5 Ways to Heal from Betrayal Trauma
There are people in the world that we are supposed to be able to rely on. These can be our parents or caregivers, partners, or even institutions. They’re supposed to help us and support us. When they don’t, they break the trust we had in them. This can leave us with betrayal trauma.It can be a real struggle, and it’s not uncommon for people with betrayal trauma to have difficulty connecting with people again or reaching out to the institutions that are supposed to help. But healing, though difficult at times, is always possible. While there is no one way to heal from the trauma we’ve gone through, there are some things that can help set us on the right path.
1. Acknowledge What Happened
It can be tempting for us to bury our trauma and pretend nothing happened. But in the long run, that approach will only harm us. It’s important that we take time to acknowledge what happened to us, and that our trust in this person or institution was broken. We need to acknowledge the harm they caused us, or we’ll never be able to heal from it.2. Accept Your Emotions
A betrayal can leave us feeling a mix of emotions that isn’t always easy to untangle. So it’s helpful if we make time to do exactly that. If we sit down and analyze what we’re feeling, it can help us move forward. Figuring out what we feel and naming our emotions is an important part of the process. After all, how can we heal from something if we’re not even fully aware of the effect this has on us? 3. Take Care of Yourself
If we want to heal from what happened to us, we need to take care of ourselves. It can be something small, like engaging in self-care whenever we feel overwhelmed. We can have our favorite meal every once in a while, while still eating various food throughout the week. It will make us feel better and more equipped to deal with the fallout of the betrayal.And if we feel up to the task, we can start to introduce healthy elements to our routine. We can take a quick walk during the day to get some fresh air. We can try out that yoga class we were considering or maybe start with some simple exercises at home if we feel shy.4. Be Kind to Yourself
This is probably one of the most important parts of healing. As we previously said, there’s no single correct way to heal. Everyone is different; everyone experiences the same things differently. This means that we all heal differently, too. This can mean we all heal at different speeds. It can also mean that we all have different ways of coping with what happened to us, and what works for us won’t necessarily work for someone else.This is all okay. Figuring out what works for us is part of the process. And the process may be slow at times. We might wake up one day and feel like we’ve made amazing progress; the next day, we feel like we’re back to square one. But we’re never going to be back to square one. Healing isn’t linear; every day, we’re one step closer to putting what happened behind us.So, let’s not judge ourselves for not healing in the way we wanted or not healing as fast as we hoped. We are working towards healing. That’s all that matters.