Vicki Dau (00:01.336)
Hey there, today's episode is about supporting a survivor depending on what has happened to her when. actually are approached quite often about this happened to someone I love and what do I do? And so we decided to put together this episode to support that and we have, there's a,
Okay, so let me just say this, that every circumstance is unique and different. There is no time table for recovery and it may take a while and there could be good days and bad days and there's no right way to recover. And also there's no thought of, what they went through was worse than what I went through. Yeah. Cause we hear that a lot too. And we do.
that person is minimalizing the pain that they've been in and that's not fair to them. So, Abuse is abuse and it's equal. Right. But sometimes depending on when the abuse happened, that may factor in how they do what when. Yes, exactly. So I invite you to check out RAINN, R-A-I-N-N.org. There is a ton of resources there, especially if
the abuse recently occurred, if it was a rape, if it was some sort of abuse that was recent, they have an online chat and also an 800 number, which I will post. Hotline. So we're going to cover three different areas. The first one is going to be the event just happened. We get contacted about this that, you know, it just happened and they want to support.
correct me if I'm wrong, do we hear that mostly from the person's partner? Yes, that is correct. So it's not infrequent that we'll get a reach out from a male saying my girlfriend, my partner, my wife, whatever, this just occurred. Yeah, how can I help But that's different than this, I just found this out. It's this just occurred. That's what we're talking about now. Not I just found out, but this just happened. Yeah. So if the trauma just happened,
Vicki Dau (02:28.878)
It's tough.
It's raw. The nervous system's all stirred up. There's something called the sexual assault medical exam that collects DNA evidence. If you might press charges or she may press charges, you might want to do that exam. So you could go to an emergency room. Like we're talking just happened. Let me try.
Vicki Dau (03:04.814)
It's recording, right? Because I saw something on there.
Vicki Dau (03:30.51)
So if it just happened, the nervous system is very stirred up. They might not want to go to work. They might not want to be social. Very stirred up. There could be sudden outbursts. Everything is different now. Everything. Just so you understand. It's not going to be like, okay, here, once we get over this, everything is different now. They could be easily startled. Stress, fear, anxiety. If it's not addressed,
it could turn into PTSD. They could have flashbacks, dreams, intrusive thoughts, and they might need medical attention. So that's where you want to try to do, you have to figure out if you're going to take action, legal action, stuff like that. Are you going to file a police report? All of that could be happening. I would say it's better to do more than less if you can, because once you don't and time has passed, you can't anymore.
So, be cognizant of it's painful, but let's take care of much of this as we can right now, meaning police involvement, that sort of a thing, because once you don't, you don't. So, something to think about. Yeah.
So talking with the survivor, trying to get sleep, if they have nightmares that could be a problem. But there's ways to calm the nervous system down like before you go to sleep, eating foods that nourish the body, moving your body in ways that make you feel empowered. You know, like if working out. This could be tricky because you may...
she make it or he but might get triggered in ways that they were never triggered before. And so just to be aware of it and honor it. I remember there were certain exercise or workout poses or situations in yoga that you could not do anymore because of how it affected you in a stirrup manner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Thank you. If you have or you could develop
Vicki Dau (05:42.4)
empowering routines for the morning or empowering routines for the evening. Maybe journaling, add that to your, that's way of it clearing out. Want to keep the stuff moving through. Yes. adding meditation or relaxing activities, maybe inspiring podcasts. I would encourage a therapist, but a trauma informed therapist. That is important.
And then to do nervous system regulation. I personally like tapping. I have a ton of information about tapping on our website. You can go to teamdau.com and EFT tapping and you can learn all about it. In a nutshell, addresses, physically addresses the situations you're feeling and allows them to be purged out. Right. It helps move them through in a healthy manner.
which is so it's really powerful. But the details are on. Yeah. Yeah. You might need to screen TV programs that could be triggering now. Like personally for me, I can't handle anything CSI or NCIS or any programs like that. It doesn't work for me. So watch the effects of news or social media. Maybe you need to change privacy settings on your social media now.
filtering or blocking might be necessary. It's good to hear people's and be connected, but you got to watch how it affects your state and learn how to protect your state because that is actually precious and you just might need to avoid stuff. You might need to avoid it for a while and go back to it or you're just done with it for the foreseeable future.
