Survivor Speaks Truth

Tag: Therapy

  • After the Decision: What Comes Next?

    In my last post, I wrote about the difficult tension between sticking it out and walking away. That decision is rarely straightforward and often carries layers of fear, grief, guilt, and even relief. But what happens once the decision is made? What do you do after you’ve decided to stay and rebuild—or after you’ve decided to walk away and start over?

    The truth is, the decision is only the first step. The following days, weeks, and months require courage, intentional action, and support.

    If You’ve Chosen to Stay

    Deciding to stay does not mean forgetting the pain or excusing the behaviour. It means believing there is still a foundation worth rebuilding. But staying requires more than hope. It requires accountability, commitment, and consistent change.

    1. Prioritize Safety. If the relationship involved abuse, safety must come first. That means clear boundaries, outside accountability, and resources in place should the unhealthy patterns re-emerge.
    2. Seek Professional Support. No one can restore a broken relationship alone. Trauma-informed therapy, faith-based counselling, or support groups can provide tools for healthier communication and conflict resolution.
    3. Apologies Without Repentance Mean Nothing. An apology on its own is easy. True repentance is what matters. A person can say “I’m sorry” a thousand times, but if their actions don’t align with those words, the apology is empty. Staying requires evidence of transformation, not temporary remorse.
    4. Measure by Actions, Not Words. It’s easy to say, “I’ll do better.” It’s harder to live that out day after day. Pay attention to behaviour. Is there follow-through? Is there humility? Are they taking responsibility for the harm they inflicted?

    Staying is not passive. It is active, ongoing work that demands honesty, humility, and visible change. Without genuine repentance and consistent action to repair the harm, staying simply keeps you trapped in the same destructive cycle.

    If You’ve Chosen to Leave

    Walking away, even when it’s the healthiest decision, comes with its own set of challenges. Many survivors describe the aftermath as a mix of freedom and grief. That’s normal. Leaving means separating from a person and disentangling from hopes, memories, and often a shared life.

    1. Grieve the Loss. Allow yourself to feel the anger, disappointment, and sadness. Grief is not a sign you made the wrong decision—it’s a natural response to loss.
    2. Build a Support Network. Isolation is one of the most dangerous traps for survivors. Surround yourself with people who validate your experience and encourage your healing, whether that’s trusted friends, a church community, or survivor advocacy groups.
    3. Establish Boundaries. Walking away doesn’t always mean the person is out of your life—especially if children, shared finances, or legal matters are involved. Clear, firm boundaries are essential. Communicate only as necessary, and when possible, through structured or legal channels.
    4. Focus on Reclaiming Yourself. Abuse and toxic relationships strip away identity. Use this season to rediscover who you are apart from the relationship. Pursue career goals, education, faith practices, or hobbies that remind you of your strength and individuality.
    5. Get Practical Help. Sometimes leaving means facing custody battles, financial insecurity, and housing needs. Don’t hesitate to lean on advocacy organizations, community resources, legal aid, or shelters. That’s what they’re there for.

    Leaving isn’t about failure—it’s about survival. It’s about choosing to stop pouring your energy into something destructive so you can begin investing in your future.

    Everyday Struggles After the Decision

    No matter which path you’ve chosen, struggles are common. Survivors often face:

    • Second-guessing. Did I do the right thing? These doubts are normal, especially when loneliness or fear creeps in.
    • External pressure. Friends, family, or even faith communities may pressure you to return when you’ve left, or shame you for staying when you’ve chosen to rebuild. Remember: they don’t live your life—you do.
    • Trauma responses. Emotional triggers, flashbacks, hypervigilance, or nightmares, can surface more strongly once the immediate crisis ends. Healing is not linear.

    This is why it’s so important to have a plan for healing regardless of your decision.

    Moving Forward With Intention

    The decision itself is not the end of the story. It is the turning point. What matters most is how you move forward from here.

    • Invest in your own healing. Faith practices, journaling, therapy, or trauma healing can all help regulate your nervous system and restore your sense of safety.
    • Surround yourself with truth-tellers. The right people will remind you of your worth when you’ve forgotten.
    • Anchor in hope. Whether you stay or leave, life will not always feel as heavy as it does in the immediate aftermath. Healing is possible. Joy is possible. A future you cannot yet imagine is possible.

    Final Word

    After the decision—whether to stick it out or walk away—you have a choice about what comes next. You can remain defined by the pain, or you can step into the process of healing and reclaiming your life. Neither path is easy, but both require you to remember one truth:

    You are not powerless. You are not worthless. You are not defined by the worst thing you’ve endured.

    The decision was only the beginning. The rest of your story is still waiting to be written.

  • The Critical Difference: Trauma-Informed vs. Uninformed Support

    If you’ve ever walked out of a counselling session, church office, or a therapy appointment feeling worse than when you walked in—ashamed, confused, or even invalidated, you’re not alone. And you’re not crazy.

    What you likely encountered was someone uninformed, not trauma-informed.

    For survivors of abuse, especially emotional, relational, or spiritual trauma, this difference is everything. The person you turn to for help can be a lifeline or another layer of harm.

