Relational Trauma & the Healing Power of Community by Kizzie

Dr. Judith Herman who proposed the diagnosis of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in 1992, wrote this about the healing power of community for trauma survivors:

Traumatic events destroy the sustaining bonds between individual and community. Those who have survived learn that their sense of self, of worth, of humanity, depends upon a feeling of connection with others. The solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair, and the strongest antidote to traumatic experience. Trauma isolates; the group re-creates a sense of belonging. Trauma shames and stigmatizes; the group bears witness and affirms. Trauma degrades the victim; the group exalts her. Trauma dehumanizes the victim; the group restores her humanity.

Repeatedly in the testimony of survivors there comes a moment when a sense of connection is restored by another person’s unaffected display of generosity. Something in herself that the victim believes to be irretrievably destroyed---faith, decency, courage---is reawakened by an example of common altruism. Mirrored in the actions of others, the survivor recognizes and reclaims a lost part of herself.

The solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair, and the strongest antidote to traumatic experience.

One of the benefits of recovery focused support and information groups like Out of the Storm is the community Dr. Herman is talking about, that sense of connection so often missing in the lives of relational trauma survivors. With the permission of the author*, here’s a peek into the power and magic of community and connection. The following is a deeply compassionate, validating and supportive response to a new OOTS member’s post about the despair they were feeling over their sexual abuse:

I read your post and you are not selfish for feeling the way you do. It is justifiable to hold SI as an out. Something you technically have control over when it feels like nothing else was/is in our control. I get it.

I can relate to so much of your post. SA by multiple perps starting as far back as 3 that I remember. I too wonder if photos are out there. I too was violently raped at 15 after the other SA stopped when I was 14 and I felt exactly the same as you describe, that somehow it just proved that everything that had happened up to that point was because I deserved it. "That this was what my life would always be."

I SH-ed when I was a teen. For me, it focused the pain I was feeling. it gave me something tangible that I could see. It did also serve as a tool for self punishment, which is the most unfortunate piece for me, but all part of living through the kind of trauma we lived through. When I began to merge the parts of self, as I too had pretended for years that it never happened and created an identity that was functional, but I know now so empty, I became that hurt, scared, child, that hurt, scared, self-hating teen.  All of the flashbacks, the body memories, the dark pit of despair, oh so much pain, came back like it was before, like no time had passed. I began to SH again as an adult. It terrified me. I also became suicidal again.  Just, I have family too, and I didn't want to hurt them either. 

I had never told my story to anyone because I was afraid and ashamed.

I'm writing so much of my story here and apologize for the length, but I really want you to know you are not alone. There is nothing wrong with you. You survived terrible things that never should have happened. With the help of a good T and one other support person--my one friend, and the love and support from others on these boards, I became brave enough to let teen me speak. To let her be seen and heard. Little by little I began to see that none of what happened was her fault, that she was lovable and should have been cared for. I had never told my story to anyone because I was afraid and ashamed. Something happens when we understand we are not alone in this, when we trust that someone else understands and cares enough about us to walk through this with us. 

Something happens when we understand we are not alone in this …

I did not need to SH again once I let teen me speak. I just kept showing up, just clinging to anything I could that meant surviving. I realized that since I survived then, I could survive now. That I wanted more than to survive. That I wanted a life. That was my toughest decision and one I make every day and it does get easier, it gets better. I began to feel relief. I began to learn what self-compassion felt like. Compassion--something I felt deeply for the suffering of others. I now see myself as worthy of compassion too. I have found, and I never thought I would, that I do exist underneath or outside of the trauma I experienced. I was buried for a long time, but I was still there and it became worth it to me, to find out where and who I am.

I hope this is helpful and doesn't feel preachy. I write it most humbly and from my heart.  Thank you for posting. It helps me so much to know I'm not alone either and to know deeply that we are all worthy of care, of recovery, of reclaiming what was lost to us.

Moonbeam

If you are reading this and are in a position to sponsor/start a support group for survivors, face-to-face or online, please consider doing so. As I hope this article has conveyed, community truly is a powerful antidote to trauma.  

*Special thanks to Moonbeam for allowing me to share this post with readers.