I recently watched an episode of Breakthrough with Tony Robbins about a woman who was completely paralyzed by fear. Her daughter had been in a freak accident and was dead for a couple minutes before being brought back by medial personnel. Since then she was complete consumed by fear that something bad would happen to her children. The sound of an emergency vehicle immediately triggered a panic attack.
Having your child be sexually abused can trigger similar reactions. You become hyper sensitive to public spaces, and you will find that certain situations, sounds or experience trigger an unexpected reaction. I noticed that I used to check every face when I would go to a mall, park, grocery store, etc. It takes a surprising amount of energy and it will drain you.
Triggers
You will also notice that certain things will trigger a reaction. It may have been the smell of cookies that happened to be cooking when you found out your child was abused. It could be a song that was playing on the radio. Try to mentally relive the disclosure experience and see where the emotion hits you. Once you can isolate the trigger, try playing the experience in your mind a different way. Change the sound, smell or image to something completely different. Make it bigger, smaller, sweeter, brighter, whatever it takes so you feel different when you encounter the trigger. This is a bit of an over-simplification but it’s something to start to play with and work towards.
Something you will also notice is that you retreat into your comfort zone. It could be food, TV, staying in your house, etc. Make a conscious effort to challenge yourself. Find something that scares you a bit and do it. Write an article for a magazine, ride a roller coaster, go white water rafting, sky dive, etc.
Find your way to face the fear. And if you’d like to be able to laugh about it a little. Have a look at the following clip.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