    A trauma-informed counsellor, pastor, or therapist understands that trauma doesn’t just live in memories; it lives in the body, the nervous system, and the choices we make. They know that trauma affects the way we connect, feel, react, and think. They listen without rushing to fix. They validate instead of minimizing. They walk gently, knowing it’s difficult for you to trust.

    A trauma-informed person will never question the reality of your experience because it doesn’t “sound that bad.” They’ll never pressure you to reconcile with someone who harmed you. They won’t use Scripture as a weapon or suggest that forgiveness means you must return to your abuser. They understand that emotional, physical, and spiritual safety must come first.

    On the other hand, someone who is uninformed may mean well. But they often cause more harm than good. They might tell you to “pray harder,” “submit more,” or “just forgive and move on.” They might ask what you did to contribute to the situation. They might encourage you to preserve the relationship at all costs, even when that cost is your well-being. And they might do it all with a smile, believing they’re helping.

    But they’re not. What they’re doing is adding shame to pain. Silencing a voice that’s only just begun to speak. Asking a survivor to make peace with something that nearly destroyed them.

    The truth is, no matter how kind or well-intentioned someone is, if they’re not trauma-informed, they can’t fully support someone who is healing from trauma because trauma requires more than kindness. It requires awareness, discernment, education, humility, and wisdom. And a willingness to unlearn the harmful narratives passed down for generations, especially in faith spaces.

    Trauma-informed support recognizes that you are the expert of your own story. It empowers you to trust your instincts. It allows space for your questions, healing process, and boundaries. It does not guilt or rush you. It honours that you are still here and survived what was meant to destroy you.

    And that survival deserves more than platitudes. It deserves compassion, safety and truth.

    So if you’ve ever felt dismissed by someone you turned to for help, please hear this: it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t expect too much. You didn’t exaggerate. You weren’t being dramatic. You needed someone who understood the weight you were carrying. Someone who can hold space without trying to fill it. Someone trauma-informed.

    And they do exist.

    You don’t have to stay in spaces where your pain is misunderstood or minimized. You deserve better. You deserve support that sees you, believes you, and walks gently beside you on the long road to healing.

    Choose safe people. And when you find them, hold onto them—because trauma may have shaped your story, but it does not get to decide the ending.

  • When Trauma Lingers: How Abuse Affects Your Nervous System

    Abuse doesn’t just leave emotional scars—it imprints itself on the body. Your nervous system remembers long after the bruises fade, the manipulation ends, or the yelling ends. Your body becomes the vault that stores every fight, every threat, every terrifying moment when you didn’t feel safe.

    This is why survivors of abuse so often say they feel “on edge” or “numb” or “not like themselves”—because their nervous system has been rewired by trauma.

    The Body Keeps the Score
    Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of the groundbreaking book The Body Keeps the Score, explains how trauma reshapes not just our minds but our entire physiology. For someone who has endured abuse, especially prolonged or repeated abuse, the nervous system becomes stuck in survival mode.

    The body doesn’t distinguish between real-time danger and the memory of danger—it reacts the same way. And over time, this chronic activation wears you down.

    Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn
    When you experience abuse, your brain’s alarm system—particularly the amygdala—kicks into high gear. It sends signals to your body to fight, flee, freeze, or fawn (people-please to stay safe). Your heart races. Your muscles tense. Your breathing changes. Cortisol floods your system.

    Now imagine this happening again and again. Your nervous system never gets the message that you’re safe. It becomes hypersensitive, constantly scanning for threats, even when there are none.

    This can result in:

    • Hypervigilance: Always on edge, easily startled, struggling to relax.
    • Emotional dysregulation: Intense reactions to small stressors.
    • Digestive issues: Because when you’re in fight or flight, digestion takes a backseat.
    • Chronic pain and fatigue: The body’s energy is diverted to survival, not healing.
    • Sleep problems: Nightmares, insomnia, waking in panic.
    • Difficulty concentrating: The brain struggles to focus when it feels unsafe.

    Why You’re Not “Overreacting”
    If you’ve been told you’re too sensitive, overreacting, or living in the past, hear this: you are not broken. Your body is doing exactly what it was designed to do—keep you safe. The problem is, it hasn’t received the signal that the threat is gone.

    Survivors often carry shame for their reactions, not realizing those reactions are normal responses to abnormal events. You’re not crazy. You’re a human being whose nervous system has been injured.

    Healing Is Possible
    The good news is that your body is also capable of healing. Just as trauma changes the nervous system, healing practices can help retrain it.

    Some powerful tools include:

    • Trauma-informed therapy (like EMDR, somatic experiencing, or internal family systems)
    • Breathwork and grounding exercises
    • Safe relationships and environments
    • Movement: Gentle exercise, stretching, walking—anything that reconnects you to your body
    • Faith and spiritual connection: Knowing you are deeply loved and never alone
    • Rest: Deep, restorative rest helps calm an overstimulated system

    You Are Not Alone
    If you’ve felt like your body has betrayed you, I want you to know—it hasn’t. It protected you the best way it knew how. And now, step by step, it can begin to learn safety again.

    You are not too damaged. You are not too far gone. Healing might not be linear, but it is possible.

    Your story matters, and your body matters. You deserve to live in a body that feels safe again.