Author: liberation

#victimblaming Trigger Warnings: Rape, Sexual Assualt, Sexual Abuse, Victim Blaming, Victim Shaming.

Okay, so here goes…… I should be doing MA stuff, but I can’t put this off any longer, it’s too important! In this blog, I’m going to write about rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse. This may be triggering, please do not read if you are concerned about that. Thank you.

‘Victim Blaming’ is a phrase first used by psychologist William Ryan in his book ‘Blaming the Victim’ in 1971. He said it’s an ‘ideology to justify racism and social injustice against black people in the USA’.

The phrase has since gathered traction, and grown in application to include what’s known as ‘secondary victimisation’ or ‘secondary traumatisation’ of a victim of crime, specifically sexual assault. It’s also interchangeable with the term ‘victim shaming’.

What happens in victim blaming/shaming is this: somehow, for some spurious reason, the victim of the crime/rape/assault/anything they have not consented to, is held accountable for what has happened to them.

For example, the girl raped walking home at night in a short skirt she wore to the club with her friends. In the subsequent court case, the victim is asked about her sex life, her sexual preferences, whether she led anyone on etc. She is picked apart over something intensely private in order to justify the attackers decision to force non-consensual sex on her. The attackers friends, and worse possibly her friends imply that she is somehow ‘asking for it’ by walking home late at night in a short skirt on her own.

I understand the perspective that we need to do what we can to keep ourselves safe. I understand that there are behaviours that put us more at risk than others. I understand that we have to take responsibility for our own actions.

But it is NEVER someone’s fault they were raped. Nobody has the right to do that to another human. Nobody.

And then there’s the horseshoe theory that brings victim blaming back close to itself in the extremes, by asking ‘what does it say about men if we generalise that they can’t control themselves if a girl in a short skirt walks past them?’

When we attach responsibility to the victim of a crime perpetuated against them, we stigmatise the victim themselves, and importantly, those who suffer similar crimes. We relieve the criminal of his own responsibility, suggesting it isn’t his fault he put his appendage somewhere uninvited.

Victim shaming, especially against victims of rape or sexual assault, potentially prevents that person from reporting the crime against them. Especially where the scenario isn’t a clear cut case of rape, where maybe they knew the person, where maybe they were drunk and don’t remember saying no, where they felt they had led the person on, and so somehow ‘owed’ it to them to have sex.

When rape isn’t an aggressive force of violence, victims struggle to understand how it’s so clearly rape. When people have been victims of crime in situations that they feel like they somehow put themselves in danger, they make themselves accountable, because society tells them ‘you asked for it’.

Here’s the real problem with it:

I worked for a while with clients who were victims of sexual abuse. Not ONE of those woman (I didn’t have male clients) reported their assault. Not ONE.

Because then they get dragged through the court. Their sexual behaviour gets discussed in public. They’re forced to relive their experience over and over again in order to convince a jury that this degrading, violating act was made against them. Because they’re told ‘you were drunk’, ‘you flirted with him’ (or her), ‘you said yes to his friend’, ‘if you can’t remember being raped, how do you know you were?’, ‘your ex partner says you like it rough’, ‘you’re lying because you’re angry he broke up with you’.

When we victim shame we are asking the wrong person to take responsibility. When we victim shame we are allowing the perpetrator to be excused of their crime, because the victim somehow led them to believe they were entitled to commit whatever crime it is against them. When we victim shame, we allow the cycle to perpetuate.

This concept does not only apply to rape. It applies to burglary, theft, pickpocketing, domestic violence, and any criminal offence committed against one person by another.

If you have been triggered by this post, please use these numbers to find support:

Samaritans: 116 123 (UK & ROI)

Rape Crisis Helpline: 0808 802 9999 (12-14:30 daily, 19:00 – 21:30 Daily, 15:00-17:30 Monday to Friday)

Women’s Aid & National Domestic Violence Helpline: 0808 2000 247

(Please let me have any other numbers you feel are relevant, these are UK based numbers only)

So today I want to talk about language and how it relates to our emotional understanding. Once upon a time, I was in a supervision session (therapy for my therapy) and I said ‘I feel like I am doing okay with this client because xyz’/.

