When My Client's Mom Almost Made Me Cry

TW: Trauma, incest, childhood sexual assault

Recently, I experienced an unexpected showdown with an adult client’s mother in my office. You see, I am a trauma specialist psychologist, and I work with survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, abuse, and war. A lot of the cases that I have been working on lately are with survivors of incest, that is, sexual assault done by a relative. 

Despite being a professional, even I had to let out a calming exhale after typing the previous sentence. So, for most people who don’t necessarily think about this tragic and dark concept that often, the mention of incest is inevitably an emotional process. As it should be.

Naturally, when the mother of one of my clients who survived incest showed up to my office for a session, it was quite an emotionally charged 90 minutes. But I was not prepared for how much that conversation was going to linger on my mind (and body) for the next few days.

My client and I had previously discussed the possibility of bringing their mother in for a session. They wanted me to advocate for their neurodivergence and complex PTSD to facilitate a frank interaction with their parent.

I thought it was a good idea and was willing. Mainly because, unknown to most, the greater harm in a sexual assault survivor’s life is done by the people who know about the trauma but aren’t able to offer adequate support. This inadequacy actually causes more harm than that caused by the perpetrator or the original violation.

This might seem strange to you because how can a loved one’s helplessness even be compared to the atrocity of the violator? It is unintentional; the person is probably doing the best they can, and they’re full of pain and concern for the survivor, right? So, how can that cause greater harm? It doesn’t make sense.

Unfortunately, in reality, recovery from trauma is entirely relational. The incident(s) that caused the trauma put the survivor in a state of perpetual oscillation between hypervigilance, flashbacks, and numbing. They’re constantly worried something terrible is going to occur. Situations recurrently remind them of the details of what happened to them. They usually cope with the endless pain by disconnecting from their mind and body. 

The only way a person can snap out of this cycle of trauma is if they are made to feel safe in the presence of others. That safety created by relational work leads to physiological changes in the survivor’s body, thus regaining the abilities they could do outside of this cycle.

In the absence of people who make the survivors feel safe, they tend to stay stuck in a perpetual state of swinging between extreme alertness, intrusive memories, and dissociation. 

Countless people struggle to find safety in their interpersonal relationships and lead the remainder of their lives battling chronic mental health issues associated with trauma. For example, depression, anxiety, addiction, recurring health problems, and suicidal ideation.

As a result, when a caregiver somehow fails to create that feeling of safety for the survivor, they may not be directly causing the pain from the violation. But they’re inadvertently keeping the survivor stuck in their cycle of trauma, posing as an obstacle to their recovery. 

For the survivor, intentional pain caused by a villain in the past, no matter how painful, feels less hurtful than the unintentional pain caused by a loved one in the present. It’s sad because the lack of malintent on the caregiver’s end tends to lead to a feeling of defensiveness that’s counterproductive. 

They’re doing their best to process their own feelings from learning about the trauma while caring for the survivor in whatever way they know. And when those efforts are under-appreciated or even criticised by the survivor, who isn’t articulate enough to directly ask for what they need, it can be a deeply painful experience for everyone involved. 

Firstly, the caregiver is baffled as to how they could possibly be making the survivor feel unsafe. They’re providing for the survivor, going out of their way even to make them happy. But the survivor, despite all these efforts, is not getting any happier. Rather, they seem to be incapable of letting go of the past and moving on with their lives. As my client’s mom said, “Why aren’t they getting happy? I want my old child back!”

Now, what I mean by safety here, and usually what the survivor needs for that sense of safety, isn’t a physical kind. It’s a psychological one where they need their caregivers to witness and not try to fix their pain.

I have heard so many frustrated caregivers rant about how the survivor keeps harping on and on about what happened, never adequately attempting to let go. But in principle, the only way the survivor can move on from it and “let go” is if the cycle of trauma is broken.

In fact, the swinging between alertness, flashbacks, and numbing is actually a survival mechanism. The hypervigilance is warranted because the survivor’s already stressed nervous system cannot afford another violation. So, it will try to be watchful and avoid the next potential hurt. 

The intrusive flashbacks of the pain are the nervous system’s way of consolidating the memory of what happened. It is an unsuccessful attempt to remember sequentially what happened so that one can make sense of it. However, it is unsuccessful because each recollection brings about certain physiological shifts in the body that are so overwhelming that chronic numbing is required.

The only way to break this cycle is to systematically create a feeling of safety for the survivor so that they can be less vigilant and more aware of the physiological reaction to the emotions from the flashback and relax their body back into homeostasis. 

The therapeutic process that occurs between my clients and me is basically this practice of lowering their guard. Helping them grow aware of the flashbacks and notice the accompanying bodily changes. Consequently, instead of numbing, bringing the body back to a state of normalcy. Therefore, unlike what my client’s mum understood it to be, it’s a lot more than just listening. Rather, it is working together consistently to keep breaking the cycle.

Since there is a general lack of awareness of how trauma works and what the cycle breaking involves, most caregivers when witnessing the survivor’s pain, experience their own overwhelming emotions as a reaction. One can feel a whole range of unpleasant emotions, such as shame, rage, grief, helplessness, and frustration. 

How could this happen to you? How could we let this happen to you? How can someone even dare to do this? How can I be related to someone who would do this? Did I go wrong somewhere? How would people react if they knew? What does this mean for the future?

It’s only natural for a caregiver to be bombarded with overwhelming thoughts, feelings, and physical urges. So, it’s not unusual for most caregivers to react to the survivor’s pain in a way that makes more sense to their personal feelings rather than the survivor’s.

Sadly, this is exactly what makes the survivor feel unsafe. They feel misunderstood, unheard, and invalidated because, in the heat of the moment, the listener’s need to handle their own emotions takes precedence over understanding what the survivor is feeling. It is automatic, unintentional, and yet harmful—more harmful than the violation itself.

Because the survivor is not only dealing with the extreme pain from the assault. Now, they also feel responsible for causing discomfort to their loved ones. They feel like a burden. Moreover, they feel inadequate for not being able to heal themselves soon enough. The cycle remains unbroken, and the list of things to be vigilant of keeps increasing.

It wasn’t easy staying calm and unguarded while Aunty unleashed her emotions in front of me. She expressed her helplessness and discomfort seeing her child endlessly battle with her pain. I failed to make her feel safe enough to be receptive to any of the suggestions I was making. 

Instead, I got accused of projecting my own trauma as a CSA survivor onto the client, not guiding them correctly, not giving them the right advice to buck up and move on, and mistakenly forcing her child to keep reliving her pain.

I did my best to stay cool and empathetic. I spoke up for myself but also tried very hard to see where she was coming from. Though I did get her, I didn’t manage to make her feel understood.

Thankfully, some good did come out of the nerve-wracking session. My client left feeling very powerful. They felt validated and seen, and their inner child finally saw a grown-up speaking up on their behalf.

It was actually quite a poetic experience for them. They were sitting in the middle of two mother figures they looked up to (coincidentally, both dressed almost identically): one who was biologically related but wasn’t getting them, and the other, once a stranger, totally in sync with them. I’m not surprised Aunty didn’t like me…in that moment, I was a threat to her sense of motherhood.

Anyway, we concluded the meeting with an acknowledgment of the disagreement, an invitation for future family sessions, and a commitment to continuing the therapy sessions with the client. It went as well as it possibly could have, and yet, I was so relieved that they eventually left, releasing me from the attack to my competence.

I immediately scheduled separate sessions with my own therapist and my supervisor to process what had happened. But I am so glad that I also chose to write all of this out because this was a rich experience that needed to be documented and shared. Who knows, it might help someone other than me, my client, or their loving mom.