IYKYK: Survivor Supporters
Surviving sexual violence is more than just staying alive. It involves an ongoing recompense between society as a whole, the world, and the harmed individual. Everyone plays a part in ensuring that victimized persons are given the needed space to become whole (as much as possible).
Unfortunately, we live in a society that doesn’t proactively address sex crimes or fully provide all required support to survivors or survivor supporters. Surface level efforts, such as putting a temporary spotlight on accused predators, are enacted then the topic is no longer a focus. Survivors are left with very limited support or long-term communal embrace needed to successful reconnect with society. This causes the mental, emotional and physical labor of improving our global society [in a way the properly supports survivors] to fall on victimized persons.
It’s understandable to want to avoid doing the work. It’s also understandable for a survivor to believe that people who haven’t been victimized should be the ones to do all of the work to fix society. Shifting ownership seems to ease the already overwhelming amount of stress and tiredness that we survivors carry. Doing the work feels like a lot of responsibility - it is. Doing the work feels hard - it is. Doing the work feels never-ending - it is. Doing the work seems impossible - it’s possible.
Getting and remaining on the path of wellness requires survivors to wake up everyday, be true to personal wants and needs, and acknowledge all feelings that come flooding in. The most important thing that you as a survivor supporter can do to better start survivors on the journey is to fully understand the following:
it’s not a survivor’s shame to carry
the victimization wasn’t the survivor’s fault
survivors are good people who didn’t deserve the harm
survivors are good people who trusted someone who manipulated
each person heals differently, don’t put your expectations on survivors
there’s nothing that could’ve been done differently to stop it from happening
it’s okay to share your feelings with survivors as long as you don’t center yourself
there’s nothing the predator can say or do to take away the pain or make things better
you as a supporter can’t fix anything, there’s nothing for you to fix, you’re not supposed to fix us
survivors heal at the pace and depth of the support that is received, don’t try to rush anything