Stage One: Remembering ~ Step One: Breakthrough Crisis

Step One ~ I am in breakthrough crisis, having gained some sense of my abuse.

At this point, Survivors often experience a "breakthrough crisis." This is when something happens that releases a flood of old memories, feelings, and even physical sensations of their abuse.  Not all survivors are disturbed when this happens, however, for many it can be a very trying time in their recovery.  This may even be what pushes the Survivor to finally face their past and seek help.
The ways in which your breakthrough crisis manifests can depend on the level of abuse you went through.  Those who experienced less severe abuse may experience a low-grade, perpetual state of disorganization in which everything that can go wrong does go wrong.  This can reinforce your anxiety, depression and shame all your worst feelings about yourself.  Those who experienced more extreme and prolonged abuse in which terror or violence often experienced.  This leaves you feeling like the scared little child again, lacking any sort of adult control over your life. You may even think you are going crazy and may come up with all sorts of possible explanations for what is going on. Triggers for this type of reaction can include seeing a movie, engaging in a relationship that unexpectedly turns abusive or having a sexual experience that somehow parallels the childhood sexual abuse.

As a child, you developed formidable psychological defenses to protect yourself against this massive assault, and you probably continued to rely on these rigid defenses well into adulthood, until they no longer worked for you.  Like an earthquake, this realignment results in the release of powerful feelings and energy, and can create periods of disorganization, helplessness and incredible fear. If you are a survivor of truly severe abuse, you may have mini-breakthrough crises as each new set of abuse memories surfaces, although these smaller crises are usually not as tumultuous as the first.

Crises are scary. You have been used to screening out all stimuli that might trigger your out-of-control feelings, only to feel that now you have lost control over your mind. Although it is frightening to do so, it is best in the long run to let these feelings out. Although the breakthrough crisis is normal, you should take special precautions during this time to preserve your safety and to promote healthy integration of these memories and feelings. Anyone is vulnerable in a crisis, and there have been reports of survivors attempting suicide or engaging in other self- destructive behaviors in response to the crisis.  Your task during the breakthrough crisis is to minimize the danger to yourself by reaching out for help while riding the tidal wave of feelings safely into shore.

The Survivor to Thriver Manual has some great Self Help information and exercises.   It is important that you give yourself the time you need to work through each step.  You do not have to hurry.  Your healing is on YOUR timetable.  If you need to work Step One for several weeks, allow yourself that time.  Hurrying through the steps without doing the work will not help you in the long run.  Always make sure to have your list of support people handy and reach out if you feel you are having trouble.  If you find it hard to reach out to someone you know, please see the Resources page on this blog for contact numbers of centers that can help you.

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!