Friends and helpers often wonder how they can be a safe person for the people they care about. As survivors we often feel overwhelmed when we get asked how to support us because it is too much to say and to keep in mind for a simple answer.
I will at least start to give answers. Some of this is science-based, some is information collected from other survivors, some is my own experience.
We will be talking about triggers support-people might want to avoid, at least the most common ones, so if you are a survivor yourself, please be aware that I will mention things that might make you feel uncomfortable. Always take care of yourself first and remember that these are just typed words, nothing bad is happening.
Being a safe person for beginners
Don’t just touch us without asking for permission. You cannot demand any physical contact, not even a handshake. Swallow your pride and your own needs, refrain from telling us that we are impolite (we totally know that, thanks) or otherwise putting pressure on us. You have no right to touch us in any way.
When permission for touch is given it only counts for that situation (and even then you might check in after a while to see if it is still ok). Being able to hug one day does not mean that it will be possible the next day. Or 3 hours later. Just make it a habit to ask every single time. It doesn’t hurt to adopt that in every relationship. You might be surprised how often your own partner or bff is not up for touch. A lifestyle of consent can be exciting and add depth to relationships. Be aware that we are watching you and how you honor boundaries in all your relationships.
Don’t touch our things without permission. They are like an extended body, they belong to us and touching them can feel like an intimate act we might not be ok with. You probably don’t have to ask if you can touch a glass to drink from, but do ask if it’s about books, journals, stuffies, purses, cell phones, collections, … don’t ever touch anything that belongs to a younger part of a DID system without the permission of that part.
Even when we are not touching in any way, leave us some space. We often don’t like to be so close to people that we can feel their warmth or hear their breath. Whatever distance feels nice to you + 8-20 inches is probably what we feel comfortable with.
Be dressed. We often react disturbed when we see huge areas of skin exposed. It doesn’t mean that you need to dress like a nun, just cover the places people usually cover and we should be good.
Try not to make any sudden movements. It takes some practice, but we tend to expect to be beaten even when you have never done that, it is like an animal instinct left from trauma time.
Needless to say that you should never beat us or be violent in any other way. We’ve had enough violence for 5 life-times, don’t add to that. For some it helps if you tell us about your plans to move before you actually do it so we won’t be so startled.
When you fidget a lot it makes us fidgety too, when you don’t move at all that gets creepy for us and we dissociate more easily. Just be relaxed. You would be surprised how much attention we subconsciously pay to your breath or how much you tense your jaw. I know it can feel like a lot of pressure to be with someone who is paying that much attention to how regulated you are or how tense your muscles are, but the best way to go is to relax.
Use your facial expression naturally when we have a conversation. We don’t like still faces. The neutral face that used to be taught to doctors and therapists when facing patients is so 1980s. Today science knows that we need positive and social facial expressions to be able to feel safe. It might even help if you blush easily.
Use a genuine smile and don’t try to hold it freakishly long, that makes you look creepy and dishonest. We have spider senses for fake smiles and they are not needed. When we feel like you are faking facial expression you immediately lost our trust and it will be difficult to win it back. We are used to abusers who faked smiles and then hurt us. If anything about you looks fake, the first mental connection we make is with trauma time. The cool thing is, you can simply be yourself around us. No fake needed.
The tolerance for eye contact will differ between survivors. Don’t push it if we prefer to look down and don’t stare at us in a creepy way, keep your eyes soft. We can all look and then look away, like a little dance, and that usually works out somehow if we don’t get all uptight about it.
Smell nice. Absolutely avoid smelling like cigarettes, alcohol or sweat, those are extremely common triggers (and lets be real, those are not nice smells to begin with!). With any kind of perfume you might win our heart or scares us witless. This is a weird conversation but maybe one worth having. If you are dating a survivor I would make it a shared experience to choose smelling substances of any kind together.
Speak naturally, but try not to be so loud (especially if you are an American talking to someone from a different country), don’t yell at us and try to sound prosodic. That is when you have some sing-song melody in your voice. When you talk really monotonously we dissociate more easily and you become a background noise.
