When a woman discovers her husband’s secret pornography use or infidelity, it’s devastating. Learning how to cope with betrayal trauma is a daily struggle. Here are 4 self care strategies for victims.
Loss, devastation, terror, fury, grief, numbness… are all manifestations of betrayal trauma, and each emotion can be debilitating. To discover if you’re emotionally abused, take our free emotional abuse quiz.
VIctims of betrayal can take small steps to begin practicing self-care, which is the only way to truly process and ultimately heal from betrayal trauma.
If you need support, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.
1. How To Cope With Betrayal Trauma: Pay Attention To Your Body’s Messages
2. Pick One Tiny Thing, And Do That Thing Everyday
3. Accept and Embrace The “Critical Systems Only” Phase When trying to CopE With Betrayal Trauma
4. Whatever Works To Help You Cope With Betrayal Trauma Is The Best Self Care For You
Coping With Betrayal Trauma Feels Wrong To Victims of Betrayal
Abusive men, including pornography users, condition victims to ignore their own needs. For many women, this means they don’t realize they actually cope with betrayal trauma the best way they can. And when they initiate self-care practices, they feel like they’re doing something wrong.
When victims of betrayal begin practicing self-care, they often feel:
- Guilt
- Shame
- Embarrassment
- Gluttonous
- Selfish
- Silly
Victims can become empowered by understanding that these negative emotions are a product of their abuser’s behavior – they are not reality. Self-care is not selfish and women who practice it are practicing self-love.
Coping With Betrayal Trauma Is A Process
Practicing self-care isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. Self-care needs may change over time. What women need now may be different several months or years into the healing process.
When women practice self-compassion and give themselves time to try new methods of self-care, they may find more freedom and joy in the process. As Anne explains:
How To Cope With Betrayal Trauma: 4 Things To Consider
Every victim’s self-care will be specific to her needs at any given time. Effective self-care is built on these four components:
- Soothing
- Nurturing
- Discipline
- Compassion
When women use these four components as a guide in their self-care decisions, they are better able to meet their own needs as they work through living with betrayal trauma.
Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Supports Victims of Betrayal
At BTR, we know how difficult it can be to implement self-care after discovering betrayal.
The intense and relentless emotional waves that seem to bury victims alive can be so overwhelming that self-care feels out of the question.
However, at BTR, we believe that self-care is the foundation for healing and thriving after betrayal and abuse.
Join today and make the Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group an integral piece of your self care.
Transcript: How To Cope With Betrayal Trauma
Anne: A member of our community is on today’s episode. We’re going to call her Tia. She let me know that she’s been listening to the Betrayal Trauma Recovery podcasts since the beginning. When I was crying into the microphone in my basement. I’m so appreciative to those of you who have supported me since the very beginning. Thank you so much.
Tia needed to practice self-care when her marriage began to unravel. As she shares a little bit of her journey to cope with betrayal trauma, I’ll be pointing out 4 self-care strategies that she used to help bring her peace every day. Welcome Tia.
Tia: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Anne: Self care is my favorite personal topic right now. As I am knee deep or maybe eyeball deep into self care. Now that I’m more healed and stabler, I’m able to really focus on it. And so before we start the conversation, I want to do a disclaimer to women like me. We’re going to talk about how in the middle of intense trauma, you can practice a little bit of self care as much as possible.
But don’t feel guilty right now if your self care is Oreos and popcorn and Netflix. There’s no guilt, no guilt. And any phase of your journey or anywhere you are is fine. It’s all okay. Let’s talk about finding self care the hard way.
Tia: Yes, had I been wiser, had there been more podcasts way back when, maybe I would have been smarter.
Understanding Self-Care: Tia’s Initial Struggles
Tia: But I remember seeing a counselor when things started to unravel, I was trying to cope with betrayal trauma and at that point she said to me, you need to up your self care. And she might as well have been speaking a different language. I had no idea what self care really was. I thought, hey, I exercise and I eat well.
