If you’ve been through a traumatizing event in life, feeling guilt or shame about it is common yet rarely a path to healing. Both feelings can hinder your growth from a victim to a survivor. One must take victimization as a factual reality in order to really understand, accept, and finally, recover from the effects.
What are the stages of self-recovery?
After having been subjected to abuse and trauma, a victim’s sense of self is altered as he/she feels helpless, vulnerable, numb, fragile, and defeated. Self-pity may arise in the victims while they try to hide, thinking that the future holds no possibilities, and waiting for someone to rescue them from the depths of despair.
Additionally, victims are often plagued by memories and haunted by flashbacks, which may often lead to feelings of self-harm, isolation and/or a pervasive passivity.
Once a person decides to start healing, they evolve, entering the survivor stage. The feelings of discouragement turn into confidence and renewed opportunities. At this point, one begins to realize they are fully capable of successfully working through their trauma, and that’s when the journey to becoming a thriver starts.
To be a thriver means that an individual is no longer overcome by their trauma but has recognized the potential for growth as well. A thriver believes they can take control of life, commits to moving forward, starts investing in life, career, meaningful relationships, and embraces the future in its entirety.
This is where the journey of victimization comes to an end. Rising above and through the trauma and growing to recognize the valuable individual and power each human has the ability to find, within.