Betrayal Trauma | The Signs

[Music] hi Dr Romy thanks for being here what is betrayal trauma so betrayal trauma is a series of reactions that a person will experience psychological and emotional reactions that a person will experience after a pretty significant and protracted period of betrayal in a closer significant relationship so you know sort of a classical example of betrayal trauma would be it's not a simple as just somebody cheated on you but you come to find out they've been cheating on you for 15 years or they have a child with this other person or all all those years you

or months or whatever you suspected they were cheating on you and you keep bringing it up like something doesn't feel right they're like don't be ridiculous and they come up with all these aliis and Gaslight and all of that it's this it's this Fallout that comes after somebody who's been significantly betrayed it could be it could be something that's a public betrayal you know that somebody not it's not just an infidelity but maybe an infidelity with a family member like you're sleeping with your sister kind of thing or they're they're behaving in a really inappropriate

way in a public way that could bring shame upon a family so and it again it tends not to be sort of a one-off it's something that may have been going on for a very long time and then a person comes to find out there was this whole big story behind the Betrayal it wasn't just this one thing it was it was this whole constellation of things that kind of came together and it it's really destabilizing for a person who goes through it through it is the term or phrase betrayal trauma something that's being used

by clinicians or is this a lay man's term no no it's something that clinicians use and it's it's I I often view betrayal trauma is something that's very tightly Linked In with complex post complex trauma not necessarily I mean it's say again complex trauma has some specific kinds of parameters around what that trauma looks like but if the Betrayal trauma is long-term enough is sort of has this really kind of big wide web around it that in essence a person experiencing betrayal trauma will say I was married to a stranger or my family member is

a stranger or it's just sort of this what just happened kind of thing and a person kind of walking through their life kind of hollowed out looking like a deer in the headlights because it's not just as simple as somebody wakes up one day and says you know what this marriage isn't working anymore let's it's not that and you're kind of sad like where did this come from but there is no other person you really truly did grow apart this is something very very different sort of Deceit upon deceit upon deceit I understand that so

how does somebody respond differently from a betrayal trauma versus a more standard trauma like we're getting a divorce that can be traumatic that's a big deal but it's not I mean I think that what gets tricky is like again this word trauma and without belaboring it is like where do we use it somebody's saying hey we've been growing apart for for years now you want to take this job in a different city I think we need to talk about you know unbraiding this is that traumatic it's certainly stressful it's certainly upsetting I think though somebody

waking up one day and recognizing that for years their trust has been violated in a fundamental way what they thought life to be simply wasn't life things that they suspected they that's a that almost elevates it a bit more to a trauma because it's just it's so much and it can often affect a person's stand in the community and on and on so I think that the the the nature of betrayal the that fundamental violation of trust people growing apart isn't a violation of trust it's just sort of like things changed yeah yeah so what

are the symptoms or what types of behaviors would people experience After experiencing Behavioral or after experience betrayal trauma so when we in betrayal trauma we see a lot of the patterns similar to what we sometimes see in narcissistic abuse rumination um almost a fixation and sometimes even an obsessiveness the focus on the situation what do what what did I miss what just happened going back looking at old messages emails you like trying to almost construct it where where did I not see this right it's a a sort of a feeling almost like dissociated from your

own instincts like how did I did I see this didn't I see this so like a person literally doubting themselves and blaming in themselves sometimes in a really sort of a fundamental way tremendous anxiety a person like you just you're on edge you can't believe this has happened it's a um it's G tremendous grief the life you thought you had you actually don't have and so there's this massive shift to like okay this was my life last week and this is my life this week and how could this be happening it is a it is

it's confusion you might even see some of the sort of the patterns you'd see in sort of post- trauma of sort of a difficulty concentrating sort of a feeling of being on edge being very hypervigilant very aware of everything that's happening and betrayal trauma can also be complicated that as the Betrayal becomes known the person may keep getting continually hit with more reports they'll see something on social media a friend will say that they saw something like then all if it's a public story they'll keep having things coming up in the news or the headlines

so it's not like it's oneand done this keeps happening and a person keeps getting reminded of it and then again they may not sleep well and have changes in their appetite so it's just awful it feels awful I've I've never experienced betrayal trauma but I would imagine that I would question everything afterwards I wouldn't trust anybody I would go my boss is probably lying to me my parents are probably lying to correct so you've lost all trust in anything everyone you become suspicious suspiciousness really depletes a lot of our bandwidth right because you're always looking