The main goal is to create a sense of safety and help calm as the nervous system gets all stirred up. So this is where breath work can come in. I've already mentioned tapping.
Vicki Dau (07:53.94)
And you might be familiar with your own techniques and that's totally great. There's a lot of techniques that you use like both sides of your like crossing over. Like I can't remember the technical term of it, but it's about using both sides of your brain. And like there's a technique in EDMR where you tap, you cross and you tap.
That's a technique for calming the nervous system. I'm pretty sure that YouTube is full of it. Full of information. It is full of sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can also use exercises to reset the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve comes out at the base of the skull, but it attaches to a whole bunch of things all the way down the spine.
attaches to the organs different parts of it. systems. Yes. And so when you re you can reset that there's certain stretches you can do. There's certain types of breathing. You can do things with your ears, pulling your ears a certain way, holding spots in your ears. There's a ton of stuff on them. fix the vagus nerve in a very positive way. Yes. So you can look that up too. But I really, really encourage you don't just do talk therapy because
You call it from the neck up. Don't just do therapy from the neck up. You've got to address your nervous system. And that's where you'll get the most healing over time. Not easy. I'm so sorry if that's what you're dealing with. I really, really am sorry about that. I have the phone number here for the National Sexual Assault Hotline.
And then, like I said, you can reach out to Rain for the chat or the actual phone. You also want to be prepared for the reaction of people you choose to tell. What, you know, was there, do they ask you questions that actually trigger you more, that actually cause more trauma? Questions like, what did you do to cause it?
Vicki Dau (10:17.868)
Why were you there? know, what, just a lot of that can cause shame and blame.
You'll find out very quickly who your supporters are because it's not the more people you'll tell most likely the more people you'll find will have some sort of criticism or or lack of belief that what you said happened or to the degree it happened. It can become very disheartening and frustrating with that kind of group of people who you thought were your supporters who now aren't. So you have to tread real lightly on who you're going to talk to and when.
so that you can keep your sense of safety built up especially initially you want to be able to feel safe so it may be very very very few people who know about it it may be you and one other person and that's it but right now work with that and then whatever professionals you're working at to have your support until you can get stronger in it and know how to deal with potentially telling the family about it i mean we have podcasts about that so yeah
The most important thing is to stay grounded in the truth. And you really do have to tell if you are in a serious, committed relationship, you do need to tell your partner because if you choose not to and it was only this. he only did this. it was whatever. If you have to tell them you do, there's no secret. You will need that support. You'll need that support. And if you're not telling.
and you're keeping it in, you will pay the price physically eventually. 100 % true. Right. So stay grounded in the truth and have your partner help you stay grounded in the truth and tell yourself the truth as many times as you need it. Number two type of situation that we've run into with people that reach out to us is
Vicki Dau (12:22.878)
they or you knew about the abuse but didn't tell anyone and hasn't dealt directly with the trauma. Oftentimes what we see in these cases, it's the husband that reaches out to us and they share the story and say, my wife does not think the abuse is the problem that she says I'm the problem. She says, this is the problem. A lot of times what we found is oftentimes it was a
close friend or family member that they are still in contact with who did the abuse.
they have convinced themselves that it's just something, that it was over, it happened whenever, and they're fine. And oftentimes there could be a lot of anger outbursts, there could be a lot of things that the husband thinks he's, that she says the husband thinks, how do I say, there could be things that she says the husband's fault when actually.
It's because of what she has left unprocessed is causing the problem. I'm not saying the husband is perfect. That's not it. But the tree, he might be the trigger, but the problem lies in the unprocessed effects of the abuse. it has to be processed if you're going to move forward. Yeah. What we've seen with this is there's repeated patterns of behavior like multiple marriages and breakups because the problem, the
underlying problem isn't addressed. If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you won't get a different result. And so, and I'm so sorry, none of this is easy, you guys. But if you want to be in a healthy relationship and maybe you Which can happen. Yes. It's happened here. So we're living proof of that. Correct. It's available to you. Yes. With the effort. Yes. And the support. Yes. But you got to do your part. Survivors have to do the work.
Vicki Dau (14:27.874)
to get out on the other side.
