Her terror at the hands of her abuser was clear. She was tired of being beaten. She wanted it to stop. Inexperienced, following the volunteer organization's guidelines, I stuck to the protocols and gave her the advice I was told to give her. "You need to get away from him. You need to get help...." Easier said than done. Things have changed a lot over the last four decades, and looking back, I can see what I didn't understand back then. Terror will control your life unless you get a handle on it. No matter what causes it, there are ways to manage the fears, even when the threat of harm is real.
Terror is a hard thing to live with, especially when it haunts your every waking moment. There are so many variables, so many unknowns, so many "could go either way" scenarios. Whether you're a woman facing an abusive partner or you're a woman with breast cancer, there's one thing you know too well. Terror.
Long after the bandages come off, regardless of the type you have, you still have to live with the fear of having cancer. Will it pop back up on a scan? Will it manifest as a new physical symptom? Can you outrun it, outmaneuver it? Will that new treatment work? These are the thoughts many cancer patients experience over their time managing the disease.
Oddly enough, they are so very similar to those of abuse victims trying to outwit their abusers. So, can a strategy that helps victims of abuse also help cancer patients?
Over the years, I've come to appreciate a very complex and layered approach to helping victims of abuse, especially those whose abusers are obsessed with them. Most abusers get fixated on their targets and refuse to let go. Their waking hours, and sometimes even their sleeping ones, are dedicated to figuring out ways to bring those victims back under control.
Imagine what it's like for an abuse victim to be a target of someone who wants control. That's real terror. And real terror very often will actually drive the behavior of the victim, making it an effective control. So, the first step is always to find ways to empower the victim in safe ways.
Safe ways? Isn't any way that you can get a woman away from her abuser a safe way? No. The reality is that you can actually provoke more violence with the wrong approach. You can trigger violence by saying and doing the wrong thing. By backing the abuser into a corner, you may actually find he rallies all of his strength to attack in a do-all, end-all, to-the-death finish.
Many victims of abuse benefit from having a team of people who are all on the same page, who are all working from the same playbook. The idea is to surround the victim with people who help her replace that terror that has become a part of her life with new thinking. "I don't have to live this way. I don't have to always be afraid. I can get out from under this pain."
If you've ever seen movies like "The Burning Bed", you know that sometimes abuse victims go to extremes. But the real solution doesn't involve confronting the abuser and knocking him back. It involves changing how the abuse victim perceives the abuse and the hold it has. Move an abuse victim away from the source of that terror, not by pretending that the fear isn't real or isn't dangerous, but by creating a team of real support.
When an abuse victim is most terrified, there is comfort in numbers. There is a sense of safety in being around people who are reassuring, strong, confident, and calm. Learning to let go of the psychic pain of abuse is a process that takes time, practice, energy, and above all, the right kind of support.
For every cancer patient who can't sleep for fear that as he or she does, the cancer is setting up shop again in the body, who walks through the days and nights feeling battered, real support is critical. It isn't a matter of saying, "Everything will be fine. Don't worry." That's like telling an abused woman not to worry about the shadow she saw outside her window last night. It's probably not the boyfriend who beat her mercilessly a year ago. Cancer patients, like abuse victims, have the right to worry, and they often have solid reasons to worry. But they still need to live life out loud.
How do you do that when there are shadows and unexplained noises and things that go bump in the night? For every cancer patient who feels betrayed by his or her body, being a victim of the disease stinks. Feel vulnerable? Feel weak? Feel useless? You will begin to believe that you deserve what you are experiencing as a cancer survivor. And let's not forget the fact that many cancer survivors and their caregivers find people in their social circles melting away as the disease progresses. It's a fairly common occurrence because we all have those fair weather friends who can't handle the storm, but we also have the diehards who never desert the ship. We need to let go of the people in our lives who don't support us and we need to utilize the ones who do.
When an abuse victim changes his or her mindset, when the feeling of self-confidence, self-esteem, and even personal strength begins to flow back, that's when the real healing begins. You begin to feel worthy of protection. You choose to be proactive in taking care of yourself and preventing any further abuse. You value yourself, your life, and those around you who stood by you in your time of need. Little by little, day by day, as you go on, as you feel the terror fading, you begin to believe in life again, in love, in goodness.
Some people think that anger for an aggressor, confrontation, and even rage is the way to fight back, but in my experience, the best healing is that which takes the victim to a better, safer place by moving him or her away from the source of the continuous violence and psychic pain. Immersion in that lifestyle of repeated abuse only reinforces the terror. She needs a break in the pattern to be able to see that it's possible to live without it. And once there is that light at the end of the tunnel, much is possible. Having an imaginary conversation with her abuser very often allows a victim to put perspective to the abuse, to begin to understand what she's endured, what she's missing in life, and what she wants to change about her life. That conscious process begins to sort out all the powerful emotions she grapples with when terror is in charge.
