If you’re supporting a victim/survivor

• We urge survivors to put together a circle of support of partner(s), friends, family members if you have the ability to.

• An alternative is to join an existing support group, eg, Little Ro and Survivor’s Voice jointly run survivor support pods three nights a week. You can contact them for an invitation to join. 

• Please remember that a survivor are under no obligation to talk about it to anyone unless that is the best course of action for you. If someone else is pressuring you, it’s okay to say no or set other boundaries. 

Who to include in a support group/pod 

I would strongly urge survivors to include at least one party that is knowledgable and experienced about sexual assault/GBV as a support group lead (see bullet point list below). A support group/pod does not necessarily have to be a survivor’s closest friends though they often will be. Rather, they should be people the survivor trusts with validating and understanding your emotions and experiences, have the literal time and emotional capacity to support, and will not cause further trauma. For example, a survivor may be close to someone who isn’t informed about the dynamics of consent violations, may be friends with both survivor and perpetrator, may be very busy and not emotionally intuitive; such a person may be well-intentioned but they may also say something that can ultimately feel harmful or unsupportive. 

Survivors should vet your pod members through short meetings (30 - 60 minutes). It can be difficult to take action or make decisions while feeling traumatized/overwhelmed; if so, a survivor may want to rely on a trusted person to help vet their pod. 

• Sexual Assault Advocate

• Therapist/counselor

• People who are knowledgeable about the dynamics of consent violations

• Close, emotionally intelligent friends / family members who have the emotional capacity to actively listen without judgment. 

• If possible, you may want to consider asking people who do not share community with both you and the person who violated consent. 

• Members of your broader community who have experienced a consent violation, understand the dynamics of such violations, and have themselves healed and have the capacity to provide you with support. 

How many people should be in a support pod? 

We would recommend at least three - five people be in your support group. This is so all of your support pod members can remain supportive, and their capacity is not hampered.  

For Folks Joining a Support Pod  

While there are a few unique factors that make speaking to someone who has experienced a consent violation - such as knowing the dynamics surrounding consent violations - what’s most helpful are the same skills that you’d apply when listening to a friend with any other traumatic/troubling experience: actively listen, don’t blame or shame, focus on them, and put aside your feelings.

For someone joining a support pod/providing support to someone who has experienced a consent violation, remember that healing from such a violation is not linear. Many survivors will not be able to admit something was “rape” or “a consent violation” for months or even years following the violation. People often struggle to admit they were a “victim”, as “victim” is a loaded term in our society, and come with a lot of harmful perceptions. Even if someone can admit what happened to them was rape, they may still struggle in other ways, eg, to admit that they are struggling. Sometimes, a person who was harmed will ask you for more support a few months (or even years) after the violation rather than immediately following such violation. An event/thing may cause a person who experienced a violation to feel triggered months or even years after the original incident. Healing from a consent violation can be a lifelong process. 

• Advocate for the person you are supporting through asking for a conversation around sharing spaces/community with the person who violated the consent/caused the harm. If the person who was harmed and the person who caused the harm share community, this can be a concern for the person harmed. Find out what the survivor wants in terms of sharing space/community aggressor, and advocate for it on their behalf. . 

• Believe them. Make it clear that you know and believe the violation happened, and reassure them that it was not their fault.

• It was a big deal. Those harmed by consent violations will often say things like “it wasn’t that big of a deal, I know other people have been through worse.” Assure them it was serious and harmful if they try to downplay it, reassure them that the blame and shame fully lies on the person who committed the violation.

• Be available for the person who was harmed to express a range of feelings. The feelings those who have experienced consent violations feel aren’t prescriptive. They may express sadness, anger, rage, frustration, panic, overwhelm, numbness, shock…and they may rapidly fluctuate among these emotions. They may feel that it will never end, their “brain is broken”, they may feel isolated by their emotions. They may have other extreme feelings or thoughts. It’s not “normal” to feel any specific emotion, it’s not normal not to feel any either. Some of the harmed will talk of their trauma constantly/uncontrollable, others will do the opposite and refuse to speak of it at all. These are all valid, please allow them to express and hopefully, move through them. 

• Uses phrases that validate their emotions, don’t tell them how to feel. Affirming, validating phrases such as “I understand how you feel”, “That sounds really hard”, “I’m so sorry that happened”. Don’t say phrases that tell them how they should feel, eg, avoid “I know you must be experiencing PTSD…”

• Remain calm. You may feel outraged, overwhelmed, shocked, angry, but please don’t express your feelings as you support, because they might cause the person who was harmed to feel confused or uncomfortable.

• Empower the person who was harmed; give them control and autonomy. Give them control, as control and autonomy were taken away by the consent violation. Remember that what the person who was harmed chooses to do, and how they choose to handle it is ultimately their choice.

• Don’t push the person who was harmed for information they aren’t readily giving.

• The survivor/victim can’t prevent future harms, nor is it their responsibility to do so. The only person who can stop a violation from happening is the person who commits the violation; the decision to report or not report or to otherwise “stop” the person who violated consent isn’t the responsibility of the person who was harmed. 

• Be a friend, supporter, and advocate. Assure the survivor/victim that your relationship will remain intact. Most people who experienced harm say that the aftermath of the assault was worse than the assault itself, and the loss of friends and community caused secondary harm and trauma.

• Understand the dynamics. Knowing the data/research of assault can help with this. If you’re comfortable doing so and in a position to do so, advocate for the survivor/victim, with their permission, to other friends/family/etc rather than having them tell their story repeatedly on their own (repeating a story increases the likelihood of trauma and PTSD). Often, when/if a consent violation becomes public knowledge, people who experience consent violations are ostracized, not believed, are told they’re “too much” or that their feelings/thoughts are too much or not valid, are blamed and shamed (eg, it was their fault for not recognizing the person who harmed as such) and through those, combined with the shame and strong emotions surrounding violation, they lose friends/community/work opportunities/etc. If this is happening to them and you are in a position to advocate for them, please do so. Please assure them that such losses are typical (I’ve found this usually is reassuring when speaking those who experienced violations) and are the fault of the people ostracizing (etc) and not their. 

• Avoid the tropes: victim blaming, credibility biases, false accusations and belief in rape myths. Those supporting a survivor should be aware of DARVO: deny, attack, reverse victim - offender, manipulation tactics used by wrongdoers (abusers) to draw attention away from the sexual assault/GBV and instead attack the survivors — which increases the survivor’s trauma.

• Maintain confidentiality. Please maintain confidentiality in regards to any harm reported, and DO NOT absolutely not retaliate against anyone who experienced a consent violation. 

• Encourage self-care & provide resources. Encourage therapy, but do not take the autonomy of the person who was harmed away by forcing therapy upon them.

• Establish boundaries. If you don’t feel that you have the emotional capacity or your emotional capacity is limited in helping, let them know explicitly and clearly, assert that it is your lack of capacity and not their fault, and clarify that they should not feel guilt, shame, or that their feelings are too much. Be sure to frame this as being on you and not on them.

• Be aware of red flags (suicide ideation, thoughts of doom, specific plans for revenge), and get help when you notice these. Up to a third of those who experience serious consent violations will ideate suicide; speak to a mental health expert/hotline/their therapist when it gets to this point. It’s not abnormal and may be healthy in healing to have vague fantasies of revenge, but seek (mental health) help when they are thinking of very specific plans.

• Offer to accompany them if they choose to file a police report.

Most of those who experience consent violations will tell you that much of the psychological harm came from the way the violation was handled, and what was said to them in the aftermath. We as a community can do so much to be supportive, and stop this type of trauma.