Tips for Talking with Others About Your Experience
By Beth Matenear, LPC
Look, we all want validation. We are human and it is important. However, If you are going into this conversation with family or friends about your experience looking for them to be the only ones validating you, things could go badly and be very harmful for you. Take some time before these conversations to validate yourself and surround yourself with people who “get it” and how hard survivorship can be. Surround yourself with other survivors who will freely give you validation for your experiences and make sure that you are able to give yourself before asking others to do the same. This way you have a safe place to land if you don’t get the response you want from others in your immediate circle. There is nothing wrong with you that these experiences were difficult. They are difficult. Others who have not gone through it may not understand how hard it was, and it can take more than one conversation for them to see clearly why these experiences were so impactful. In the meantime, give it to yourself and speak your truth to your friends and family for your recovery, not for their response.
Think about the specifics that you need for this conversation and ask for it
It is OK to be specific about what you need for this conversation and helpful if you prepare others for those needs. When I spoke to my parents I said something like, “I need 30 minutes of your time to just listen to me about my experience as a teenager. I don’t necessarily need you to say anything, I just need you to listen. Let me know a time that works for you.” That way they knew what I was asking from them and what the expectation was for the conversation. This also helped me to prepare for what I wanted to say and the important points that I wanted to cover. It also helped them to understand that there were things that I wanted to say that were not just out of emotion, but really about me conveying points that I wanted them to understand.
Prepare yourself for them getting defensive and diffuse this as much as possible
Help them to understand that you are not having the conversation to blame them, but for them to really understand what was hard for you about the experience. Starting with the understanding that you give them the benefit of the doubt that they were doing the best they could under difficult circumstances can be a way to diffuse conflict. You don’t have to agree with them that they did the right thing to start at a place that assumes that they were trying to do the right thing for their child. Many parents were also victims of the TTI and fell prey to false advertising that preyed on their vulnerability, distress, and fears for their child. A good resource for them can be the book Help at Any Cost by Maia Szalavitz. This resource can give them a broader view of the industry and highlight their own trauma as vulnerable parents. Again, reiterate that the point of talking is to understand each other, not blaming each other. Depending on who you are speaking to, you may have to be the bigger person on this one. I wish it wasn’t this way, but for many of us this is the case. While you may understand that your parents need to cling to blaming your bad behaviors for the choice so that they don’t have to feel guilt/shame/fear they may not be ready for this paradigm shift.
Clarify the basics of what was hard about the experience
Most people don’t totally understand why these programs are so hard. Breaking it down to two components, loss of control and inescapability, may help them to see it more clearly. When we think of trauma we often think that something life threatening is the factor that has the greatest impact. However, it is the idea of inescapability that causes our brain to go haywire and have intense reactions. When we think about the absolute loss of control and sense of being trapped that we experience through these programs, transporters, alienation from our friends and family, it is no wonder that so many TTI survivors struggle to regulate trauma responses after these programs. It is so common that we struggle with vulnerability, trust, depression, panic, anxiety, and maintaining healthy relationships as all these parts of our development are impacted by our experiences during these critically formative years. In addition to this, because our survival instincts are kicked into overdrive in these environments, we can often struggle to develop our sense of adult self and independence, and what looks like our being “resistant” or “not getting our lives together” is really us reeling and struggling to get out of trauma responses from these experiences. When I finally could explain that it wasn’t that I couldn’t be an “adult”, but that I was struggling because I had been traumatized, things became a bit more clear about what was actually going on. So, breaking it down to simple trauma responses may be a way to help others to understand.
Those who have not been through the TTI may find it difficult to comprehend. Be specific in what you want to share. Help others to understand the feelings that you experienced at that young age. Are there certain memories or experiences that can sum up the fear, the sadness, the confusion, the anger, etc? Perhaps a few stories of the worst day you experienced or the worst thing you witnessed or even an example of typical staff-student interactions would assist. Adding the meaning to the facts will likely prove helpful as well. For example telling mom and dad that “staff yelled at me” is different than saying that “because staff yelled at me and told me I was worthless at this place that you (mom and dad) approved of, I thought that it meant that you were in agreement that I deserved verbal abuse and that my own parents thought I was worthless”.
Remind your parents that you were a child when you had these experiences and came to the conclusions you did. Remind them that due to the absence of healthy, trusting relationships with adults you had no one to go to with these experiences and feelings and that this inescapability took a huge toll on your mental health.
Explain that it is not just you, and why your “truth” about your experience is so important
It is easy for others to want us to just “get over” our experiences, as it can make people uncomfortable. At times even other survivors may say, “Just get over it, it was __ years ago.” Yet, this approach isn’t always helpful and leaves us in the dark about what to do to help ourselves recover from these experiences.
Again, being the bigger person, it is okay to say that you wish you could get over it. Let people know what you need from them in regards to support or validation to assist you in “getting past it” instead.