‘No Helen, you don’t feel that, you think it. When we feel something, it is generally a short sentence, with an emotional word, when we think something it’s a longer sentence’.

Naturally ever since then I can’t stop noticing when people say ‘feel’ instead of ‘think’. Somehow when it’s a feeling, something seems more acceptable and easier to dismiss or ignore, which is precisely why we need to use think instead of feel.

The other reason for saying ‘feel’ instead of ‘think’, is that it is somehow less confrontational, that it isn’t as concrete, that it doesn’t hold another person quite so responsible. If someone behaves in a way that you disagree with, i.e. cheating on their partner, and you say ‘I feel like it’s not really something I would ever do’, rather than ‘I think it’s something I would never do’, it’s less judgemental, or critical of the other person because you have made it a feeling rather than a thought.

Does that make sense?

Another thing I notice time and time again is when people talk about their emotional experience; they often say ‘you’ instead of ‘I’. You only have to watch interviews of people who’ve experienced tough things in their lives to see what I mean.

We do this to disconnect from the emotional impact of the event.

‘How did it feel when you realised you had been attacked?’

‘Oh, well, you just feel in shock kind of’

It’s clever really isn’t it? Our brains protect us from the emotions by projecting them outside onto others, without us even noticing. This can also be problematic relationally, because you’re telling someone else how they feel, which you can’t possibly know, and that’s not very fair! (I’ll blog on that someday very soon!)

The problem is, that in therapy, usually we need to experience that emotion, understand it, and process it. We can’t do that if we talk in the third person.

In the response I’ve created above, the client even goes so far as to minimise their experience by saying ‘kind of’.

The way we use language really determines how we process emotion. When we suggest ‘it was a long time ago’, or ‘worse things have happened to others’, we are still minimising or avoiding our emotion.

But here’s the kicker.

You can’t avoid it forever.

If we stay in a place where we don’t confront the horrible pain life events have bestowed on us, we end up releasing it elsewhere. It turns into depression, it turns into anxiety, it turns into anger or resentment or fear or anything other than the original emotion because we have shrouded it in emotional armour, and when that happens, we have more therapy to do and more pain to understand, because the original emotion is so well buried we have to dig much further to find it.

So here’s my challenge to you. Notice when you are talking about yourself and you use the third person. Notice when you say ‘I feel’, when really it should be ‘I think’.

Be kind to yourselves, have a great week and weekend,

Helen

I have recently had reason to look at how we face bereavement. Both societally and personally.

Our family suffered a sudden and unexpected loss of a figure head. Naturally it has been a sad process coming to terms with his death but the thing that has struck me has been the way people outside the family have responded.

Some have tried to claim the loss as their own, telling us how sad they are, somehow forcing our care on them, so we are left holding their grief and ignoring our own.

Some have imposed their own needs on the person most affected by the loss.

Some have told us how to grieve, or what to feel, asking us to follow their path instead of our own.

Some have forced jollity upon us, telling us to look on the bright side of his sudden death because he didn’t suffer, as though he would rather have left us without saying goodbye.

Some have disappeared all together and tell us they don’t want to impose.

Few have allowed us to sit with our pain, sadness, shock and anger at the abyss left by his death.

It has struck me over and over again that the society I live in seems allergic to death. That the phrase trotted out is ‘IF I die’ not ‘When I die’.

We shield people from death, through hospitals, morgues, undertakers and all the other forcefields under which secret death business happens. A body is sealed in a coffin and delivered to a church or crematorium to have words said over it. Occasionally the body is visited or laid out for viewing. Dressed in finery and made up to look as though it is sleeping.

Death is hidden. Spoken about in hushed words, feared as though contagious, as though somehow ‘it won’t happen to us’, because we’re immune to it. Somehow death will sneak up on us and surprise us when we least expect it and we are utterly unprepared for it.