Oftentimes they deny anger outbursts or relationship difficulty is related to the abuse that we see that. They may have kept the secret their entire life and been fine. But those closest to them probably have noticed things. Oftentimes the lie that they did something to cause the abuse or if they told other family members would suffer, forced them into silence. That is not uncommon.
is that often multiple abuses happen in the family or the survivor is threatened by the abuser and then it would be the survivor's fault if the family blows up and things get, you know, it's just a mess. So the survivor has decided to bury it, but make no mistake, bury things fester.
What we have witnessed is buried things cause physical ailments. We have
Is it here? This is part two. I have it in my house. That's how often I use it. This is part two. This is Healing Feelings from Your Heart by Karol Truman. She also has a book called Healing Feelings Buried Alive Never Die. know, if you... The title says it all. Right. Right. And I actually just saw an Instagram post about this and they mentioned Karol Truman's book. It's on...
Vicki Dau (16:15.372)
It's on, you can get it from Amazon real easy. It's amazing. If you think you don't have any issues, I would just question, know, are you on any medications? Are you just so used to taking high blood pressure medication that maybe it didn't occur to you that the reason for your high blood pressure came from the abuse and shoving it down? Do you have digestive issues? Do you have ulcers? Do you have gut issues? Do you have headaches?
Are our migraines so second nature and normal to you? That's not normal. Is there so many things that you've gotten used to that you don't kind of even know what healthy looks like? It feels like. Yeah. So I invite you to look at that. If childhood trauma is not dealt with directly, it is not uncommon for her to, like the survivor, to live with struggle.
and heartache after heartache. And it almost feels too that everything is happening to you, that you are a victim in everything. Once you address it and almost it's the fear, the fear of addressing it is greater than actually addressing it. Yes. And so I invite you to be courageous, not confident, courageous to address it.
because it's often not as bad as we think it's gonna be. I can't be angry because the anger will consume me. It's proven that if you feel a feeling for 90 seconds, just 90 seconds, we've mentioned this in other podcasts, it moves through, that's it. Some things aren't easy to face.
but I invite you to deal with them directly. I invite you to reach out, find a trauma-informed therapist, work on your nervous system regulation. I love tapping, that's what I use with all my clients. Implement or develop good sleep patterns. Be intentional. Intentional. Be intentional. Be intentional. my God. Be intentional.
Vicki Dau (18:36.49)
about your sleep patterns. Thank you. Also have empowering routines for you. Develop them or continue to do them. Waking up, going to bed, journaling, meditation, relaxation, inspiring podcasts. Often it's not just the abuse that causes the trauma, it's the beliefs that we've created that causes most of the problems. The stories that we create.
is where the problems lie. I can't tell anyone. I can't tell my husband. I've kept it a secret from him for 10 years. He's gonna kill that person because he knows them. I can't tell anyone because our whole family will be broken up.
It's difficult and you have to decide if it's going to be time where your feelings matter Because that's often where all of this angst comes up is there is a part of you That wants your feelings to matter and to count and for you to listen to how you're Yet up here's Thanksgiving and we got to go to the house of the abuser for Thanksgiving again and your feelings and wellness are It should be
number one to you because you can't do anything well beyond that if you're not well. So work, play, helping others, whatever your occupation is, your vocation is, you need to be good in you so that you can be good going out. So taking care of you. Routines, a routine of good things is so powerful for your psyche. All the little things matter. They really do.
More stories that maybe you created was I was the one who caused it. So you have this inner shame and blame. Another story, you may believe that love means sex. People only want me for my body. If I tell it will ruin my family. While pieces of those might be true, I invite you to revisit them.
Vicki Dau (20:51.35)
and decide what you want to be true right now and embark on a healing journey. If you haven't looked at it yet.
