Creating and Maintaining Trust in Relationships
As a survivor of child sexual abuse (CSA), you have likely experienced significant trauma. This series is designed specifically for adult CSA survivors to provide tools that will assist with your healing journey. Throughout the series, we’ll explore a number of topics and materials. It is important to begin this week’s content with a reminder that none of the following information is meant to provide a clinical diagnosis.
If you are actively in crisis and/or need more support than the information we provide in this series, we strongly encourage you to reach out to a licensed mental health professional or the National Sexual Assault Hotline.
You are not alone. Support specialists are standing by 24/7.
How does child sexual abuse affect interpersonal relationships?
Child sexual abuse (CSA) can make navigating interpersonal relationships challenging. As adults, we often believe that we can understand and make appropriate judgements for when a situation is safe or dangerous.
While most adults have developed the logical reasoning skills that make them more equipped to address these complex situations and formulate plans, children do not have this same ability. This is why experiencing sexual trauma at a young age can be so devastating to our sense of intuition and ability to feel safe in the world.
Because many adult survivors of CSA struggle to create and maintain strong, healthy relationships with others, it is common for them to also feel like it is often easier to be alone. However, it is a biological need for humans to desire contact and relationships with other humans. A part of how we are wired makes connection incredibly important for our survival and well-being.
This is why abuse by another person feels especially damaging. Additionally, since relationships are something we inherently need in our lives to feel happy, they are not something we can avoid forever (unlike many other negative influences in our lives). Therefore, we must all learn to connect with others in our own way and on our own timeline.
As a survivor, you may be grappling with lingering feelings of isolation, feeling like you can’t trust your gut feelings, or like you can’t trust those around you. While these are all common reactions, it can be easy to forget that you were a child when this happened and that the abuse was not your fault. It can be helpful to remind yourself how naturally trusting children are and that, for most, it is a natural response to connect with anyone who has shown them affection or cared for them.
Trusting the person who hurt you does not mean you wanted the abuse or that you deserved it in any way. As you work through these feelings on your healing journey, take a moment to think through times where your intuition successfully helped you navigate a complex situation.
How can I develop trust in relationships?
Since someone betrayed your trust as a child, it is important to approach new (and existing) relationships with the understanding that trust is something that can be built over time. This also means that creating trust requires both effort and respect from all parties in the relationship to be successful, not just one person.
This is true for all types of relationships: intimate relationships, friendships, relationships with coworkers, and relationships with family members.
First and foremost, building trust in relationships after experiencing child sexual abuse begins with feeling safe. It can be helpful to first create a space for yourself where you feel like you can relax, meditate, or think through any challenges that you might be having within relationships. This place does not have to be an entire room if one is not available to you; it can be a desk, your bed, or a chair by a window.
If you decide you are ready, you can also use this space as a location where you can feel calm and comfortable when having hard discussions with your loved ones. Finally, it can be helpful to have an external way to process how you are feeling about your safety and your levels of trust with various people in your life. This could take the form of journaling, poetry, therapy, or talking to someone else you trust.
Another way to create safety and build trust is through setting boundaries with important people in your life. You may decide to only talk about the abuse when you bring it up. You may decide that you will only answer questions that loved ones have about the abuse when you are ready. You may also want to establish ground rules for arguments (e.g., being able to take breaks or no name calling) or for sexual activities.
Setting boundaries should reflect your values and needs. Remember, at any point, you are always allowed to change your boundaries if you find that something has made you feel uncomfortable or unsafe. You also have the right to have these boundaries respected by your loved ones. Being able to clearly communicate your boundaries, and hopefully having your boundaries respected by others, can make room for trust and growth with that person over time.
As you continue to implement boundaries with others, part of the healing process is beginning to trust yourself and your instincts again. Oftentimes, as a survivor, it seems more natural to blame yourself for the abuse and to focus on what you could have or should have done at the time to stop the abuse. This is completely understandable as you search for meaning after the abuse and in your healing process.
However, the abuse did not occur because you lacked the instincts to avoid it. This was the choice of one person — the perpetrator — and it was not your fault. All children deserve to be protected and loved. As a child, you should not have been responsible for handling this on your own, and it was not your responsibility to avoid it. It is important to practice patience with yourself as you heal and to have daily reminders that you did not do anything wrong.
Week six covered creating and maintaining trust in your relationships.The goal of week six’s content is to help you understand how CSA can affect interpersonal relationships and that trust in relationships begins with feeling safe. Additionally, you will gain tools that lay the foundation for trust in your relationships.
Because responses to trauma look different for everyone, there is no right way or wrong way to heal. With trauma also comes healing and resilience as you tend to your traumatic reactions with care and gentleness.
What does trust mean to you? What are ways you build & rebuild trust in yourself & others? Think through questions & strategies in this week’s exercise.
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References
Davis, L. (1990).The Courage to Heal Workbook: A Guide for Women and Men Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse.HarperCollins Publishers.