Understanding your emotions and responses
Disclaimer: This guide is not intended to replace professional support, guidance, advice, or diagnosis.
Trigger warning: A trigger is a word or an event that can cause an action to take place. In this toolkit certain words can be triggering for survivors. Which means that reading those words or sentences can cause a survivor to either feel uncomfortable or anxious and might even take them back to an unpleasant memory. If while reading someone does experience this, it is best to do a quick grounding exercise.
Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Tell yourself that you are safe and you are ok. Use your breathing as an anchor to help bring you to the present moment. Do this as many times as you want to or at regular intervals. You don't need to go through this toolkit by yourself, sit with someone you trust and ask them to go through it with you.
Valuable Resources
Here are some additional resources if you would like to learn more about the signs of emotional and psychological abuse, consent, and how you might feel emotionally.
To learn more about common responses, visit How you might feel emotionally - Rape Crisis England and Wales
To learn more about the signs of emotional and psychological abuse, visit Chayn’s Manipulation in Abuse guide.