I invite you to look at it. There's a lot of people that are my age and even a little older. When they hear about what we're doing, some of them will say in private, like, yeah, that happened to me, but you know what? I'm not open in that can of worms. My life is okay. I don't want to deal with it. Is it okay? You know? We've chosen.
that okay isn't good enough. yes, you are right. You and I chose that okay isn't good enough because okay means we're not really linked together with each other. True. And what is our favorite saying right now? We love doing life with each other. We've come to that point through a massive series of abuses that have happened to you through the years. And although you're never gone from it, you do get to the other side, like Vicki said.
which is so important because the other side is not just being a survivor, it's being able to thrive in life and enjoy and smile. And like she said in beginning, things are different now, but different can be also different good. It doesn't have to be different bad unless you let it stay there. So the responsibility, as Vicki said, still does fall on you ultimately to care for yourself. But in doing so and bringing...
the people who you love with you on that journey, who will support you in that, will change you to be able to be in that new place now, but in a very happy way, right? Yeah. you.
Vicki Dau (22:42.196)
And the third category that I'm going to talk about right now is repressed memories. These are actually so freaking common. When you think with your logical mind, how could I have buried that? It's actually so, so common. Often chemicals are released in the brain that prevent the memory from landing. It wasn't safe. There was a lot of doubt. What can happen when a memory comes back is
We often have symptoms, but no visible cause. Like I had a high startle a reflex from the time I was, I can, from far back as I can remember high school, I've had them. I can have anger outbursts. I've mentioned before, unfortunately I used to use plates as frisbees. You know, if I got mad, I would just go from zero to a hundred and snap of a finger. We can.
when a memory comes back, it can feel like it just happened.
The brain, this is good and not good, the brain has no way of knowing if something is happening now or if it happened in the past. If we feel it, the brain feels like it's happening now.
So it's an opportunity for you to process life through a whole different lens.
Vicki Dau (24:09.856)
It's how it's what it is. I spent a lot of time doubting my story. And I kept saying, how could I have buried that? How could I have not remembered that? And I actually just had more memories come back like a month ago, New Year's Eve. So what is two months ago? I had more memories come back, but they were very, it was very gentle. It was very much, that happened.
Hmm, well that makes sense and and I've done because of all the work you've done. It came back gentle, that correct, correct. So working it working with it working on you allows future memories or incidences to be less traumatic on the recall. Yes. You have to decide who you're going to tell who you're not going to tell everything's going to be different. You might have some nightmares.
And lots of grounding exercises might be helpful, like walking in the grass, different types of grounding things. You can Google that on YouTube and get some grounding exercises, because that will be helpful, because you want to stay in the present moment while processing the feelings you have about the events, but processing to move them through.
You may have dissociated and that's a reason why it was repressed because you dissociated. So, you your conscious brain filed it way, back. you still may have a pattern of dissociation. I personally have hardly no memories. And I've actually heard Mel Robbins say this. She had an incident. She talks about this often where she, think she was in fourth grade and she woke up and a boy, an older boy was on top of her.
and she has almost no memories of her childhood around that time and even growing up because of the trauma of that event. have almost no memories of myself of a lot. So that's actually very common. So habits might be mentally checking out, feelings of control.
Vicki Dau (26:37.198)
or letting others control your life. So it could be one degree or the other, depending what's going on. I invite you to seek a trauma informed therapist as well. Do your nervous system regulation. I love to see clients to help them because what I love about tapping is you can do it on your own. And so you get help during a session. you wake up in the middle of the night and you're in a panic attack.
you can start tapping and calm it down immediately. And so it's a really, really good tool to learn. Also be prepared for the reaction of people you choose to tell. What did you do to cause it? You know, the shame and blame deal that can plague survivors for years.
Vicki Dau (27:31.278)
Weird, you can go to previous episodes in our podcast series of I tell my story of how I decided to tell through a letter to all my family members because I found out about sexual abuse going back 80 years in my family and I thought this is bullshit. The secret stops, no more secrets here, we're done. And so I chose to tell, you might not.
depending on your circumstances.
you might have support and you might not. As long as you have one supporter.
work on your healing because it's worth it. It's worth it. And if you're not the abused and you're hearing this and you're the supporter, listen to what we're telling you because the support for that person is paramount to their moving forward and potentially to their continuing to live literally. I was just going to say to survive. To survive. Because. Literally survive. Yeah. Yeah.
It's so important to be grounded in the truth and to be reminded that you're loved and you're not losing your mind. If you choose to tell, be prepared that family members will walk away, they'll challenge your story. They will try to cut you off at the knees because they're freaking triggered. so, yeah, so be prepared for all that. And we can even.
