Sexual Assault Triggered - Addressing the aftermath of trauma in close relationships. Best friend, boyfriend, therapist.

[LucyLou]

So my best friend and I have a similar history with men, in that we have both been r*ped and were good at being there for each other. The other day, she was saying she wanted to be more open with her therapist... so she wrote a lot of things about what happened with him......and sent it to me, to read through, to check it was OK but there was no warning as to what I was going to read and it was super detailed and difficult! Although I've not told her, I've mentioned it to my therapist because it set me back....and she's asked that I be more brave with her too and that I let her help me through some of this stuff. Which I feel is a good idea but it's just so difficult at the same time! I've started writing bits and I know she is going to have come across alot worse and none of it is likely to shock her but I still worry that she will think differently or see me differently, once she knows the details Another thing was when I was at my friend's house, she was talking about how mutual friend had stayed there last week and how disgusting it was that she had slept with her boyfriend, in her little ones bed and that made me think of me and Simon....not because we've done it, but it just reminded me of the night when he turned up drunk and tried to.....and the way he just wouldn't listen to me, saying no and how I couldn't push him off me or anything. I've tried to get passed this and tried to carry on with normal and enjoy sex but I just don't, at all....I hate it but I still go along with it because he'll sometimes make me feel bad or accuse me of cheating, like he did last week. I hate it all, especially the weight of him on top of me....I can't deal with that.....but this is it, isn't it. Even if I got with someone else, I think this would be an issue too. I feel horrible afterwards and I don't know if that's even fixable.

 

[Sideways]

There’s times during my recovery when I get sensitive to particular topics. So far, they’ve always just been periods, not indefinite - I get to the point where people can talk about them again without being impacted much.

During those periods, I sometimes ask the people who care about me to tread lightly around those topics.

It’s just a request, to help me with my recovery. It’s not “you must not talk about…”, more “could you please help me by steering around …”. And sometimes it goes well, and sometimes people forget.

But it does help, and it’s also good practice for me because I’m not very good at being kind to myself.

Maybe that would help with your friend? “Could we not talk about … for a while, because of where I’m at in my recovery at the moment?” Make your friend an ally again, rather than a stressor.

The other comment I have - I’ve done a lot of work as part of an inpatient specialist trauma recovery program. One of the few ground rules for the unit was we were never to talk about our trauma with each other. Trauma talk was for our treatment team only.

There were a number of really solid reasons for that. And although I resented the boundary when I was new to the unit, I came to appreciate just how critical that was.

Very definitely, peers can help in a monumental way when recovering from trauma. Discussing trauma not only doesn’t need to be part of that, but can very often cause more problems than it’s worth.

So, if sharing trauma details specifically is making your friend less of a support? That’s normal. And it’s okay to redefine the boundaries of the relationship with them to make that relationship helpful again.