There's a difference between a woman confronting her fears about her abuser, shouting to the heavens that she's not going to take it any more, and a woman confronting someone who has the actual physical capacity to kill her. Unless she's on equal ground with her abuser and has the ability to safely defend herself, the last thing that's really helpful is allowing her to punch out his lights, especially if he's obsessed with her. It will only feed his need to control, to manipulate, to master his victim. When you come between an aggressor and his victim, and you intervene by distraction, disruption, and deflection, you are interrupting his pattern of abuse, changing his access to the victim, so that he's not as satisfied by the attack mechanism.
Cancer, like an obsessed stalker, is not a person with real feelings or rational thought processes. It's not a person with whom you can argue or negotiate on real terms. Cancer is cancer. You want it as far away from your loved one as possible. You want to intercede as best you can to keep it at bay. And you want your loved one to know that you will do what you can to make that happen. But you also need to respect your loved one's need to understand how cancer has changed life for him or her. There is an internal battle going on, one that will be decided by the cancer survivor. You cannot make your loved one go through the process of making peace with cancer's abuse. You can only be the supporter of your loved one.
In taking that approach, you are mindful of the power cancer has over your loved one. You probably feel some of that terror yourself now and again. But when you think of cancer as something that paralyzes your loved one with fear, you can begin to understand that utilizing your strength as a caregiver means you can help your loved one overcome that terror. You can help your loved one reclaim personal power and personal choice.
Yes, abuse victims and cancer survivors often find themselves trapped by their fear of the next blows, the next attack, the next time it happens, and it's up to those of us who love them to help them find their way out of that horrible darkness, not with fairy tale platitudes or cartoon solutions, but by recognizing the power of the fear over the victim and the need to move the victim into a safer environment, one that offers real support and real strength while the victim heals.
If you really want to help your loved one come to grips with the terror of having cancer, look around you. Who do you know who has been through cancer and survived? Very often, people who have had more than one fight with the disease have developed strategies. Talk to cancer survivors. Get involved with support groups, whether in person or online. Listen to people who have been there, done that, and got the tee shirt. They will tell you what worked for them. It's rare that you will find a cancer patient who has navigated that difficult time and refuses to share insight and wisdom.
But don't stop there when you are forming a support team for your loved one. Who do you know who has had major challenges in life and survived them? Look for people who have had experience in overcoming the odds. These are people who have worked on building their inner strength, and inner strength is required for the battle on terror. They may not have first-hand knowledge of cancer, but they know what it's like to manage terror on a regular basis. Learn from them. How did they handle that constant barrage of in-your-face fear? How did they overcome the endless worries and put things in perspective?
And most important of all, minimize the contact your loved one has with people who secretly feed that terror, who have those all-too-familiar stories, complete with all the gruesome details of how the disease came back overnight and swallowed their loved one whole..."dead within a week...nothing the doctors could do...absolute disaster!" Take heart from the new reality of the war on cancer. Every single day, treatments are being developed. What was the cancer fight ten years ago is very different than the cancer fight five years ago. What was the cancer fight five years ago is very different than the cancer fight today. What matters is what's happening now, not what Aunt Bertha and Uncle Herb went through back in '69. As cancer treatments evolve, much of what went on in the last decade is now almost ancient history in cancer management.
Support your loved one by recognizing that it's not just the cancer and the treatment of the disease that affects him or her. It's also managing the terror of having cancer. Help your loved one to find safe, effective ways to readjust to life, by understanding the grip cancer has on the psyche. When your loved one feels surrounded with genuine support, real strength, and understanding of the healing process, when your loved one feels understood, that's when the real healing begins. You will never be able to promise a cancer-free life, but you can, and should, promise to be there through the days and nights of terror.
There is strength in numbers, in hands joined together, in comfort that is borne of the desire to empower. It's not about having a magic wand to wipe away the pain or fear of having cancer. It's about being there and giving what the cancer patient most needs -- your wisdom, you compassion, and your commitment to provide what is required for healing the body, the heart, and even the mind. When you pull all of that together, the spirit finds its wings again and can fly.
Every cancer patient needs the freedom to live life out loud. That's because it's what every human being, with or without cancer, needs. Getting back to being human is the biggest hurdle for cancer patients, and the road can be bumpy. Smooth the way for someone you love. The rewards are great. Not only will you gain insight and understanding of life and love, your world will be enriched by having the chance to rub shoulders with some pretty amazing people.
For more help as a caregiver, visit The Practical Caregiver Guides
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