"Most mental health professionals have expanded the definition of trauma to include betrayal trauma. Betrayal trauma occurs when the people or institutions we depend on for survival violate us in some way. An example of betrayal trust is childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. Please see our page on Surviving Childhood Abuse for information regarding this topic."
This rings true to my experience this past year with Nsaint, a counselor who betrayed my trust when she slandered me to a priest who had been hearing my confessions for over two years. I had known Nsaint for over three years and was trying to get away from her when the priest told me to work with her in his absence for the summer. I could tell he was still blind and naive to her lies. In my obedience to him I reluctantly followed his direction. He was my spiritual director, God was working through him; which really was the case since my terror with Nsaint led me to deeper healing and heart more full of compassion as well as forgiveness...God was indeed the planner.
Counselors are people with whom I bare my soul, really bare my soul, sharing the ugly parts of self (we are only as sick as our secrets). Because of my abandonment as a child I had to work really hard through layers of anxiety over the years to bare my authentic self in fear of rejection.
The end and beginning of my PTSD came when Nsaint slandered me to my church after two years of a covert smear campaign against me that I found out she was waging even while faking her friendship with me. Now I finally know the reason why so many negative things happened in my life -- gaslighting - like the movie "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle." She was targeting me without me even knowing it.
That was when I went over the edge.
Betrayal trauma is very painful, it felt humiliating, the last thing I wanted to do was leave my beloved parish, but terror would run through my mind, planting itself in my heart like a razor sharp knife, taking my breath away with just the thought of anything associated with Nsaint.
That is an exact example of how N's destroy, ruin and devastate lives. They steal so that no one else can have.
Deep down I felt as though I had been targeted for extinction...the kind of terror which this brings on is not easy to describe.
What was the worst was not eating or sleeping, it was if suddenly I was caught in between two worlds, the world of the living and the world of the dead.
There is a thread somewhere here on the board were I was losing it...I think Dr. G even pulled one of my posts for my own protection as I was going over the edge.
PTSD - betrayal trauma is real and really frightening...for days I felt that I was losing my mind, unable to cope with the reality of the reality -- I could not get a grip even if I wanted to...it was beyond my brain capacity.
The weeks and months that have followed have been about triage which has led me to be very gentle with myself which is good as well as I have learned to stop and smell the roses as the fragrance of flowers has a way of medicating the ouchy.
Last night, I was out walking when I came across a little bird that was stuck on the side walk. I waited for awhile to see if it would fly away, but my instinct told me something was not OK with the bird. I scooped it up in my palm and took it home with me. I nestled it into a little basket - the bird slept quietly through the night with it's beak stuck into its feathers. When I awoke this morning it tried to fly, but it was clear there was something wrong with it's wings. It landed right into my chest where I let the poor little thing nuzzle and sleep while I was able to gently rub its feathers. It was clear the bird was traumatized...now I understand.
This morning I dropped the bird off at the wild life rescue shelter, they promised me that they would help it and them release it back to the wild. Funny how we tend to project our own pains onto things. I thought to myself this little bird may have been abandoned my it's mother and now is suffering the pain of loss and betrayal that I have suffered...
Lise