Try to avoid bad language. The people we heard it from in the past were not nice people and you don’t want to remind us of them. Put reins on your aggression. Please don’t say that you would do horrible things to others in anger or threaten or otherwise act like a dangerous person. We have young places inside our hearts who don’t know that this is just the anger speaking, they think you are finally showing your true face and all the niceties were lies. Actually, even Ts saying really bad things about abusers makes us feel intimidated. They can be on our side without letting us know about their aggression. That is a side of them that is often too complex for us to manage. We understand your heart when we see you struggle to contain your emotion, there is no need to express it.
If you know about some of our history and triggers, you could try to avoid them in conversation. Our experience is that people are more careful when we talk one on one but when we are in a group they engage in conversation about abuse, rape, violent crime, porn, how Mrs B neglects her children, people getting electrocuted, (abnormal) sexual practices or near-death experiences without even thinking for a moment that this might be difficult for us. We are all playing normal, right? Well, actually… given the statistics there might be others listening who would prefer not to have this conversation.
Give trigger warnings. They are used for a reason. They give us the freedom to check ourselves if we are ready to hear something challenging today or not. They don’t lead to a culture of avoidance, content marked with a trigger warning often even gets more views than regular content because we are nice people and want to help each other out when it gets difficult. But we should have a choice.
When we are in a conversation that means warning us about a difficult topic you want to talk about and asking us if we are ready to hear that today.
When we talk about difficult topics we get inventive with language. We use softer or more formal words, describe our way around the elephant in the room, we are masters of understatements and we don’t do this because we are ashamed of calling things by their name, we do it because it is easier to tolerate and creates less stress for us. If you listen carefully you can learn how to speak that way as well. Years of severe abuse can become ‘a difficult past’, rape a ‘crossing of physical boundaries’ and self-harm ‘tricky behavior’. With this kind of trauma-taboo game we avoid triggers in our choice of words.
Don’t bring up our trauma history without a warning and most certainly not in the presence of a stranger. It should be our choice whom to share that with and this is vulnerable information that not everyone needs to know. That is even more true for DID. Don’t tell other people about our trauma history in our absence either!
Respect that we are doing our best. We usually are. It might not be much and it might look messy, but it is the best we’ve got. High standards, demands or anger, judgment, blame and shaming won’t change the best we can do right now.
Be patient. Sometimes our brain doesn’t function well, sometimes we need time to regulate. Sometimes we need a long time. Your frustration is not helping. CPTSD can be like a disability, you cannot expect us to function like people whose brain and nervous system never got damaged.
Don’t give us advice about our mental health unless you actually know quite a bit about cPTSD. Things like ‘just move on’, ‘everybodies parents make mistakes’ or ‘it can’t be so bad, you can still work full time’ are not helpful. Please assume that you have no idea what a flashback feels like and what the brain and the nervous system actually do, unless you really really know about that stuff. Listen and learn, keep your advice to yourself. Doctors and therapists have not solved how to quickly heal PTSD. You will probably not come up with the safe&simple solution. Let me give you a hint: doing yoga, eating gluten-free or vegan food, essential oils, praying, sauna or whatever comes to your mind is not going to be a cure. We have well-meaning people tell us about this all the time, we usually actually DO most of that already or at least tried it. We are not new to living with cPTSD. Your ideas won’t be groundbreaking for anyone but you. Survivors actually play bullshit bingo with the phrases and advice we get all the time. Don’t be one of those people.
Some people get really awkward because they think that we are made of sugar. Actually, we survived a lot more than you ever did, already. There is no need to walk on egg shells all the time, scared to make mistakes. We don’t expect you to never be triggering, we just ask you to learn from it. After a while things will become more natural and you won’t even think about it anymore. People who stay awkward are usually those who have some issues themselves, maybe you should keep that in mind and find help for yourself.
These are things we consider very basic for having contact with survivors.
If you are a survivor yourself, what are the things that are important for you to feel safe? Leave me a comment below.
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don’t fidget, ‘just be relaxed’ (always) make ‘appropriate’ eye contact, modulate your voice ‘appropriately’, coach your face into a ‘natural’ but ‘lively’ expression – these are i find inappropriate & ableist demands to make of anyone, and the addendum ‘because i am a trauma survivor and it makes me uncomfortable when people are not behaving according to neurotypical ideals’ is not an excuse. i really like your blog usually and found it very helpful but i stumbled upon these two articles on relationships and they left me negatively surprised and saddened.
This article, as it says in the title, is for helpers, meaning professional helpers.
it outlines an ideal. Reality never matches an ideal.