Tag: Survivors

Self-Care

Self-Care (Preventing Another Effect of Vicarious Traumatization)

Domestic violence workers, teachers, substance abuse counselors, and many others are often reminded to care for ourselves in the face of hearing about and seeing so many tragedies. It is necessary for everyone to care for him/herself. Most people hear “self-care” and think of spa days, time off, more time alone or with loved ones, eating better… I would like to suggest an addendum:

One of the best ways we can care for ourselves is to feel prepared in the face of all the heartache and tragedy we see. Whether you see it in your office/clinic/classroom/dinner with a friend or relative, or only on the evening news, we all have the need to identify and understand what we see in the world.

The best way to feel prepared is knowing and having practiced a response for similar situations. This can help us let go of those stories that stay with us. Our hearts can connect with compassion and empathy for others’ stories without taking on their worries. We don’t have to wonder, “Gosh, what would I do if that happened to me now? I don’t know.” Or, in the case of some survivors, “I still don’t know.”

You deserve the answer to that question. Having a plan and having practiced it doesn’t mean that it would go exactly that way (when does it?), but it can mean that you will feel more prepared and have an easier time filing those stories away so that they’re not always weighing on your mind.

It is certainly not the only solution. But it can be a part of a comprehensive self-care program that supports you in being the compassionate individual you want to be in a sustainable way.

Discovering How We Survived

Some people, particularly those who advocate for survivors, may worry that promoting self-defense encourages victim-blaming. In a society where a woman is raped and then can be interrogated in court about her own sexual history or what she was wearing, this is a grave concern. We don’t want to do anything that makes it seem like the violence of others is in any way the victim’s fault. To be clear, it is not. Ever.

And yet we cannot let this concern stop us from preventing future violence in the lives of our children or help those we care about to avoid being re-victimized. Everyone does the best they can with the tools they have at the time. We cannot re-write the past. But a good self-defense program not only gives tools for the future, but can help survivors identify things they did in the past that helped them survive and reduce the violence.

Some of the things survivors might identify in retrospect are being quiet as children to avoid a beating, or choosing the location of the (inevitable) next act of violence where they knew it would be safer or less severe. Others asked their rapists to wear condoms and thereby reduced their trauma by advocating for themselves. Still others identify that they successfully used “humanizing” (a verbal dissuasion technique) with their dates who had intended to rape them.

Identifying how we acted to protect ourselves in the past helps heal old wounds and acknowledge our own spirit for survival. We can use this to quiet our internalized victim-blamer, as well as use it as a resource moving forward.

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