Dos and don’ts when someone shares their trauma with us

Sometimes people who have gone through traumatic experiences in their lives are hesitant to bare their hearts and share with us their deepest secrets and fears. This happens mostly because they have done it before and have met with disbelief, dismissiveness, and blame. The worst of all is not getting any response to the way they feel. This has further made them shut down and never talk about their trauma ever again. However, we need to understand the way to behave with such people to make them feel that their emotions are important and validated. This will help them to start their journey of healing. Addressing this, Psychotherapist Emily H Sanders wrote, “May we be very slow to speak and very quick to listen when our loved ones open up to us. Lean in to offer love, support, and empathy.”

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Emily further shared a few dos and don’ts to follow to ensure that when people share their trauma with us, they should feel validated, and we should help them to heal. “Be sure to also check internally with how you’re feeling. When our own big feelings around someone else’s pain flare up, we have a greater tendency to minimize, ignore, or fix their pain as a way to ease our discomfort around their suffering,” she added.

Dos:

Listening: Instead of having a quick reply to what they are sharing, we should focus on listening to how they feel. Sometimes, more than ever, a person who is undergoing trauma needs someone to listen to them.

Pace: We should not make them rush when they speak. Instead, allow them to share at their own pace.

Thank them: We should also express our gratitude to them for sharing the deepest fears with us. This will create a bond meant for a long time.

Validate: We should continuously keep validating their feelings and emotions, and the way they feel about it.

Ask: Instead of assuming the right way to help them, we should ask them how we can help them heal.

Don’ts:

Forgive: We should not rush them to forgive the person and the incident and move on. Everyone has their own pace and reasons to stay where they are, emotionally.

Things were not worse: We should not make them feel that things could have been worse and that they got saved from it.

Blame game: We should never blame them for the way they feel and the incident. Instead, we should find a way to help them heal.

Empathise: We should not make them empathise with the person who hurt them and forgive them.

Optimism: Some things are not meant to be seen through the optimism lens – we should not make them see the brighter side of their trauma.