And if you consider chocolate a health food. Yeah, then I absolutely look after myself. What’s your issue counselor? I have great self care. I honestly had no idea, and life continued to unravel until I got to such a dark place. It’s a little embarrassing now to talk about, but I’ve heard it from so many women that I know I’m not alone.
When you start wanting to get sick or looking for a way so that somebody will look after you. So that you’d have a day off, so expectations could be lifted. There’s something wrong. You need to pay attention to that.
Anne: Yeah.
Self-Care Strategy #1: Listen to Your Body
Anne: So that’s self care strategy number one when you cope with betrayal trauma. Pay attention to what your body tells you.
Tia: And I unfortunately didn’t. I have a bigger and better mentality or faster and farther. And I ended up running, but then doing too much and stress on your body is stress on your body, even if it’s exercise. It’s supposed to be self care. If it’s too stressful for you, it’s stressful, just stop it. So self care means paying attention to your body and what’s going on there.
Like it all comes back to looking after what’s happening with you. I ended up with six surgeries in five years. This may sound bad, but I honestly looked forward to the surgeries, because it was a day or two of somebody just looking after me. They bring you food at regular intervals. They ask you if you want anything, water’s there, nothing’s expected of you. You can read, you can ring a bell and somebody shows up. And that should have been a huge clue that maybe I needed to up my self care game.
It got so bad that before one of the surgeries, I wanted to die. And that was my prayer at that time, God take me. I knew what I had to face in life when I woke up from that surgery, and I just thought, I just want to die here, now. And fortunately, that’s not a prayer he answered. This is a self care journey, learning to look after yourself before you get to such a dark place. There are people that need you alive. There are people that need you alive and well.
How to cope with betrayal trauma: Body Scans
Anne: And the most important person that needs you alive and well is yourself.
Tia: Yes, have you ever done one of those body scans? Where you sit and think about, you know, how does my head feel?
Anne: Yeah, in fact, I put that into the Living Free Workshop. So there are two sections where I teach women how to do a body scan. Yeah, we call it getting in touch with your sacred internal warning system.
Tia: Yeah, as part of this self care journey, I went to a women’s intensive in Minneapolis. They were doing this body scan, and they had us sit there. I remember probably for the first time feeling like, Oh no, my head hurts. Hey, my neck hurts, my shoulders hurt, my gut hurts, my chest hurts.
I had not been aware that everything hurt before that point. And then they finished the scan, and they said, okay, everyone open your eyes. And then they went on with the session. I was like, wait, now I’m aware I’m in terrible pain. What do I do? What do I do with this? And I actually put up my hand and asked, there was no good answer. The answer I’ve found since is that the answer is not to take away the pain immediately. The answer is to learn to live a life so that pain isn’t there.
Anne: That is profound, and it is such a process to create a life that’s not causing us pain. I remember one day I went into the closet and put a soft blanket over my head. And I laid in the closet and cried and cried. That was an intentional choice to cope with betrayal trauma.
Self-Care Strategy #2: Small Daily Rituals
Anne: So when we’re looking for strategies for how to cope with betrayal trauma, the second strategy is to pick one tiny thing. My suggestion is you go outside once a day at least. Even if it’s just for like, literally one second. Tia? What’s your favorite tiny self care ritual?
Tia: So I do have a favorite go to that anybody can do to pull ourselves back to our senses. I get a hot drink, and make sure it’s something you enjoy the smell of. I go to a window and look outside at nature. You mentioned going outside, nature is healing. Look outside and find something living. Look for trees, look for grass that’s moving, look for birds, see if you can hear them. And just take a moment and breathe out slow. You’ll always remember to breathe in.
So just stand there, and sometimes we don’t have a lot of time. But often a minute can be good enough. Just stand there, notice what’s happening outside your window, feeling the warmth of your drink. Inhaling it, tasting it, and if you can hum, we know oddly enough, humming helps activate the vagus nerve, which provides calming for us. And if it’s there for you, go ahead and hum a song that means something to you, but just take that moment. You’re using all five senses, and it only takes a minute.
Anne: Yeah, that’s perfect. We’re constantly told that self care is so important. Let’s dive into why.
