UNITED STATES
Yahoo Lifestyle
November 20, 2018
By Beth Greenfield
Now that the #MeToo movement, Kavanaugh hearings, Betsy DeVos’s proposed campus rape rules and protests like the Google walkouts have put sexual assault right up there with movies, pets, weather and politics as very possible topics of family dinner discussions, heading into the holidays can feel more fraught than ever. That’s especially true if you’re a sexual assault survivor. And it’s why being thrust into such a conversation without being mentally prepared could leave you rattled.
“I left feeling jarred and jangled and with a feeling disequilibrium,” says Fran (not her real name), a 48-year-old California woman, regarding a recent visit with her parents during which they raised the topic of her childhood assault at the hands of a family member. She believes they brought up the incident, after many years of avoidance, because the national conversation had provided them with a new way of understanding it all. “I wasn’t mad, but I left feeling unmoored,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle, “because it didn’t feel like it was about me and my well-being and my resolution, but more about theirs.”
Her advice to others heading into a similar setup, particularly for people with traumas that have yet to be disclosed? “Imagine the topic is going to come up in some form, and know who you’re talking to and where they’re coming from … and know that no one’s going to be thinking about you,” she says, “so you think about you. What would be meaningful for you? What would help move you forward and not just the conversation?”
Experts agree that it’s a great guidepost and offer more guidance on how to be ready for sensitive, triggering discussions about sexual assault and harassment — particularly those that leave you wanting to disclose your own history in order to make a heat-of-the-moment point to your clueless relative. “It’s a very pivotal moment when you are able to share your trauma,” psychologist Kathleen carterMartinez, author of Permission Granted: The Journey From Trauma to Healing From Rape, Sexual Assault and Emotional Abuse, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. And you want to do it in a way that feels like healing, rather than self-harm.
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