Family members, partners, and friends can provide vital support for survivors of child abuse and trauma. But survivors can struggle with communication and trust, especially in close relationships. This can make supporting a survivor challenging and frustrating. Especially in romantic relationships.
When a survivor decides to work through the impacts of their trauma it can add stress to the relationship. Survivors can quickly feel overwhelmed. Even when they are not working on their trauma, painful memories can be triggered out of the blue. They can flood back and catch a survivor unawares. The survivor can feel out of control. With the memories come strong emotions. Survivors can react as though their trauma is happening in the present. Right there. Right now. This can trigger a stress response. This is a ‘normal’ reaction to trauma.
Survivors can sometimes swing out of control. They can go from being hyper-aroused (agitated) to hypo-aroused (shut down), over and over. This leaves them at the mercy of their own reactions. It’s frightening for them. It can also be frightening for their supporters.
Their supporters are confused. They don’t understand what’s happening. Survivors can become very self-focussed. Able only to survive. Partners, in particular, can feel unloved and unappreciated. It's hard to watch someone you care about in pain. Especially as the healing journey can take a long time. Supporters often feel helpless.
Simply "being there" can make an enormous difference. As children, many survivors had no-one. No-one who could help them make sense of what was happening. Many survivors learned that people were dangerous. That they hurt you. Walking alongside a survivor and bearing witness can help change a survivor’s beliefs that the world is dangerous.
Partners and friends don't need to be heroes. It's a fine line between offering support, and "rescuing" someone, but it's an important one. Survivors need people who are constant, consistent and trustworthy.
Times of crisis can be especially stressful. Looking after someone day-to-day is hard. It can challenge not only their relationship but their understanding of themselves and their world. Just as survivors can feel alone, so too can their supporters. They can feel as though there is no one to talk to – no-one who understands.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed. That’s why it’s important for boundaries to be clear – what you can and can’t do. If you’re a supporter, it’s important that you look yourself. And take time out to nurture and care for yourself.
As in all relationships, difficulties and ruptures can occur. We are all human. We can sometimes misread interactions and react in a way that isn’t ideal. That’s a given. What’s important, especially with survivors, is how we repair those ruptures. Being defensive and leaving our egos behind is important. When there’s a rupture, it is helpful to think about how the survivor experienced the interaction. Reflect on your own triggers and issues. Speak openly, with kindness for the survivor and yourself about what happened and what you learned about the interaction. The repair is much more important than the rupture. Rupture will occur. Repair is the glue that heals and connects us back.
No-one pretends that supporting a survivor is always easy. It can be and often is inspiring. To survive is to be celebrated. So too is to heal and find a new way of being. Supporting a survivor can bring warmth, intimacy, and joy. Friends and partners can develop new levels of empathy and understanding. It means that in the future, your survivor friend, family member or partner will be happier and stronger. And perhaps even return the support they received.
Many people who have supported a survivor, talk about the personal awareness and growth experienced in walking alongside their survivor friend, family member or partner. Witnessing a survivor’s experience will create opportunities for you too. It can help you be more aware of your own patterns and events that have shaped your life.
What to do if your partner or friend discloses sexual abuse:
Make time and space for them to privately discuss their abuse for as long as they need as soon as possible. Pick your time and location carefully, away from anyone around whom they don’t feel safe. Ensure they know that there are professionals who can help and encourage them to seek such professional help. Support organisations for male sexual abuse survivors can be found here. If it’s a male child, reassure them that you will help - and do it.
Ask for more information, and be careful about jumping to conclusions after particle disclosures. Ask how you can support them, and offer a few supportive words, like “Im glad you told me” and “I’m sorry that happened”.
Listen and leet them know you believe them. Don’t tell them too put it in their past, forget it, or get over it. People need to organise their thoughts, see your reaction, and process their emotions. Don’t offer solutions. Listening is helping.
Expect that they may be confused about how they feel about their abuse and don’t judge their thoughts and feelings. Sometimes negative or abusive attention is only the real attention a child receives, and parts of the relationship may have been what they needed at the time. Normalise and validate their thoughts and feelings as best you can.
