When one person suffers, the whole family suffers
Yet no one prepares us for how to respond to trauma.
Family and friends often report:
- feeling disconnected from the loved one and getting the sense that nothing they say or do is right,
- being unsure of how to support the survivor, including whether it’s okay to talk about what happened,
- increased conflict at home and struggling to resolve it,
- missing how life used to be before the trauma,
- struggling to understand how to set boundaries or get their own needs met without upsetting or triggering the other person.