This is for someone who truly cares about survivors: When someone is in pain, fear, or extreme emotional stress, it’s valid that you want to offer concrete help. But the instinct to edit the uncomfortable reality around you when seeing someone suffer is not always helpful. Offer a solution, reframe the situation, point toward what’s next… They sometimes come from a good place, yet frequently miss the point entirely. Understanding, when taking care of survivors, is far more helpful than any well-meaning yet uninformed actions.
Try to Understand First
For trauma survivors, especially, being helped and being understood are not the same thing. And the order matters enormously. Neuroscientist and psychiatrist Daniel Siegel coined the phrase feeling felt to describe something more specific than empathy: the experience of having your internal state recognized and matched by another person. Not fixed. Not redirected. Recognized. According to Siegel’s interpersonal neurobiology framework, this experience of being truly seen by another person is not just emotionally comforting — it is neurologically regulating. The nervous system responds to attunement the way it responds to safety. (Related: Window of Tolerance: An Important Framework for Trauma-Informed Care)
Do Not Judge or Rush to Give Advice
This may be counterintuitive. But giving advice sometimes only re-traumatises. As a survivor, the last thing I want is to be told what to do or what to feel. Because that feels like part of the abuse where we were cornered, controlled, manipulated, disoriented, and insulted.
This is why advice, however well-intentioned, often lands badly at an early stage. A dysregulated nervous system cannot meaningfully receive or process cognitive input. And sometimes, receiving advice reinforces the belief that they were unable to protect themselves, which was devastating, stripping away their power further. The brain under extreme stress is not effective in evaluating options or considering perspectives.
What to Do?
According to my personal humbling experience, if you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything. Just listen. Leaving us felt seen and heard is way better than re-traumatizing us by treating us like an idiot. (Related: 5 Core Principles of Trauma-informed Care You Need to Know)
Certainly, this should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. But generally speaking, this is not a public tantrum to throw, but a genuine plea. What a survivor needs first is to come out of threat mode. And that shift happens relationally, through co-regulation, through the felt sense that another person is present, not through what they offer. (Related: Co-Regulation: One of the Best Things You Can Do with Someone)
Final Note
Many abuse survivors describe feeling profoundly alone in rooms full of people trying to assist them. The help was real. The feeling of being felt was not.
Trying to understand first. It is not only a protocol, but it also creates the neurological conditions for help to actually reach someone. Without it, advice slides off the surface of a system that is still bracing. And in most cases, if someone tends to jump straight to the advising part, they need to be honest with themselves: What are you actually offering? (Related: What Really Happens When People Give Unsolicited Advice)
*What is Daily Insight? An ongoing series of quick, bite-sized brain snacks. Every week, there are three research-based factual reports and three research-informed reflective notes.
*Note: This series is for informational purposes only and is not intended to give advice. If you are in crisis, please reach out for professional help. Always prioritize your wellbeing.*
*What is the Rebuilt Series? Like many adults coming from a dysfunctional family, having gone through an abusive early social group, and/or having survived SA and DV, I’ve heard too much unsolicited advice, judgment, and preaching when seeking support. So much more than understanding. Rather than reassurance, this series shares the vocabulary, strategies, and clarity that I’ve gained over time.