For (and about) Partners, family, and friends:
I am adding this to this section fro two reasons, it recognises that there is virtually no information available for spouses, partners, lovers, family, friends of male survivor. I hope that I can provide some useful information who are in a caring relationship with male survivors. The second reason is this section will encourage those who care about male survivors to think about supporting the supporters. There is a real need for more literature, workshops, support groups for partner and friends of survivors.
Weather forecasting still isn’t an exact science. We know that cyclones cause upheaval, but it is impossible to predict the extent of the devastation. Some storms produce high winds and rain. Others cause flooding and damage to life and property. Still others pass harmlessly offshore, dissipating there energies virtually unnoticed. With that in mind, we certainly cannot accurately anticipate or predict the exact course of someones recovery. Each male survivors life experience are his alone, and his recovery will follow a path that differs from veryones’s else. This is extremely important to understand.
As with cyclones - although you cannot know exactly what to expect in any individuals recovery process- there are some things for which you can prepare for. If they done occur you are no worse off. If they do, your preparations will help you ride it out.
As much as I would like you to prepare for all things that are going to happen, it’s impossible. Below are some of the reaction from male survivors that you might encounter. Remember each survivor is different and these are just only a few that I have recognised and some that I have researched:
Withdrawal. There will be times that the survivor will engage in long periods of silence, they can be generally uncommunicative, or they may require more time alone. At theses times, he might disappear for long periods or be uninterested in his usual pursuits. When this occurs, friends or family of the survivor feel shut out or rejected. You could feel confused and resentful. It can be very isolating to have someone close “check out”. In the absence of communication it is hard to know what is really going on, whether you had anything to do with it, and if there is anything you can do to help. It really easy to jump to conclusions. But there are many possible explanations for the withdrawal.
Remember that the male survivor is experiencing a concoction of emotions. He may need the time and the space to sort them out or process them. He may just not know what to say to anyone. He may be trying to protect you from his pain. He could be reacting to feelings of hopelessness and self doubt that have nothing to do with you.
Now this is very important, unless you think that there is a danger that he will harm himself and or others, the best course of action is to do little or nothing. Just make sure that you reassure him, and listen if he wants to talk about it, and then allow him the time snd space that he needs. You can always do more later if necessary. For the time being try to resit intrusion into his solitude by caretaking or, expressing resentment for being excluded. Even if it does, nagging him about it will shut it down further. It is possible that he may be working on these issues in individual therapy or a recovery group. If so, its definitely an appropriate way to deal with them. In the meantime, get similar support for yourself - whether in therapy, individual counselling, or if there is one a support group fro family and friends of survivors.
Mood Swings. Recovery is never smooth and steady. There are times of rapid, visible amazing progress, periods of apparent inactivity, and occasional lapses into old patterns of behaviour and feeling go being lost and feelings of hopelessness. The male survivor can be flying high one day, full of confidence in his progress, only to sink on despair the next. Mood swings are are difficult and confusing to friends and family of the male survivor. This is particularly true if you have taken the role of protecting him from “bad” feelings. As difficult as it is, you must train yourself to step out of the caretaking role. The male survivors feelings are his. You dd not cause them, nor are you responsible fro alleviating them. They are necessary to the healing process. As hard and difficult to see someone you care about in pain, you must allow the male survivor to have these swings - and getting through his feelings. Absolutely celebrate the good times with him, as this is extremely important to the male survivor. Be there for the hard times if you can (and if you are allowed to), but recognise that he must do his own work. Your support will help ease his recovery.
Crying. You will probably find that your male survivor friend or family member, once so completely in control if his emotions, seems to be crying all the time. Please don’t be dismayed! Welcome and celebrate his tears when they come. This is really an important part of the healing process. You can think of it this way “Tears are the lubricant that allows recovery to move forward”. If he does end up crying in your presence, try not to be embarrassed or distract him. Don’t try to “make him feel better"; crying itself will certainly accomplish that. You can occasionally share an encouraging word or two, but remember to stop talking if it seems to distract him from his emotions. You will definitely see that, with safety and encouragement, he will cry as long as he needs to. After the crying bout has stopped he will be calmer, more clearheaded, and somewhat tired. Remember that this has nothing to do with being “out of control”
Sexual behaviour. A you can imagine, since the abuse was acted out sexually, recovery will involve feelings about sex and intimacy. If your relationship wth the survivor involves a sexual component (or even if it doesn't) expect to encounter difficulties in this area. Tis can go a couple of ways, the male survivor might be making unreasonable demands and may be more instance on more frequent sexual activity than you may feel comfortable with. You may feel pressured into sexual practices that are not acceptable to you. Or on the other hand, the male survivor may lose interest in any form of closeness or touching, including sexual intimacy. You may even find yourself in the position of being with someone who wants sex one minute and s repulsed by the thought of it the next. He may demand sex, yet recoil when he is touched. He may be unable to achieve an erection, or seem to be sexually aroused all the time.