Vicki Dau (29:06.05)
work with you guys. Again, another reason to a partner and have to be supportive of that situation and now you're going to deal with it. And there could be, depending on who the abuser was, everybody else sides with the abuser and you're the one standing there speaking the truth of what you know, but yet because it was repressed, did I make it up? It's really amazing the games, the mind games that happen. And that's why it's really important to have someone that you have, that has your back.
that can remind you of the truth so you stay in the truth. And the other people.
Yep.
Vicki Dau (29:48.994)
That piece of it can be traumatizing as much as the abuse can of losing the rest of your family. Family loyalty was fierce in my extended family with everyone except me. I thought we have this great family, everybody's so close, they're gonna back everybody. So I thought they've got my back and no, no, no. When I challenged their happy,
perfect family scenario, yet they know it's not.
Vicki Dau (30:25.526)
some of the truth that did come out, they were all living with this. They knew about the visits to the girly bar. They knew about different other things by one of the abusers. And yet they're ripping me a new one. yeah, it's called DARVO, right? That DA, that this is in one of our previous episodes too.
where they deny, accuse, it's like an acronym. Remember, we've done that? And so you can go back to one of our episodes, I'll link that in here. It was, that's what they did. It was like classic, classic reaction. So what I wanna give you, I wanna show you a piece of my art.
This is the goal So if you're on if you're just listening, I have my hands up in the air I have a smile on my face Joy This is the goal and That's where I feel like I'm at a lot of the time and so I invite you to join me There's lots of resources for you guys we are one of them I do coaching and we were together
with couples. Sometimes I work with the wife and he works with the husband and then we work with the four of us together. That also can happen. We do have our damage and possibilities guide that you can sign up to get. It's free. And I created this guide of what happens when you're abused, how we react, and then what is still what was lost and what is still possible.
And so if you would like that, I'll have the link in our show notes and you can get that for yourself. Maybe that will be helpful that you're not the only one. You're not crazy that maybe you could show it to your partner. You know, it's a great resource. The other thing that I want to tell you that we do offer is our eBooks with the video component. Tom has the survival guide for husbands. has 36 topics.
Vicki Dau (32:52.872)
And in the table of contents, you can click on a certain topic or just go day by day. It's like 30 seconds of your day. get some... It's a very short... You read a very, very short thought or action potentially. And then there's a quick description of that.
but then there's a small video that you can click on, a short video. It's under 30 seconds. It will, that will support it with a little bit more detail. And it's just, it can literally be a daily, Hey, I never thought about that. Or I forgot about that. I can do that. wow. You know, a thing of implementation and support for husbands and partners to continue to be the best they can be not only for themselves, but for their partner. is invaluable. You guys, I can't even tell you everyone that
sees this is like, this is amazing. And then I made a guide for wives that's called helping your husband help you. It is imperative that you do certain things to help get them on the same page. To keep them on board. To keep them on board, to help, just little tips for you, what to remind you that could be helpful to make your journey feel more supported. Who doesn't want that? Do you really want to end up alone?
I mean, think about what we're talking about here. Do you want to do if if you are with a good man, we'll just use that picture.
A part of me wanted to be alone before I made the decision to implement basically everything that I have in that ebook.
Vicki Dau (34:35.694)
I considered, I just want to be alone. I don't want to talk anymore. I don't want to share anymore. I don't want to do any of it. And I thought, do I really want to be alone? No, I don't. now. Heck no. my gosh. I mean, we took a little while to record this podcast. There were so many things going on with us. Every kid has got something going and it's,
very, it takes a lot of our attention. but we're loving it. Yeah. And, and to be able to say, to be able to look at him and say, I love doing life with you. That's your goal. And these two, these two eBooks can do that for you. I, I wrote it and I, I do it every day. I pull it up every day on my phone.
So I invite you to check that out and get one for yourself, get one for your wife, get one for your husband. It's a lifeline. If you're still here, your work's not done, so why not enjoy the process? Why wouldn't you want to do that? You're good. Why wouldn't you want to do that? We're doing it. Come on board. Yeah. For real. Until next time. This is Tom and Vicki.
Embracing love, fostering hope. There it is. We'll see you next time. Bye bye. Okay.