you can't trust anyone you almost you're wasting all this time doing due diligence on everything even people you thought you could trust and above all else you stop trusting yourself and a lot of people going through betrayal trauma feel foolish like how I I suspected this I knew this I let myself be talked out of it and this is happening repeatedly and how did I miss it for so many years and everyone's going to think I'm an idiot cuz how did I not know this was happening for 10 years so there's there's a shame that

comes from betrayal trauma as well yeah okay let's move into some solutions for this therapeutic interventions for betrayal trauma what do we have that you like I would say if somebody's going through betrayal trauma step one is to have a place to vent and talk about it again and again and again what clinicians need to understand is that these are folks who are experiencing a massive sense of Injustice and there's nothing we can do to make them feel whole so part of it is letting because I do believe that if we let a person say

something over and over again they kind of off gas it there's like a dialysis that takes place you just because I think over time unfortunately a lot of people going through betrayal trauma a lot of their social supports do get burned out after a while like I cannot listen to this again nothing is changing right and they may say like I can't I just can't do this anymore whereas a therapist that's their that's what they do and so and to not judge that I think that people just need to keep going and then at some

point even just with the advantage of time things may shift but if the Betrayal trauma is one where stuff keeps coming up more Revelations are made it can be a really drawn out PR process the other is that the therapy becomes a place to process the grief a person is grieving a life they thought they had a relationship they thought they had it's not like nobody's dead so this is a very difficult kind of grief it's a it's um it's it's something that Pauline boss sometimes calls ambiguous grief is this idea of it's like everyone's

saying okay I get grief they're not dead you know you can move on it it would actually been easier if the person was dead because then it's not they're not out there living in their new betrayal future kind of thing whereas a person going through this is going through very real grief and we'll keep saying I can't believe that life is gone they can't I mean they had a life and now they don't have that life to really step for a minute and say what must that feel like it's almost like having your house burned

down you know you had a house and now you don't have a house anymore and so I I I think that it's very important that in therapy that grief process gets to unfold because we often give short shrift to people who are going through betrayal trauma the world may sometimes look at these as people scorned oh they're just her cuz this person no it's much more than that like fundamental truths in their life have been utterly violated and so it's it's therapy becomes a very patient process of letting the grief unfold empathizing with the client

and recognizing that this is an injustice that there's no magic wand we can wave over this to make it okay and then simultaneous to that a lot of betrayal trauma is perpetrated by people who are sociopathic Psychopathic narcissistic manipulative and so some of it becomes a psycho education about what those personality styles are and sometimes that helps people have a framework so they don't feel as lost are there any therapeutic mod ities like CBT that you would recommend I think one of the challenges becomes is that you know CBT is like change how you think

about this right the person's like I don't even know how to think about this right is that you know person betrayed you they've betrayed you and if it's been going on a long time it feels terrible so I do think that just creating a safe holding space more that we'd see in more of a humanistic style of like letting a person talk it out I do think an Eclectic approach would be absolutely essential here where you get at some of the historic issues around betrayal this may be mirroring a betrayal from childhood let's say a

person's betrayal traumas around infidelity and they one parent cheated on the other that could be really bringing up some old stuff acceptance and commitment therapy can also become very important because at the end of the day it's this is it you know and you've got to you sort of have to work with doesn't mean you're okay with it but you're going to have to work with that for folks who may feel very disregulated because some people will really get angry they will get you know they they again it's obsessive they might find that their emotions

are out of control and in some ways modalities even though a person going through this it doesn't mean they have a personality issue but modalities like dialectical behavioral therapy or DBT that can also help people sort of deal with sort of bringing in skills like mindfulness and sort of how to think about things just sort of how to to be with this to be with this kind of betrayal there's some things there that can be quite useful um so I do think the therapist doing this would be drawing from different models and if a person

has a trauma history it's really important that it be a trauma informed perspective well hey shout out to all of you out there moving through that betrayal trauma goodness gracious and uh also shout out to all the supporters out there you guys play a big role so thank you for watching this um so that you're you're well informed Dr Romney thank you so much and remember whatever you're going through you got this [Music]