Learning Self Comforting Techniques

Once I stepped on to the healing path, it was important for me to learn how to soothe myself. Self comforting is learned when we are children through healthy bonding relationships with our caregivers. Examples of healthy bonding behaviors include cuddling, holding, mutual gazing with love and adoration, and protection from abusive or violent experiences. These are things caregivers do when a child is upset. As an abuse survivor, we have been groomed by our abusers to not trust ourselves or those around us who love us. We may have been told that our parents will hate us if we tell. This leads to a lack of trust and a distancing of our childhood selves from those we thought should protect us. This interruption in healthy bonding with our caregivers leads us to not understand how to comfort ourselves. It may also be that if our parents or caregivers were abused, they don’t understand how to soothe themselves which leads to not being able to help their child comfort themselves.

When we grow into adults without the ability to comfort ourselves, we tend to try to fill that empty space that should have been filled with our comforting skills with other things. We tend to run toward tension-reducing behaviors such as smoking, drinking, drug abuse, self-harm, compulsive gambling, overeating, purging, self-starvation, and sexually risky behavior. Once you begin your journey to recovery, you will experience a wide range of thoughts and emotions. Some of these things may send you into a panic attack or make you feel out of control. For these reasons, it is very important for you to develop your self-comforting abilities. At the beginning, it is a good idea to have a list of self-soothing activities written down and available to you. In this way, when you begin to experience anxiety and tension in your journey, you can look at your list and find something to help take you out of the anxiety and refocus on the present. For more on self comforting, please see the Survivor to Thriver Manual, pg. 32.

Each survivor is unique as is their journey to healing. Please take the time to find the self comforting techniques that work for you. If you are finding that you are having a difficult time with self soothing, please reach out to a person on your support list. If you do not feel that you can do that, please contact your therapist or an emergency hotline in your area. The Resources page on this blog lists some local Pennsylvania resources as well as some national resources. Please know that you are not alone. There are many survivors out there. The journey may be bumpy now, but you are making progress. You can do this! I believe in you!

Crisis Mode Stabilization

Prior to starting my own journey from Survivor to Thriver, I did not have much semblance of calm in my day to day life.  Each day began with dread and a sense of impending doom.  How would today turn out? Could I get through today without breaking down and dissolving into tears?  If I did break down, how long would it take me to get it under control and regain some measure of functionality?  It was terrifying!  More than that, it was a constant reminder that I was still not in control.  As Survivors know, control is a huge issue for us.  We had no control during our abuse and were not taught how to be in control.  So we have grown into these out of control adults who don’t know how to take care of ourselves. 

The Survivor to Thriver Manual by The Morris Center discusses “crisis mode (p. 28),” “Many survivors find themselves functioning in "crisis mode," responding with stopgap measures that do nothing to resolve the underlying issues. As a result, each new crisis consumes precious energy and attention, and the task of resolving the underlying issues is ignored. Living life in "crisis mode" is truly exhausting and dispiriting. After years, it can lead to discouragement, helplessness and hopelessness.”  Recovery really is possible.  However, to give yourself the best chance at recovery, you should settle as many of the crises in your life as possible before beginning this journey.  By taking this step, you can reduce the frequency of the crises in your life and take the energy and attention that would have been taken up by yet another stopgap measure and focus that on your recovery.

 

Chapter Two of The Survivor to Thriver Manual discusses Safety First.  You should ALWAYS feel safe in your recovery.  If you do not feel safe, physically, mentally and emotionally, it will be very difficult for you to make the changes needed to progress with your recovery.  Please take the time to read Chapter Two (p. 17) in the Survivor to Thriver Manual and work the assessments and checklists honestly.  Only you can honestly answer these questions.  If you are less than honest with your answers, you may not feel as safe as you could when starting this process. 

Deciding that it is time to become not just a survivor but a thriver is not an easy one.  Fear seems to rear its head whenever we try to take back the parts of us that were taken by our abusers.  In times of fear or uncertainty during my journey, I would frequently think of the quote, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger. -Friedrich Nietzsche”   I survived my abuse.  If I can survive that, then I can survive my recovery.  More recently I have found another quote about fear which speaks volumes.  Are you going to run or are you going to rise?