10 Assumptions About Survivors
These are assumptions (or beliefs) that we should make an active choice to ascribe to as a way of interacting with survivors that’s actually helpful and effective and truly sees survivorship for what it is.
10 Assumptions About Survivors
Today's blog outlines the 10 assumptions we, as a society, allies, and fellow survivors, should maintain about survivors and survivorship.
These are assumptions (or beliefs) that we should make an active choice to ascribe to as a way of interacting with survivors that’s actually helpful and effective and truly sees survivorship for what it is.
When I wrote these 10 assumptions, I based them on my experience as a Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) therapist, where in this practice, I have assumptions about my clients and myself.
DBT therapists attempt to instill these assumptions in clients as a way for them to reduce any judgment they may have for themselves, their effort, their progress, etc.
Frequently, we judge ourselves for not being good enough, not being capable, or not working hard enough, and it’s often based on judgment we’ve received from the community. Those judgments ultimately interfere with recovery.
When we believe we’re not good enough or trying hard enough, we’re not actually searching for solutions. We’re just shaming ourselves and making recovery more challenging.
For example, in DBT, we assume that all clients, all people, are doing the best they can. This assumption means that if things are not working, this is not a result of a person not putting in enough effort or not wanting it enough.
These are judgments we tend to hold about each other and ourselves. So, as therapists, we reframe this mentality to the belief that everyone is doing their best. This assumption allows us to recognize what is happening that keeps us in this place and figure out what we need to do to get out of it.
We more effectively and accurately assess the situation without judgment and with much more compassion and respect.
I developed these assumptions that we hold, or can hold, about survivors to help us better understand the survivor experience and meet survivors where they are in their journey.
Understanding that survivorship is a very unique experience and the transactions that survivors have with the outside world significantly influence their recovery is crucial.
When the environment can hold beliefs about survivors that are more accurate, effective, and true to their experience, we can be more effective at helping survivors, dismantling rape culture, and ending sexual violence altogether.
When we hold these beliefs as truth, eventually, these beliefs will enable us to take measures that work and create change.
Assumption #1: All survivors are telling the truth.
This first assumption goes back to the conversations I’ve shared about how I believe all survivors. I go much more in-depth on this topic in my blog post Why I Believe All Survivors, but this is a truth I hold and a practice I’ve committed to for several reasons.
When we assume that all survivors are telling the truth, we immediately jump into holding a safe space for them and collaborating directly with them about what they need to move forward.
Believing the survivor helps help them much quicker, rather than getting stuck in a place of doubt. This place is not helpful to the survivor, and it is certainly not beneficial to dismantling rape culture/sexual violence.
Doubting survivors only ever allows us to express our prejudice. It doesn’t do anything helpful to the larger issue. In fact, it interferes.
The first step for a survivor to reclaim power in their life is being able to tell their story in the way that matters and is important to them. It’s their story to tell. They get to share whatever information they want and not share whatever information they’d like to withhold.
When we hold this belief, this also ultimately contributes to more extensive change in the world. We can begin gathering information, uplifting survivors, and supporting survivors, and we learn so much more about sexual violence, the impact it has, and how it operates.
It's also important to remember that when we doubt survivors, even if the survivor doesn’t hear you openly doubting them, the people you share your doubt with will never forget your stance.
When we don’t believe survivors, we communicate to all the survivors around us that they are not safe. We share with the world that rape and sexual assault are okay, and that rape has more to do with the victims and their culpability and not the perpetrators.
Ultimately, if we don’t hold this belief, we silence survivors, exacerbate the problem, and identify ourselves as someone who isn’t safe for survivors. When we believe survivors, we open space for them to be safe and heard and begin their recovery process.
Assumption #2: All survivors know what’s best for themselves at any given time.
This belief is contingent upon the idea that we enforce, reinforce, and empower survivors from the beginning. To do this, we have to respect their autonomy and self-determination.
We must allow them to make their own decisions, assess the situation around them, become familiar with their needs, and do what’s best for themselves.