Tia: Our body is a gift, and it’s amazing. If we cut ourselves, if we break our leg, it starts to knit itself back together again, which is an absolute miracle.
The Importance of Self-Care
Tia: I wish my car did that when I ran into something, that it would just fix itself. Supported properly our emotions and mental health, will do the same thing. We are meant to heal. Self care gives you the optimum healing space, where you can let things take their natural course and move towards healing.
I like to use the analogy of an airplane, that there can be a storm outside this airplane, and if you focus on this storm, chances are you’re going down. If you can focus on the dials in front of you. That’s your self care. Focus on what’s happening with you. You can keep your nose up, and you can get through this storm.
Anne: That’s a good example. Maybe you’ve heard this on the podcast before, but you’ve been in a plane accident. It’s not your fault, your plane has gone down in the mountains, and you’re all alone. Sure, you can hang out in that plane for a while, but eventually, if you want to survive, you’ll have to get out of the plane. Build a fire, find a river, and follow the river down to a city. You’ll eventually have to develop some survival skills.
And self care is that. It’s not just a survival skill, but a thriver skill. So we go from surviving to thriving. When you are severely injured, you’ll need a “critical systems only” phase. Just like in sci-fi movies, when a meteor hits the ship or an alien and it goes, mer, everything powers down and it’s quiet, not all the lights work, and you’re in this critical systems only phase. So that’s the third self care strategy, while we learn how to cope with betrayal trauma.
How to cope with betrayal trauma, Strategy #3: Embrace Critical Systems Only Phase
Anne: That is accept and embrace a critical systems only phase. A lot of women jump to that, I’m going to exercise a ton, and I’m going to go to every event, and I’m going to show him that I can get out of the house.
And they don’t realize they need to go into sort of a powered down self care critical systems only phase for a while. Yeah, your self esteem is so fragile when you’re traumatized. There is something to be said for that momentary comfort. If a whole bag of Oreos is helpful to you. Go for it, because guilt at this point or worrying about like anything other than survival is just not gonna help. It doesn’t have to be forever, nourishing yourself before you try to like power up all the systems again.
Tia: When these crises happen, we are down to ground zero of what we can do. But if we think through, what does a baby need to survive? They need predictable sleep, food at regular intervals, some sort of loving relationship. And they need some sort of movement or stimulation. Very basic, am I drinking some water? Can I sleep?
It’s pretty bare bones to begin with, and it comes, I like what you’re saying, in a progression. This doesn’t all happen at day one. I have a picture of a bird that’s being held on my wall. And one of the reasons is that I often compare this to birds flying along, and they hit a window. Nobody prepared them for that, and they’re stunned. But somebody needs to pick that little birdie up and move it somewhere where it’s safe.
Self-Care Strategy #4: Whatever Works for You
Tia: We often don’t recognize the enormity of the trauma we face, especially when you have children. We just keep going. We just keep life as usual. You’ve hit a window, your plane is gone down, whatever metaphor you want, you need to take some space.
Anne: Fix the hole in your spaceship before you go into light speed again, is going to be a good idea. And that brings us to the fourth strategy to cope with betrayal trauma. Which is whatever works for you. Whatever works to calm your system down, to give you a break from the pain. That’s self care. My trauma was so intense at the time, I couldn’t read. I had an 11 month old baby, so I was having a hard time getting out of the house.
My injuries were so extreme, I watched all seven seasons of The Good Wife. I got a break from the trauma and intensity of it from focusing on something else. At that time, that was all I could do. I ended up adding an antidepressant to that, and then I actually got off the couch and started adding a little more. Talk about some things that worked for you that maybe other people are like, that’s not self care.
Tia: I put a playlist together. When I hear the first few bars, it does something good to my heart, walking my dog. With self care, often the whole bubble bath thing comes to mind. But for me, I found my brain was pinging off the wall. When I would sit in a tub, I would think I was doing self care because I was experimenting. I couldn’t never calm and relax. My brain was pinging all over the place. So, that’s not self care for me.