As a result, grief is suppressed by many, and rushed in others, bystanders finding it hard to hold eye contact with it, to sit with it and hold it for the person suffering it.

But here’s the thing. Assuming mythical legends are just that; there’s not one of us on this planet who can escape death. Not one of us is going to live our lives unaffected by death. If you’re lucky you may not experience it close hand for a while.

So we HAVE to start talking about grief. About how natural it is. How it isn’t a linear process, how everyone does it their own way and takes their own time and walks their own path.

It is no one else’s job to tell someone how to walk that path. No one has the right to force a grief process on another. All we can do is walk the path with that person. Stopping where they stop, looking where they look, maybe sharing what we see too, but never ever imposing our path on them.

You will no doubt have heard of the grief model with 5 stages. Forget it. Forget it and it’s compatriots. Walk your own path and feel your own feelings.

Not a single one of them is wrong.

When we are small, we learn how the world works from the people around us. We learn what is acceptable behaviour and what isn’t from parents, siblings, friends and teachers. We learn how to respond to a given set of circumstances or how to demonstrate emotion from those people.

Essentially, we learn to relate to the world from the messages we receive as children.

So for example, in your family, how was sadness received? Were you hugged and soothed? Were you tickled till you laughed? Were you told ‘don’t cry’? Were you told to ‘man up’?

If your answers are any apart from the first, the message you may have internalised is ‘sadness is bad’. The same can be said for every emotion. Understanding how our emotions were responded to can help us understand why we might feel shame or guilt around our emotional responses.

These patterns of relating shape how we view ourselves and others, and indeed the world. They also inform how we behave in relationships with others too, both romantic and platonic, not to mention authoritative (ie police, teachers, doctors etc).

It’s important to realise that we don’t necessarily repeat the patterns. For example, if you grew up in a home where people were homophobic, you don’t automatically become homophobic. It may be that you reject the view completely and become an advocate for LGBTQ rights.
If you were taught anger was bad, you may really struggle to know how to process anger. You may have shame and guilt around anger and attempt to bottle it up.
We all learn different messages and ways to respond from the same relational responses, even in the same families. If you grew up around anger it may be traumatic for you when people start arguing near you, but your sibling isn’t bothered at all, and may even get involved in the argument.
Thinking back to how our emotions were received, and how our parents related to both each other (if they were together) and us will help us understand where we struggle with relationships.

Many many clients will tell me they don’t ‘do confrontation’. That they would rather ignore insults, slights, or something that has caused them emotion, because the fear of confrontation is so high they would rather hold on to it themselves, and absolve the other person of any responsibility.

Often this is because we are taught arguing is bad. If you argued with a sibling or friend how often were you allowed to resolve it yourselves? How often did a parent/carer or teacher step in and ‘break it up’?
Because this is such a common response to children arguing, they never learn how to resolve conflict, and as adults see conflict as a terminal act. That by confronting someone about something they found difficult in the behaviour means that the relationship will end, and they will some how be worse off without the person causing them emotional injury in their lives.
Does that seem right? That we hold onto injury because we don’t want to lose the injurer?!

So think back to your childhood, how were your emotional responses received? Were you allowed to argue to resolution? Were you allowed to demonstrate anger or sadness? How was your happiness and joy received?
When we understand that everything we know about emotion is taught, we can make peace with our own emotional responses, and know where they are coming from, meaning we take responsibility for them, and as a result establish a healthy boundary around how we are emotionally triggered by others, and how we respond with that knowledge.

Knowing why we respond in certain ways to certain circumstances or behaviour allows us freedom from the affect of others, and to prevent the repeat of maladaptive relational patterns that might put us in danger of abusive relationships.

I hope that helps, please feel free to ask any questions!

Helen

Today, I’m going to look at triangulation. There are different types of triangulation, but the use of it is ultimately generates the same outcome: control and conflict.