This includes things that can be difficult for other people to understand: making a report, seeking treatment or healthcare, telling certain people, how to manage triggers, how to set boundaries, and how to navigate life moving forward.
People tend to jump in and intervene, often out of a place of care and protection, but it violates this truth that survivors know what’s best for themselves. It also interferes with the recovery process of restoring power to the survivor.
With this truth, we must allow survivors to lead and guide their path of recovery, trusting that they get to decide what’s best for them.
Assumption #3: Recovery is possible.
Recovery is always possible.
In the mental health field, as well as the medical health field, we know and understand trauma very well. There’s an abundance of research and information out there that tells us what trauma is and how it operates in the brain. This knowledge enables us to design, research, and refine effective interventions.
There’s a diverse array of intervention methods across the board that can be incredibly powerful for restoring your life and enhancing resilience.
We also have a vast community of support.
This community is becoming increasingly vocal and active worldwide to contribute safer spaces, more effective and accessible interventions, and change in the culture.
Assumption #4: Recovery can start and restart at any time in life.
This assumption builds on assumption 3. We can engage in recovery and recovery interventions in whatever way that works for you and whenever you want.
Pausing recovery processes won’t cause you to backslide. Every aspect of our journey, even the pauses, is part of our recovery that ultimately builds a reclaimed life.
It’s never too late to start your recovery process. It’s never too late to tell your story, and the world wants to hear it, no matter how long ago it happened.
Engaging in recovery work at any time will always be helpful.
Assumptions #5: Recovery looks different for everyone.
Our paths of recovery are unique to us. What works for someone else might not work for us, and vice versa. Our individual experiences in life and our survivorship journey are really what’s going to determine what effectively works for us.
It’s paramount that we don’t approach recovery or survivorship with a one-size-fits-all mentality.
Recovery works better when we work collaboratively with others to create an entire environment that continues building recovery, enhancing resilience, and continuing a path of reclamation.
This is going to look different from person to person. Even though your recovery doesn’t look like mine or someone else’s, it does not mean that it is not a recovery journey.
It’s important that as we continue to move forward to effectively build access to systems and sources of recovery for survivors, we are innovative and collaborative with survivors to create something unique for each individual.
Assumption #6: All survivors live every day in the context of assessing and establishing safety.
Every moment in a survivor’s life will be in the context of understanding threats or risks and working to neutralize them.
There are many habits and behaviors that a survivor engages in to establish safety. Those are essential to them.
This can be an expression of hypervigilance, which is a symptom of PTSD. It’s a response to trauma around rape culture that puts the responsibility on the survivors and primarily on targeted victims to protect themselves from assault rather than on perpetrators not to assault people.
In that environment, inherently, everybody will live in the space of establishing safety, especially survivors who have had their safety and boundaries violated. They live every day in this assessment space.
Understanding that we can better support survivors when working with them to establish safety is essential. That can look like building trusting relationships, making sure boundaries are transparent, asking for their boundaries, asking for permission, allowing and enabling a survivor to say no, and allowing a survivor to change things when needed.
When we establish more safety in the world, the survivor can focus on the other parts of their life: recovery, healing, and what brings them joy.
Assumption #7: Survivorship is lifelong.
As I’ve talked about in my own recovery story, my life is divided into two parts: before the assault and after the assault.
I genuinely believe that survivorship is lifelong. It is not something we’re going to be over one day. This doesn’t mean that every day of my life going forward is miserable or traumatic; it just means that all of our lives, we’ll be actively working on building on recovery, checking in with ourselves, understanding our sensitivities, and using our skills to maintain comfort.
Life has the same ups and downs as anyone else. For survivors, however, those ups and downs are in the context of recovery. Those ups and downs can have a different, magnified impact.
The downs may be more brutal for survivors as they may trigger symptoms of trauma, and the ups of life can feel extra good, rewarding, and meaningful because it took a lot of work for that individual to get those joyous moments.
Ultimately, a context of recovery means that in addition to life’s regular ups and downs, survivors are also coping and managing triggers in the environment, safety issues, engaging in treatment or therapy, and setbacks can happen.
