Are you hiding your trauma- Desperate Housewifes star isn’t any longer
As a professional Total Success Coach™, and having worked with clients in many countries, I have found it surprising how many people have had to deal with some form of abuse whether sexual, physical or verbal when they have been growing up.
It was recently reported that Teri Hatcher, the actress and star of the cult TV programme Desperate Housewife’s had been sexually abused by her uncle when she was 5 years old. You can read the article http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/pressroom/ ; it is a very moving piece.
I applaud Terri Hatcher for coming out and admitting what had happened to her as it enabled her uncle to be put behind bars. Unfortunately it was too late for one of her Uncle’s victims– a young girl who committed suicide after his sexual abuse of her. When someone who is well known admits something it paves the way for others to do the same and to liberate themselves from the pain.
Terri Hatcher was quoted as saying ‘Somehow it might be easier to accept that you’re crazy and you made it all up than to admit that it happened, and how awful it was.’ Except that she wasn’t crazy, she didn’t make it up, and she faced the truth and stopped a dangerous societal predator from harming others. We need more people like Terri Hatcher who stand up, rather then hide out.
So how do people cope when they have been abused?
A lot of people, as Hatcher had done, cover it up, bury it and try to pretend that it never happened rather than face the ‘awfulness’ of what actually happened. Hatcher commented "it is something that’s been surfacing with me for the past three years. This is something I’ve tried to hide my whole life."
Here are some ways that people cope:
Weight gain – a protective mechanism:
Rational: “What person is going to be interested in me if I am 100lbs overweight?”
Emotional distancing – They never let anyone get really close to them
Rational: “If I keep you away, I won’t get hurt again”
Drug and alcohol abuse – An attempt to dull the pain of what happened.
Rational: “If I can’t feel it, then it doesn’t exist”
Distraction Seeker- total immersion in a particular field, whether it is work, sport or pleasure seeking activities.
Rational: “If I’m so busy in one area there is no time to think about what has happened”.
These are only a few of the common patterns I’ve seen as a Total Success Coach™. There are others. You know people who have suffered abuse, whether you know it or not. You may be one of them.
Do you want to cope or do you want to start living?
So how do you start making changes and what do you need to do?
Like anything in life, things only change when we do something about it. You can try and convince yourself that you have fixed it by changing your mindset or doing your therapy sessions. From my experience this doesn’t work in the long term. Being aware of the problem is the first step, but it is only a beginning. You must take specific action and do specific things so you can be happy and start living the life that you want to.
Some of these action steps include
1: Create a non judgemental support system and start opening up and sharing what has happened to you. Often this will NOT be family who have an interest in covering up the lie and preserving the illusion.
*There are some professional support groups that can be a start for this healing journey but many of those groups keep dealing with the problem and never move into the solution. At some point, the alcoholic needs to stop calling him/herself an alcoholic and move on. But it can be a start. Do a Google Search and find out what’s available.
2: Forgiving yourself for what happened. This may seem the most obvious but is often the most difficult and the last thing people ever do. It is the only way you let go of the pain and break the cycle.
3: Creating positive experiences for yourself that move you towards changing your life e.g. if you have used weight gain as your coping strategy the experiences would include exercising, eating healthy food, attending a weight watchers meeting.
In closing it IS possible to overcome past abuse of any kind. It is not a sign of weakness to ask others for help. Actually it is a sign of strength. Keeping your pain buried will only end up eating you away in some form or other. Now is the time for action. Now is the time to break the cycle and remove that dark cloud that has followed you or someone you know all their lives.
“Everyone is someone important, even if they don’t know it yet.”
Gavin Allinson
Gavin Allinson
Total Success Coach™
Helping You Win in the Human Race™
Sometimes people find that it is easier to talk to someone they don’t know about what has happened. If you would like to do that you can take me up on the offer of a Trial 45 minute Coaching Call. www.totalsuccessinstitute.com/free_coaching.php or just send me an e-mail at: gavin@totalsuccessinstitute.com
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