The Four Aspects of Self-Care
Anne: It can be an experiment, figuring out how to cope with betrayal trauma, right? Once I got on the antidepressant, that couch I would sit on, I moved it to a different area, and guess what I replaced it with? A treadmill, that has been an evolution, and now when I want to relax, I walk on that treadmill rather than sit on the couch.
If we’re committed to self care and willing to be gentle with ourselves, we’ll see what’s working and what’s not working. When I sat on that couch, I gained 30 pounds. Which was not great for me physically, emotionally or mentally. Do I feel bad about it? Not really. It’s fine. It was a coping skill that I used. I think the most important thing is your intention.
Tia: Yes, am I getting to know myself? I think that is the biggest gift of this journey. I have self care divided into four aspects: self soothing, self nurture, self discipline, and self compassion. Self soothing is what calms me down. What do I need at this moment? Really experimenting with yourself, and looking at your senses. The triggers are simply a sign that we need more self nurturing, being able to talk to ourselves with that more nurturing voice. I had to develop that. I had to learn that.
Today I need to get something done, self discipline. But when I start it, I’m in tears, and can’t do it. So then self compassion says, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, just work at it for 15 minutes, and then call it quits. Yeah, self compassion is different than self pity. Self compassion says, yes, this is hard, and I’m going to look after you. I’ll get you through this.
How to cope with betrayal trauma: Creating Safe Spaces
Tia: Do I have loving people I can connect with? And that’s a hard one, but we always need safe people. That may even be a coach if your family system is broken down.
Anne: That’s exactly why I created Betrayal Trauma Recovery group sessions. To provide a safe place for women who can’t find safety anywhere else. So at the beginning, my suggestion was to go outside. Yours was to look out the window with a hot drink. I loved that. I want everyone to know that a number of years out, I’m doing yoga almost every day. And I am back to weightlifting. I’m skiing again. I paddle board. I love, love outdoor sports. I’m feeling more and more myself every day.
So if you’re listening and you’re like, this seems impossible. I can’t do this. So, I want to give you hope that two years out, four years out, five years out, 10 years out, things will get better. I know when people told me that I wanted to be like, you don’t know how bad it is. It’s so bad! But now it feels good. Like life is really good.
Why don’t we leave the listeners with one more practical self care tip. That any woman, no matter what stage of trauma she’s in, especially the women in intense trauma right now, could implement today.
Tia: Safety is so important, finding that safe place. We often end up hooked to our phones. And so I put together a photo file of people I love, my children, places I love. If you’re like me and half your world turns white and cold. I have pictures of summer so that I can remember that life returns to this barren planet.
The Power of Disconnecting from Social Media
Tia: Places I’ve walked, beaches I’ve been on. When I need to give my brain a break, I flip through and remind myself that there are some good things. There are great places in the world. I will get back there.
Anne: I just thought of one that helped a lot. And when I say this, most women gasp. They’re like, oh, you didn’t. But I deleted all my social media accounts. And I found that helpful. Because I didn’t have to have any of those conversations in my head. If I post this, what will he think? Do I want to look like I’m doing well? Do I not want to look like I’m doing well? Deleting them helped me not worry about how other people perceived me or what type of image I was projecting to the world.
And then, I never did it again. I don’t have any more personal accounts. I have the Betrayal Trauma Recovery organization stuff to run BTR. But I don’t have any personal stuff. I’ve loved it. Anything that works for you will be the right thing. And you can try something, and then you can try something else. It’s not like any one of these things needs to be permanent.
Tia: That’s right.
The Discipline of Taking Time Off
Tia: My favorite one goes under discipline for me, of forcing myself to take 24 hours off every week. The truth is, this may be a little crude, but we’re going to die with things left on our to do list. And taking 24 hours off each week gets me practiced for that. It can be left. The laundry can wait. Stuff can wait. I don’t have to be busy all the time, and then filling that day with things that I enjoy. Doesn’t always work, but it’s a goal.
Anne: Well, thank you so much for coming on today’s episode and sharing your insights with us.
Tia: This has been good. Thank you.
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