WHO AM I NOW? DISCOVERING YOURSELF AFTER BETRAYAL TRAUMA

I asked LaDonna Carey to be my guest blogger this month. I find her expertise on betrayal trauma informative for women. LaDonna says that men experience many of the reactions noted in her blog however their grief points may differ. Contact her for more information.    

What is Betrayal Trauma?

Many women ask for help from therapists to deal with the betrayal of a long-term spouse. With the discovery of the betrayal, women talk about their lives being turned inside out and upside down like a tornado just ripped through their world. Their security, stability, and identity as spouses and partners have been uprooted and left in a state of chaos. These women face learning to protect themselves from the person they believed was there to partner with them through life. It’s hard for a mind to process this abrupt change.  

Betrayal Trauma is a phenomenon that occurs when there is a violation of trust by someone whom we depend on for survival or to whom we are significantly attached. Whether the betrayal is through infidelity (affairs, hook-up sites, pornography/prostitution), substance abuse and addiction, financial irresponsibility, verbal/emotional abuse, coercive control, or abandonment, the resulting questions are very similar: “How did I get here?”, “What do I do?”, “Who is this partner that I thought I knew all these years?” and “Who am I now?”.  

Reactions

Initially, during the shock and disbelief stage, betrayed partners react in one of five ways mentioned at TrailstoWellness.org: 

• Fight: “It’s all your fault!”; feeling anger or rage  
• Flight: “I’ve got to get out of here!”; feeling anxious or overwhelmed
• Freeze: “I can’t,”; feeling panicked, overwhelmed, or numbed-out
• Flop: “It’s all my fault” or “It’s not worth it”; feeling sad, depressed, hopeless, apathetic
• Friend: “Please help me! I can’t do it.” Feeling powerless, with low confidence

We each have one of these automatic reaction styles when faced with a threat to our security and well-being. Our style originates from a combination of neurological wiring, past experiences, and our current situation. When your brain senses that you are not safe, your sixth sense kicks in and tells you what to do to regain safety. Do you recognize your reaction style?   

Each type of reaction creates a different experience for women in answering the critical question of “What do I do now?” When a tornado destroys property, owners survey the damage, search for what remains, decide to rebuild and restore or declare a total loss. When a betrayal has occurred, the decisions are much the same. Our personality and the circumstances determine our choices. You can learn more about your individualized needs in self-care and healing from betrayal by taking my quiz.

Impact of Betrayal Trauma

Regardless of the response, the goal is always the same: regain safety. But what is safety when the person we trusted as part of our security is also the person who just created the tornado that ripped through your heart and home? It’s confusing to our brain to have those opposing experiences battling one another. Our brain ruminates, searching for answers just as we would look for all of our possessions had they been torn away by an actual tornado. It’s like a nightmare we hope will be gone when we wake up the following day.  

Unfortunately, the nightmare continues. As the new reality sinks in, it’s very common to struggle with an assortment of issues that impact mental health. Betrayed partners commonly report difficulties with concentration and memory, sleep and appetite disturbance, panic and anxiety, difficulty managing emotions, anger outbursts, and mood swings. They may also feel embarrassment or shame and withdraw from others while trying to make sense of what has happened. Women have described these emotional responses as so intense that they feel like they are losing their minds and have no direction in navigating what they face. Physically, betrayal trauma impacts the body with nausea, gastrointestinal difficulties, headaches, and physical pain.

Loss Inventory

In order to chart a path forward, it is helpful to make an inventory of losses we feel.

1. Make a running list of everything you have lost because of the betrayal. Make it as detailed and in-depth as possible. This list will be a work in progress as time passes and you become aware of losses that weren’t clear before.
2. In a journal, write how each of those losses makes you feel. Spend as much time here as needed to identify and feel what these individual losses mean to you. You are assessing the damage to yourself in this exercise, and we must know the damage before we can begin rebuilding and healing.
3. Next, take a sheet of paper and write My Identity across the top in big letters. Underline it! Now, draw lines to separate the paper into four equal sections. Label sections:

• Things I Can’t Replace.
• Things I Must Replace.
• Things I Would like to Replace.
• Things I’m Glad to See Gone.

Ideas to Get Started

Things I Can’t Replace may be feeling loved by your partner and trusting them. Perhaps you can’t replace being married to your spouse. Your role as daughter-in-law or sister-in-law to a family you have valued changes. You may lose the comfort and ease of running into family members you enjoyed seeing before the betrayal. The perception that your life is safe and secure, that you know what your future holds, cannot be quickly replaced.

Things I Must Replace may include the day-to-day realities of income, a place to live, insurance coverage, and means of transportation. It also is a place to focus on the ability to manage your emotions, a redefinition of your sense of Self, your self-worth, your job description as a mother (perhaps a single mom for the first time), and your support system.

Since betrayal creates genuine physical and emotional pain, make sure you include the replacement of your broken heart. While broken hearts can mend, at first it may be impossible to imagine a time when you will not hurt so much.  It can feel overwhelming to think of what the future may hold. It is important to find your hope for healing. And, it’s essential to replace the confidence that you can make sound decisions.  

The Things I Would Like to Replace include the things that aren’t necessary for your well-being but do provide joy or comfort, like your favorite blanket, books, and sweaters. Consider including the feeling you get when you can share your feelings and your life plans with someone.  

Things That I’m Glad Are Gone: Have fun here! No more snoring, choosing how you want projects to go, any irritants that may have gone along with the betrayer. As time goes by and healing progresses, this section tends to grow.

Post-traumatic Growth  

This inventory creates a rebuilding plan. You can prioritize and restore your identity. Gradually, you answer the question, “Who am I now?”

If you would like some help with this, reach out! The support and guidance of a trauma-informed therapist or coach are beneficial in creating your strategies for self-care and healing.