Personal relationships are very complex. And if many problems can be overcome, then the betrayal of a loved one is a completely different matter. This fact turns upside down the whole world. How to deal with pain from what happened? And what to do next?
After the betrayal of a loved one – especially if it caught by surprise – we are tormented by anxiety, anger, fear and longing. We are exhausted and cannot understand who can be trusted now at all now.
If a friend, a colleague, relative or loved one violated the promise, the shock that we feel when we learn about it, as if sending us (the body, psyche and soul) a signal: we are no longer safe. This is a severe wound, healing from which sometimes takes years.
The hardest all to transfer the betrayal of those in the relationship with whom we invested most of all. It causes deep injuries for several reasons:
- We understand that for the person to whom we trusted, his desires and needs were more important than our.
- This responds with a deep shock in the body and psyche, leaving a deep imprint on all levels.
- The trust underlying relations with other people is now destroyed.
- We have an occasion to start doubting the correctness of our own decisions in other areas of life.
The betrayal activates a stressful reaction and causes a whole cascade of physical, mental and emotional symptoms – problems with adrenal glands and digestion, fatigue, confusion, “fog” and chaos in the head, depression, anger and rage, a feeling of deep humiliation.
Our self -confidence also suffers: we are tormented by a feeling of nullity, we feel abandoned and outcast. It is terribly painful for us that a loved one used us for his own purposes, not caring for us.
The problem is that if we try to cope with each symptom separately, then healing can take more time than we would like. In addition, focusing on the symptoms, we ignore the deep causes of our condition. So, the real healing does not occur.
What
to do?
Many simply do not realize what a tremendous blow what happened inflicted on their body, psyche and the entire worldview. The victims of betrayal often try to treat each symptom separately, because they are afraid: if they admit that they actually happen inside them, then people will condemn them or begin to pity it overly.
But isolation from others only aggravates problems. In such a situation, we need support as ever before. Without it it will be very difficult to leave the experienced behind and live on. After all, healing the injury, we re -learn to trust others, feel safe, love and discover our heart.
Debi Zilber, psychologist and author of the book “Unwavering Woman: 4 Stages of Restoration of the Body, Psyche and Life after the Crisis” conducted research. Within its framework, it turned out that in women, healing from betrayal usually takes five stages:
- Ignoring intuition. We prefer to ignore the thought that something is wrong, focusing on physical, not emotional.
- The betrayal itself. We are caught by surprise and suffer.
- Survival. We only think that we need to live this day. And tomorrow is another.
- Device. We begin to adapt to a new life and review our behavior.
- Renaissance. We are freed from experiences and gain a new view of the world.
Some “get stuck” in the second and third stages for many weeks, months, years or even for life. But the only way to rebuild yourself mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually is to go through all five stages at the pace that will be comfortable. And change the worldview to become stronger.
If we consider all the consequences of this injury in our life as part of one deep mental wound, we can gradually move away from pain and shock, starting the healing process.