This is absolutely a confusing situation for both he survivor and yourself. The reason that you may be finding it hard time making sense of it all is that it isn’t logical! This is pure feeling, reacting to powerful changes in the male survivors perception of his experience. He is struggling to sort out the meanings about abuse, sex, love, caring and intimacy. He is trying to test and trying to learn about reasonable, non-abusive boundaries between people. The most helpful thing that you can do in this instance is be sure that you maintain your own boundaries.
If you are sexually involved with a male survivor, make sure that you do nothing that doesn’t make sense to you. Remember the essence of of abuse is taking sexual advantage of a trusting relationship. The male survivor needs to know that its alright to say no ad have a refusal respected. At the sane time, difficult as it is, you must respect the survivors need to refrain from sexual activity. Don’t interrupt it as evidence of lack of love or caring. It probably deosn’t have anything to do with you at all. He is asserting his right not to be sexual unless it is right for him. If both of you understand and accept this basic right over your bodies, it will ultimately lead to a more fulfilling intimacies, sexual or otherwise.
Confusion and preoccupation. Putting the past into perspective and using tools and strategies for the present and future require a tremendous amount of outlay of thought and feeling. The recovery process is the central focus of the survivors energy and the task can seem all encompassing. This could quite possibly mean that he has less attention frothier matters, and may appear remote. Even a normally well organised, efficient individual can become “spacey” and careless. It is possible that you might age to speak to him a couple of times before he hears you. It’s possible that routine chores are left undone, bills, unpaid and phone messages left unanswered. Try not to get too upset about this, even if you have to take up some of the slack for a time. Of course some survivors can go completely in the opposite direction and try and fill every space and gap with anything that they can get their hands on, thus trying to keep their brain and emotions preoccupied without taking the steps towards healing. It’s a balance, Tis state of mind is usually temporary and lessens as recovery is incorporated into the survivors life. Remember that he isn’t doing this to upset you. if you have patience to ride out this storm, he will eventually return to a normal level of responsiveness and responsibility.
Fear. As powerful feelings start to emerge by past hurts are dealt with openly in the present, the male survivor will experience frightening emotions. Fear may intimidate him to the extent that he will avoid even the people and activities that he normally enjoys.Tis is also temporary and should resolve itself once the most difficult part of the process is past. While this is going on (and remember that there is not timetable for this scenarios) validate the male survivors feelings, reassure him that what was done was, indeed, frightening. Offer to sit with him or hold him gently while he shakes, shivers, and or sobs his fears away. If the avoidance continues fro a long time, you might suggest to him that you will accompany him in visiting some friends or engaging in a pleasurable activity that isn’t too threatening. Tis type of thing can provide a healthy refocussing of attention away from the pain and fear. Although recovery is a long term, ongoing process, it doesn’t have to occupy his every waking moment. Relaxation restores energy. Laughter is healing. If he is unwilling to to participate in these excursions, go without him. Remember to not become a prisoner of someones eles’s fear; avoid burnout yourself. You will be a better and more effective ally if you pay attention to your own needs.
Mistrust. The male survivor in recovery is constantly questioning all of his previous experience and assumptions. Recognising that much of what he learned was misinformation and outright lies, he is reevaluating his entire world. He must learn (perhaps for the first time) who and what he can be trusted. It is difficult and hard to be mistrusted by someone you care about. If the male survivor indicates that he doesn’t trust you, try jot to personalise it. Most often than not it is a statement about himself (“I hav trouble trusting people”) and has very little do to with you. He is basically relearning to trust and the first step in recognition that he doesn’t trust people. If you are certain that you are a trustworthy friend or partner, you needn’t be upset by the survivors trust difficulties. In time, as recovery continues, his trust will deepen for you.