Setbacks are expected, especially when we live in a world that still reinforces sexual violence through rape culture.
Support, therapy, solid coping, and action plans can help manage those setbacks, and that’s a key part of living as a survivor.
Assumption #8: Survivorship evolves over time.
Your survivorship path will look different over your lifespan. Life experience, varying recovery opportunities, experiences we engage in, and cultural changes change our survivorship experience.
As we grow and our culture changes, our role as survivors will also change.
When the #metoo movement started, it catalyzed a lot of change. For many survivors, it was a very positive experience to see so much support, hear people sharing their stories, and feel like a community.
Unfortunately, it also meant that the backlash got a lot louder too. Our transitions with the environment meant there were times when we could declare ourselves and feel very proud and periods when we’d go back into a space of keeping things private and being hyper-mindful of our needs.
This also happens any time public allegations come out. We hear backlash from the community; we watch the trials; we hear the arguments people make on both sides, which shapes our experience as survivors.
The Brock Turner case is a significant example. Watching and reading about this trial was incredibly challenging and painful. Hearing all the excuses for Brock Turner’s behavior and watching as people prioritized his needs above Chanel Miller’s was extremely triggering.
On the other hand, seeing the community on the other side of the argument come to Chanel’s defense, testify, support, intervene, and activate a cultural conversation at large was incredibly valuable.
Survivorship will inevitably evolve because survivors have a dynamic, transactional relationship with the environment and culture.
Assumption #9: Mental healthcare is a human right.
All people are entitled to access mental healthcare. Recovery is a human right.
Dismantling rape culture requires establishing actual access to mental healthcare. For rape culture to end and for us to bring about a culture of justice and consent, there have to be resources available to survivors to restore their sense of power and functioning.
I was fortunate to have access to mental healthcare to be able to recover after my assault. I know that this is a privilege of mine. It’s a privilege that I didn’t realize there was a stigma around mental healthcare and that I was able to connect with providers to help me recover.
This should be accessible to all people easily. The burden of providing access to mental healthcare shouldn’t be solely on providers to drop their fees or provide free services. Access should be on the shoulders of our insurance companies to break down barriers.
All survivors need access to comprehensive healthcare in addition to mental healthcare, and this is a human right.
Assumption #10: Supporting and believing survivors, dismantling rape culture, and ending sexual violence must include dismantling white supremacy, misogyny, patriarchy, transphobia, homophobia, or any other system of oppression.
We cannot dismantle any system of oppression without dismantling all of them. In our work to end rape culture and sexual violence, we have to look at it through a lens of intersectionality that examines how these different social and political identities converge and compound oppressive forces.
Intersectionality is an analytical framework for truly understanding how social and political identities overlap and how the impact of social and political oppression compound on an individual.
Different transactions of discrimination and privilege occur at these intersections of identities. By looking at things through an intersectional lens, we can more effectively dismantle our systems of oppression.
We are not effectively ending rape culture and are not true allies to survivors unless we are actively dismantling all oppressive forces, especially those within ourselves, and combatting our internal and complicit biases and examining how they rise within us is vital.
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I hold all of these assumptions as beliefs and truths about survivors to address the issues of rape culture and sexual violence most effectively and to create a more safe place for survivors to recover and restore their sense of power.
We need to be able to hold these truths and practice them as a community, as allies, and as survivors to truly enable a recovery/consent culture.
It can sometimes be challenging to hold these truths at all times. There will be times when we feel challenged on many of them.
When we find that it’s hard to maintain these assumptions and to act on them, it’s an invitation for us to look inward towards ourselves and discover what part of ourselves is holding onto internalized misogyny, gaslighting, and rape culture.
It’s an opportunity to get more healing for ourselves.
We can do amazing things for the community when aligned with these assumptions.
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You can listen to this episode on my podcast, “Initiated Survivor.” The episode is titled “10 Assumptions About Survivors” and is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
Thank you for reading. Until next time!
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