When it comes to sharing my child abuse history with friends, timing is very important. If my friend is going through a difficult time herself, I don’t feel comfortable dumping all of my baggage onto her shoulders at that moment. I generally get strong reactions to my story because it is so intense, so I don’t want to push that intensity onto someone who is already struggling with other issues.
I only share my child abuse story when I feel like there is a need to do so. Early in my healing, I really needed to tell both my therapist and friend about my latest flashbacks. Telling helped validate that what I was remembering really happened.
I needed a friend to hear my story because I was paying the therapist to spend time with me. I needed to know that someone else could hear my story and still choose to be my friend. Fortunately, I had a great friend to help me through this.
Now that I am much farther along in healing, I really don’t need to do that as much. However, I have dealt with a few flashbacks in the last couple of months, and I did feel the need to tell a friend about them. I just need to hear that nothing that anyone ever did to me can change who I am. I am vulnerable after a flashback, so telling the right person is crucial.
These days, I mostly feel the need to share my story to deepen the emotional intimacy of a friendship. If I want another person to know me, then she needs to know how I became the person that I am today. I also need another person to understand what is going on when I am suddenly triggered. It really helps for those who I spend the most time with to get it.
Sometimes I will ask a friend if she wants to hear my story. If she does, we will talk about it when we have some time alone to do it. I will always begin by making sure that she feels ready to deal with my story because it is very intense. Large blocks of time are very helpful because the other person might have lots of questions. You don’t want to be getting interrupted 20 times when you are talking about something this intense.
For me, when to share my story goes back to intuition. I intuitively know when it is a good time to share and when it is not.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
***religious ? trigger?***
Hi Faith, i am encouraged to hear what you have to say. Right now I am grateful to have your blog to come to, my t and isurvive. My best friend is unable to hear it. We’ve been friends since we were 17, over 20 years. I guess I intuitively knew she couldn’t handle it because I only gave her a couple of small pieces, to see what she would do. She freaked out on me and went all religious. Which I dont know why but this made me feel like I was a sinner.
Only the best wishes for you Faith.
~palucci
Yes, the religious crowd often has a hard time knowing what to say. Religious folks want to follow a formula of do X, Y, and Z, and then nothing bad will happen to you. That’s not biblical.
A preacher’s wife told my sister to write her “sins” on a piece of paper, including the fact that she had been sexually abused, and then burn the paper. She felt so invalidated and ashamed by this woman.
Keep trying, though. Once you find the right person, it is so freeing to have another person to talk with about it all.
Take care,
– Faith
Hi palucci, i have a close friend ive known since i was 20 , thats like 13 years ago, hes exactually the same!!!
Hi Faith, when you said ‘keep trying’ in the last sentence it kind of made me chuckle – ive felt so desperate in the last 18 months or so to connect with someone in the 3D world, ive got very desperate. I think ‘keep trying’ describes it very well.
Take care
Faith
Thanks again for all these blogs. As you may know I’ve been struggling with telling a friend for a while. My therapist is the only person who knows (excluding the fool school counselor I told as a kid who never believed me), and that’s been incredibly difficult.
I finally mustered the courage this week to tell my nearest and dearest friend (we’ve been friends for 35 of our 38 years).
It went better than I could ever have hoped. She didn’t doubt me, tell me I was crazy for making it up, and didn’t tell me to go away we can’t be friends anymore. (All of which I was worried about, irrational as that sounds.)
Instead, she was incredibly supportive. She was surprised, but not. Concerned about me – what I went through then and what I’m dealing with now. And concerned because she’s known me all my life and had no idea. Sorry that I went through all that I did. Loving. Reassuring that we’ll be friends until we are old and grey.
I feel truly blessed to have this person in my life.
I can’t begin to tell you how amazing it feels to share this with someone, and have that person love you. (Of course, there’s still a little part of me that doesn’t believe her and worries that she’ll run away. But that’s just me being my dysfunctional self.)
Thank you Faith for sharing your stories and for helping me with this. If there’s one thing you’ve said that’s really stuck out more than anything else, it was “trust your intuition”. I did, and it turned out ok. Thank you.
Kerro
Kerro, I got chills down my spine reading your post. I am so happy to read such a beautiful story.
Hi Faith and Simon, that preachers wife was an ass. I would like to kick her ass. Its heart breaking how such good friends, and others we turn to for help could go sideways like that. I think my friend has had a couple of fasting days as her way of praying that I can be “saved”. I guess in their minds they think what they are doing is helping us. But sadly, its exactly the opposite. Thanks Faith and Simon. I will keep trying too
Only the best wishes,
palucci
Kerro,
Hooray!! I am sooo happy for you!!
Yes, I get those twinges myself, even with friends who have proven themselves repeatedly. My therapist told me that I need to give myself permission to be happy and appreciate the blessings in my life. :0)
Take care,
– Faith
Thanks Faith and Palucci. I must say it feels surreal.