By Krista February
4, 2009
The Shock Stage
–
When a person first learns
that they have been cheated on, their immediate instinctive reaction depends on
a few different things:
á How surprised they are by it (did the victim already
suspect it or not),
á How the victim feels about the cheater and the other
person involved in the affair (relationship length, feelings, the type of relationship
they had, who the cheating was done with, how much the victim trusted the
cheater in the first place, future plans or intents, etc.),
á How they react to bad news, drama, trauma, grief
(venting, crying, yelling, physical outbursts, violence, withdrawing).
People experience things
differently and circumstances are a factor, so not everyone will experience all
of these phases and/or the order may be different. Furthermore, some may go
through phases very quickly while others may go through the stages or certain
stages slowly. This happens because of difficulties or blockages in certain
aspects of the personŐs desire or skills at that time to cope with and overcome
that particular stage. If this is happening to you, explore the subject in
depth to find solutions that improve your life in that area. Creating healing
and self-worth is your objective after a betrayal.
The Pain Stage –
Accountability is what
creates better people. Without that discipline, we would all be running around
do whatever we want without regard to others. You are responsible for yourself
and your behavior. They are responsible for theirs. When someone hurts you, you
have a right to tell them about how they hurt you and how it makes you feel.
Now, sometimes, people get sick of listening and maybe you still feel that you
need to vent or talk about it. That is when it is helpful to have more people
to talk to, like friends, family, therapy professionals, and groups, so that
you donŐt overwhelm one person while you still get what you need to get through
it.
Additionally, The best thing
to do throughout all of these phases is to write in a journal. It will be very
helpful for you as you go through the different stages to have a journal to
look back at and see your progress, as well as to help you keep a clear mind,
which will help in the healing and re-growth processes.
Anger
As a victim, anger is a
necessary and constructive emotion to experience after a betrayal. All emotions
are useful and necessary. At this moment, anger is necessary to recognize and
discern truth, and to release the energy that this trauma created in your
energy field. The important thing is to use the anger in a positive manner.
Hitting a wall is bad. Hurting yourself or other is bad. Exercising is good.
Talking to a friend is good, as long as they are ok with it, and as long as
they have their own release of the negative energy they will experience too. In
this situation, the betrayer is the appropriate person to get the brunt of your
anger. This person deserves to hear your feelings, thoughts, and see how hurt
you are by their betrayal. and the person who hurt you fully expects to be
punished. Without punishment, that person will feel like they got off to easy
and they will be confused, setting off a series of their own stages of
behavior. Using anger to yell when it is appropriate is ok. Do not ever let
anyone try to tell you it isnŐt. That is their own issue to deal with if they
want to think that.
Blame
A time will come when you
start blaming the betrayer, other people, and perhaps yourself for the betrayal
and other things associated with it. That is normal. Use your time during this
phase to try to be logical and evaluate what you honestly believe to be true.
Numbness
Numbness sets in when you
canŐt deal with anything more and you feel so exhausted and full to the brim
with stress, anxiety and emotions that you just canŐt handle any more.
Internalizing with
Hypercritical Insecurity
We all feel self-doubt and
go through times when we think we are to blame because we have flaws. That is
healthy and constructive because we can change for the better out of what we
realize during this phase. Just try to keep it in perspective. You are not to
blame for others bad behaviors. You may be this or that, but you are you and
that means that you are a whole entire person filled with great qualities, good
qualities, ok qualities, not-so-great qualities, and bad qualities, and so are
all others. And that is ok. Just live and learn.
Confusion
There is a period of time
when replaying all the things that could have led up to the betrayal occurs and
you are dealing with all the emotions and thoughts regarding how you could have
prevented it from happening. The only advice I can give to help you during this
time is that this experience happened for a reason. It needed to happen so you
could cross a bridge in your life. Evaluate any mistakes you may have made
along the way and write them in your journal with everything else so that
hopefully in the future you have more skills to protect yourself from people
that willingly want to cause you harm, but also understand that most people
donŐt really think before they act as well as they should and most people donŐt
intentionally cause irreparable damage to their lives or others lives out of
malice. Things happen and while they may be unforgiveable, they happen for a
reason, to teach us and others how to live and treat others better.
The Depression Stage
–
After all of the external
emotions are released outwardly, the internal damage starts to sink in and
causes a period of time when you lose interest in much else besides feeling an
intense loss of hope and feeling awful about yourself and your future. This is
natural and it too will pass. If it lasts more than a couple weeks, or if it affects
your work or your ability to take care of people and/or responsibilities, then
you need to go to see a doctor because they can help you through it, with a
variety of options in how to help you through the depression. There is no shame
in needing help to get over trauma to your personal life any more than there is
after a car accident or a death. You have experienced a loss. A loss of your
innocence, ability to completely trust another person, companionship with that
person, whether temporary or permanent, and all that goes along with that loss
affects your life in profound ways. Just try to understand that what you are
going through is what everyone goes through in one way or another at some point
in their lives and since it has been happening to people for that long, that
means that you too can get through it.
