Helping Her Heal After Abuse

If someone you love has been abused, you can help. But you can't heal them. For total healing, it will take three people: you, the victim, and Jesus.

Jesus heals. Please note the following verses:

LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me. -Psalm 20:2-3

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. -Psalm 147:3

Behold, I will bring it health and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth. -Jeremiah 33:6

Healing comes from God, but we can also help. How many times in the Bible does God miraculously heal or help His people by using other humans? If we are the body of Christ, we can reach out and bring God's help and healing to others.

The first thing you need to understand is that there are many stages to healing. You cannot expect someone to just magically heal on their own. They probably have no idea to go about it, or they'd have done it already. No one wants to be an abuse victim, but many of us find ourselves there. It can help to understand the three stages of healing. Victims must go through all three stages, not be expected to skip right to the final stage. You can help them work through each of them by listening, providing support and Godly counsel, and praying for them.

1. Stage One: Victim. The person in this stage still identifies as a victim and processes life through the lens of the past trauma. This person probably has trouble functioning healthily in her daily life. This person still needs to talk and re-hash the details of the trauma and go through the greiving process for what happened to her. Perhaps she has not let herself grieve, or has not allowed her grieiving to completely unfold. You can help by asking questions about the details and listening as often as she needs to talk. You can help her identify "triggers" and what causes those triggers, and perhaps how to cope with those triggers in a more productive way in the future. Together you can brainstorm solutions to react differently than the negative, destructive way she has previously been coping. You can help her find themes about how her abuse has affected her life today.
2. Stage Two: Survivor. This person functions better and sees the trauma as in the past, but still identifies mostly a (past) victim. Perhaps she still relates to events in her life through the old lens of the trauma. You can help her process her negative feelings about the abuse, some which she may not even be aware she had, such as anger, shame, guilt, or betrayal. Perhaps you could encourage her to start a journal of self-discovery. You can help her see which relationships in her life are unhealthy (in whole or in part) and together brainstorm ways she could handle these relationships more productively. Support her as she tries to do this.
3. Stage Three: Thriver. This person functions healthily and no longer identifies primarily as an abuse victim. She develops healthy, productive ways of dealing with people and events, and is prepared with positive ways to deal with occasional flare-ups from her past trauma. You can help her turn to God for healing and power and encourage her to forgive her abusers and let go of the past. The past will always affect her, and you can help by being supportive and understanding and by being watchful for regressions to past unhealthy behavior and helping her become aware in a loving, supportive manner.

For more information on these three stages and how to recognize them, go to The Three Stages of Healing.

If you're not sure what coping mechanisms--both healthy and unhealthy--your loved one tends to employ to deal with the past trauma, check out some of these great resources. The Trauma Coping Inventory can be used to identify which coping mechanisms the victim uses and how often. You can discuss her answers together--but be sure you then remember and act off of this information! It doesn't do any good for you to show an initial interest in her healing and, once you've discussed it, go back to the way things have always been. Use this tool as the beginning of your journey to understand her, not as the journey itself. Once you understand her, you need to use that information to be aware of she she uses those again and to help her plan ways to deal with the trauma more productively and healthily. Perhaps the two of you together can come up with a list of positive coping mechanisms that you can gently remind her of when she gets off-track.

Another great resource for your own information is Common Coping Mechanisms Used by Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. This list can describe any victims of abuse, not just sexual. Study it and commit to memory the coping devices used by your loved one; it can help you better understand her and know what to look for to help her along the road to healing. In addition, the Coping Skills website will give you some ideas for more positive ways to help your loved one deal with negative thoughts and emotions.

You can't push someone to be healed, but you can help make the journey easier. You can encourage, support, guide, and instruct. This is a big responsibility and should not be taken lightly. If you begin to show you care enough to lead her along this road, then forget or slack off, it will seem to her like you abandoned her... just like her abuser.