing on chairs, tables, floors, or mattresses – with the occasional encouragement to “put some words” to it.

Although it might have been a great way of approaching anger issues in some cases, nowadays the agreed upon knowledge is that it only vents some energy but doesn’t deal with the underlying issue that caused the anger to be there in the first place.

What Is Passive Aggressive Behaviour

Conflict situations with an angry person are characterised by noticeable contact in the form of friction or even collision. The angry person’s point of view and wants are generally obvious whether they are unrealistic or not. This is very different when dealing with passive aggressive behaviours. Like pathological anger, passive aggressiveness is caused by a person’s inability to express anger healthily. 

The anger could be repressed or suppressed to such extend that the passive aggressive person is not even aware of his/her anger. When confronted with being called angry, the passive aggressive person may be convinced the other person has most certainly got the wrong end of the stick.

What Is A Pathologically Angry Person?

How will you know whether you or a person close to you is a pathologically angry person? A sure sign is when you notice a pervasive behavioural pattern that can range from being negative, irritable, bitter, resentful, or having temper tantrums on one side to being hostile, aggressive, self-destructive, furious, or having regular rage attacks on the other end of the continuum of anger.

How Does Anger Become Pathological?

Anger becomes pathological when a person has over a long time mismanaged their anger. This starts in most cases already in childhood when children are raised within a family and/or society in which children's expression of affect and especially of anger is discouraged or even punished. These are families in which children are maybe see, but certainly not heard. These are families in which usually only parents are entitled to express anger and they often do so to punish or discipline their kids.

Is Your Anger Appropriate or Inappropriate?

What is appropriate anger – and is there such a thing as inappropriate anger? Anger is one of the eight basic emotions (they are joy, acceptance, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and anticipation) we observe universally in people all over the world. Anger is a valid, necessary, and appropriate human emotion.  I consider anger, like all other emotions, as data, or better: emotional information about the quality of an experience we have. Whereas in the distant past anger has informed humans about immanent threat to their lives, nowadays anger rather informs us about a trespassing, injustice, disrespect, or pending  physical or emotional harm.

Mother Issues: August Edition Blog Carnival

The August Edition of the Blog Carnival "Recovery From Sexual Abuse" is published. This month article have been submitted and selected that address the difficult topic of "MOTHERS" and the issues that arise.

There are the mothers that stand alongside the survivor and offer great support and help for the recovery. Other mothers are distant, not-believing, or even perpetrators themselves.

Either way, survivors struggle with mother issues and a lot of time in therapy is spent processing the pain that one's mother was not there, able, or willing to protect the child from being abused. 

Go to the homepage of the Blog Carnival RECOVERY FROM SEXUAL ABUSE for the articles.

Next month's edition will present blog posts that explore the topic of ANGER. If you come across a blog post that deals with anger, please support the blogger and the cause of raising the awareness of sexual abuse by submitting the article on my Carnival Submission Page.