TW: Mentions of sexual harm
Most of us who have faced sexual harm might’ve heard at least one or two of the things mentioned below. While we need to call out those who make such statements in front of us, we also need to make a conscious effort to avoid saying these things to ourselves subconsciously.
We couldn’t have seen it coming and we weren’t asking for it.
So, here are a list of statements one should avoid making in front of a survivor/victim of sexual harassment:
All the pain you’re feeling is an invitation for you to grow.
Not every survivor or victim can turn their pain into something beautiful while healing and they shouldn’t be expected to either. One shouldn’t have to hurt in order to grow. In fact, the survivor/victim should not have faced sexual harm, in the first place.
Incidents of harassment often disturb one so much that their abilities to carry out basic everyday tasks get drastically affected. Thus, pressuring someone recovering from the harm caused to them to go one step ahead and become more productive than before is genuinely a very insensitive thing to do.
Everything happens for our own good.
No, there is absolutely nothing good about having to face sexual harm — the incident, on the contrary, leave a permanent impact on the individual at the receiving end of it.
Hearing things like “Everything happens for our own good,” can make a survivor/victim feel invalidated. Of course, if they choose to process everything they’ve been through with the help of a coping mechanism that seems to be benefiting them, it’s their call to take. However, no one else can decide that for them.
You’re more than the worst part of your life.
Or
You’ve made your trauma your entire personality.
Or
You’re addicted to darkness.
Or
You need to stop being the victim in your own story.
A traumatised person might take months, if not years, to move on from that one memory that continuously plays in their head on loop. Thus, judging them for the time they’re taking to get over something or telling them that their entire personality revolves around their abuser can destroy their self-image — they’re, as it is, dealing with a lot.
The society needs to stop forcing survivors/victims to put on happy faces and pretend as if they are okay. A person is neither “addicted to darkness” nor being “the victim in their own story” if they decide to be honest about how they’re feeling instead of “faking it till they make it”.
You attract abusive people because you make your energy available to everyone.
That’s an indirect way of saying, “You asked for it.”
The survivor/victim can never be blamed for what someone else did to them; irrespective of what they did and how they behaved prior to the actual incident, what they faced isn’t on them.
It is not the victim’s fault that they couldn’t see the red flags or that they gave multiple chances to someone who didn’t deserve them or that they let the wrong people enter their life.
You need to become stable before you can start seeing someone again.
That’s like telling survivors they’re broken and flawed individuals who don’t deserve romantic partners.
People who have faced sexual harm can choose to enter relationships even when they’re still agonised because of their experiences, provided their partners are aware of the same. Healing is a continuous process which doesn’t end in a set period of time. Thus, making a survivor/victim feel as if they aren’t stable enough to be with someone is a way of punishing them for someone else’s sexual misconduct.
You need to stop thinking about it.
No one voluntarily thinks about things that would make their life more difficult. A survivor/victim, too, doesn’t purposefully think, rethink or overthink things that could lead them to get more triggered.
Statements like “Stop thinking about it,” belittle the challenges faced by those who are constantly telling themselves that what happened to them wasn’t their fault.
Different people deal with their problems differently; a survivor/victim’s journey can look very different from that of someone else with a similar experience. There is no ideal way of reacting, no absolute path to follow and no perfect or imperfect survivor/victim. A traumatised person is constantly learning what might or might not work for them when they’re processing something that probably broke their spirit completely and thus, no one has the right to make their life more difficult than it already is.