Experiencing the Depth of
the Betrayal
Journal and talk to someone
about your feelings You need to let out the thoughts and feelings, for two
reasons: 1) in order to heal from trauma, you need to let go of how thinking
about it makes you feel inside, and 2) you canŐt move forward until you deal
with how you think about your past. This is a time of intense introspection to
get to the bottom of any unresolved issues and heal them once and for all so
that you can live a better future. Take a healing workshop (for example The
Seven Steps of Healing Charkas and/or the Twelve Steps), which goes through the
steps of your entire life, from childhood through the present and offers
meditations to let go of all the pains and troubles of every phase of your
life. Trauma has a way of stirring up other non-related emotional pains that
are yet unresolved, so trauma creates a lot of layers of painful feelings and
painful memories. Deal with them head on inside yourself and change your own
life, because you cannot change others or what they already did. You canŐt
change the past, but you CAN change the way your past makes you feel, and what
you think about.
Recognizing the Depth of
the Loss
You lost your innocence and
it is ok to recognize the depth of how awful that makes you feel. It IS healthy
to cry. Crying is an emotional release. Without crying your body would need
another way to release negative emotions and crying is something you can do for
yourself in private that releases energy for you without affecting anyone else.
Crying is a great tool our physical bodies have for a reason. Utilize crying as
a tool to recognize the depth of your loss so you can move on to a better
future.
The Acceptance Stage
–
Release
Keep letting go of the
negative feelings and negative energy you have from your negative experience.
Let off steam in healthy ways, like through physical exercise. On a physical
level, your adrenaline is pumping when you are processing negative things, so
you need to give yourself a an emotional and physical release in healthy ways
that are good for you. Running is a great way to accomplish this step because
psychologically you can use the imagery as if you are running from your problem
toward something better. If you canŐt run, as many people cannot, then find
another way to experience the same type of psychological goal. Go for a
passenger drive with the wind in your hair. Go horseback riding in an open
field. Allow yourself to experience emotional freedom on a whole new level.
Renewal
Allow yourself to put the
past in the past and renew your mind for better things to come.
The Rebuilding Stage
–
Rebuilding
Strength and Sense of Self
It
is crucial that you explore and experience positive things to bulid yourself
back up. Take classes, go places and do things that you enjoy. Join a social
group, like Meetin.com and Meetup.com. Make new platonic friends and do not
participate in drama in your new relationships. Allow yourself to go out into
the world as it is a playground and play! Have fun. Laugh. Enjoy something
every day of your life and you will find that after a while you will enjoy your
life again.
Healthy
Analysis of the Relationship
At
this point, you are ready to emotionally handle the difficult process of
analyzing what you did wrong and what was done wrong to you from an unbiased
perspective. It is important that you correct your mistakes so that you do not
make the same mistakes in your next relationship. Actively work out your areas
of improvement while learning from experience. Learning from your relationship
is the purpose of the relationships that donŐt last. Make the most of the
opportunity.
Developing
New Skills
Read,
educate yourself in various ways you have perhaps always thought of doing but
never actually did. Take a martial arts class. Join a gym. Take a workshop through the local adult
education programs at your local high school and church. Learn how to live a
healthy happy life.
Releasing
the Emotions of Grief
Release
is vital to your personal growth. Once you have grown from what happened to you
by building positives on top of the experience of what happened to you, you can
release the negative feelings surrounding the experience because they are no
longer necessary. You now have strength, skills, fun, and happiness to reflect
upon learning from your experience. This allows you to accept what happened as
a life experience meant to create a better version of you that you could have
been without that experience.
Reinvesting
Emotional Energy in the Present
Accumulating all of these
elements of the rebuilding stage allows you to focus on the present. Your
present life is better than your life was before the trauma, so you can focus
on the here and now quite easily.
The Hope Stage –
Opening to New
Experiences
At this point, now you are
ready to think about getting back out into dating, walking or driving in the
same area the trauma happened, trusting people, etc. You needed to allow yourself the time to heal and grow, but
you also need to open yourself again to the joys that life has to offer. Find
someone else who needs your help and help them. Take care of plants and pets to
help things that are living and healthy in your life. Wake up and be grateful
for the great day today that is NOT a day of emotional trauma. Today is a great
day no matter what today brings because today is not yesterday!
Feeling Good About the
Future
You have so many more life
skills now that the next time anything bad happens to you, you can recognize it
as a learning experience and grow from it quicker, and go through these stages
much more efficiently. You will find that you are able to go through bad things
with a vitality that others respect and you respect in yourself. You can enjoy
your life on a much higher plane of existence when you start from a higher
level in your perspective of the events occurring around you, not TO you. Your
physical body is only a vessel you experience your life in, like a car. What
happens in your life is all able to be viewed as scenery on the road to your
personal best version of you!