Triangulation is a manipulative technique that an abuser or toxic person might use to manipulate or control two other people. It’s particularly good for creating rivalry between two people. Another term that describes that aspect of Triangulation would be ‘divide and conquer’. It generates conflict, and the idea is to leave one person outside and isolated, whilst two people are inside the triangle.

So this is how it works:

One person will use another person to relay information back to a third party, thereby not directly talking to the third party and creating feelings of discomfort around a subject indirectly addressed. This is particularly difficult when the subject is one that is critical of the third party. It also often means that the ‘messenger’ gets involved and asked for an opinion or even offers one unsolicited.

It’s a technique often used by narcissists to control relationships between others and their partner or child, to aid in smear campaigns. (smear campaigns are utilised when a narcissist comes under attack, such as the partner not tolerating narcissistic abuse anymore and disconnecting.) It makes the accusations and projections onto the third party more credible, because they’re coming through the second party, leaving the third party trying to catch up and explain themselves when the controller has already poisoned the second party’s mind and manipulated their opinion. If the controller is really clever, there will be a grain of truth to their tale, making it harder to deny.

In triangulation, the controller uses it to scapegoat a third party, to deflect and protect against any criticism against themselves. It’s like a force field of bad behaviour designed to keep the controller in charge of relationships and squeaky-clean.

An example of triangulation might be this:

Bob tells Sue that Terry really annoyed him at the work BBQ by talking to the boss about a project they were both working on, and he feels like Terry is taking over. Sue, not realising that Bob is manipulating her goes and speaks to Terry saying something along the lines of ‘Bob is really annoyed that you spoke to the boss about the project you’re both working on. I really think you should have invited Bob to join the conversation, it seems like you’re taking over and trying to control the project’.

So Bob has created conflict between Terry and Sue, and himself and Terry, leaving Terry isolated and his character tarred by a seemingly innocent action.

What Sue is unaware of is that Bob has not been pulling his weight on the project and Terry has been carrying it. Bob would be unable to hold a conversation about the project regardless, and to join a conversation would have exposed him to do so.

Can you see how clever and nasty that is? Terry now has to explain himself and justify his actions, looking as though it is he who is the abuser, not Bob.

Another way triangulation might occur is in familial relationships. The abuser/controller will use it to cause rivalry between other family members. So for example, a parent might tell child 1 that child 2 said something negative about child 1. This creates discourse and conflict between the children and allows the parent to keep them separate, most likely to stop them from discussing emotional abuse they both suffer from said parent.

Triangulation can also be helpful, but when done in an open and honest manner where everyone gets a voice. Relationship counselling is a good example of this. A neutral person with no agenda in your relationship can help unpick problems and conflict so things are easier to see and understand. It is directly opposite to the unhealthy form of triangulation.

You may spot some similarities between the drama triangle and triangulation, but the difference is it’s MUCH more calculated and MUCH more actively engaged.

To avoid being part of this behaviour, always question what you know and how you know it. Allow a third party to give their version of events. Look for evidence, and as I always say, trust your instinct.

Any questions?

Boundaries are something we talk a lot about as Counsellors but I wondered if I was making an assumption that people who are not involved in the therapeutic world would know what they are, and then I wondered whether even as therapists we could explain what they are.

I’ve done a lot of wondering 😏

So what are boundaries? Boundaries are rules we use and establish ourselves to determine what we will and won’t permit in terms of behaviour towards or from us.

Being able to say ‘no’ can be one of the most important skills we can learn, but it also seems to be one we are often woefully lacking in. We seem to need to justify ourselves in our negative position, as though we show our right and entitlement to do so.

There is nothing that says that’s true, apart from years of conditioning from teachers or parents who have perhaps made us feel guilty when we ask to meet our own needs.

For example, being a teenager at the family home, and being asked to empty the dishwasher when we’ve got loads of homework, or we’re tired, or we want to catch up with our best friend to find out the latest gossip. Our ‘no’ then won’t be met well (sometimes understandably!!) and we have to explain to the parent/carer/guardian why we can’t do what we’ve been asked.