Betrayal Trauma Recovery - BTR.ORG

• I thought, “This cannot be happening to ME.”
• Powerlessness, helplessness, loss of control.
• Confusion, bewilderment, fear, anxiety, and disbelief set in.
• Obsessive preoccupation to make sense of situation.
• Feelings of emptiness, deficiency and lack.
• Self-blame, worthlessness, shame, humiliation.
 

• Unsure of my own reality, perceptions and ability to cope.
• Question basic goodness of life.
• Tendency to isolate to reduce overstimulation and anxiety.

• Shock resurfaced other traumas.
• Highly charged feeling of being chewed up and spit out.
• Infantile fear, longings and despair.
• Felt collective feelings of the women throughout time being abandoned, raped, mutilated, tortured.

• Stages of grief emerged, not necessarily in order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
• Overwhelming sorrow, sadness—uncontrollable, unpredictable crying spells.

• The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may develop months or years after the event.
• Denial and numbing may lead to isolation from others.
• Rapid weight loss or gain.
• Sleep disturbances. 
• Heartache and pain throughout body.
• Chronic anxiety; fight/flight/freeze reactions. 
• Intrusive, traumatic memories break through randomly.
 

• Obsessiveness, missing, longing, sadness, emptiness.
• Intense craving to be with husband. 
• At first, I loved, wanted, needed him more than ever.
• Continual sense of waiting.
• Compulsions for contact to alleviate pain and loss.

• Ongoing disorientation as nervous system adapts to new information.
• As memories are recast in light of deception, I assimilate subtle lies, half truths, and hypocrisy.
• Sense of shattered reality gets worse with time as more memories require altering.
• I was compelled to share my story, to reconstruct a coherent personal narrative that makes sense of what happened.

• Headaches, allergies, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, or other unexplained illnesses developed.
• Every cell down to my bones throbs with pain.
• Sense of unpredictable, ongoing attack.
• Broken hearted pain: ongoing dull ache to intense shooting pains.
• Tightening in belly.

• Haunting of his energetic presence in my body.
• I sense his presence when I see objects or places.
• Gut level disgust when confronted with places or topics that my husband used to abuse me.
• Sense of toxic poisoning as a result of sexual infidelity.
• Dreams populated with images of lost mate.
• Sense of caring and responsibility - How is he? Where is he?

• My former self, desires, attachments are being destroyed.
• Sense of being abandoned and betrayed by all. 
• Despair about future.
• Desperation forced me to my knees to surrender to Higher Power for help.
• By enduring emptiness with kind attention, I discovered a safe haven within.

• Synchronicity, coincidence, signs began to emerge.
• Relation to ordinary time and space altered.
• Sense of presence of both benevolent (angels) and persecutory (demons) forces within and without.
• I sense other people’s suffering.
• I recognize when harm is being done.
 

• Urgent instinct to go inward to find center, truth and love.
• Strong motivation to pray, to meditate, to attend the temple.
• Growing realization of powerlessness in the face of suffering, compulsions and afflictive emotions.
• Suffering is interlaced with infusions of spirit: visions, benevolent spirit beings, “angel hands,” may be tangible; sense of guidance, going with flow increases.
• Conscience sharpens remorse and desire to “do no harm.”
• Yearning to know heart’s deep desires and values grows.