Ok finally the rupture and repair post!!!
Rupture & repair is the most important thing to be able to do in a relationship, imo. Ruptures are not always one person acting in a way that directly causes harm to another person (they can also involve more than one person; we all have experiences of friend groups rupturing;) more frequently they are patterns of unaddressed hurt that build up over the course of a relationship when communication is poor and conversations about harm and disconnect are focused on saving face and avoiding the feeling of guilt. This is very hard to train yourself out of, in my experience, particularly when one has relational trauma. Conflict can feel like the absolute end of the world, and admitting that anything you did might have hurt someone you care about is like putting your hand on a hot stove. It's easy to respond reactively and defensively when having conversations that involve conflict, disagreement, frustration, or anger. Or even when someone is simply giving you the information "this thing you did hurt me," because when you are relationally traumatized (most people are to some degree imo) that feels like an attack. And "feels like" is not meant to be dismissive here -- the way our nervous systems respond to perceived threats is VERY real and physiological. That's what makes these patterns so hard to change. Often this means that one needs some degree of stability and safety in order to do this with the least amount of pain, but I have found ways to hack the way I think about it which allow me to reframe how I experience receiving this information, and I think this might be useful to others as well.
Most people want to have genuine, trusting and positive connections with their friends & loved ones. Most people do not want to have dysfunctional and conflict-filled relationships wherein nothing can ever be productively discussed. Assume your goal is that you want to hurt the people in your life the least amount possible, and be able to respond to the hurts that do inevitably occur in such a way that it does not weaken the relationship. You also want the other person to do the same; you want this to go both ways. You want to feel safe being able to talk to the people in your life about the impact their behavior has had on you without getting attacked or guilt tripped or punished.
In order to repair (and ultimately reduce!) interpersonal harm you cause, you have to know when it happens and what specific behavior has caused it. The only way to get this information is directly from the people who have experienced the harm, which necessitates those people being comfortable giving you that information. When people do not feel comfortable giving you that information in the moment in a way that allows for correction and repair, you are likely to only find out about the ways in which you are harming people when those people leave. In general, we don't want the people in our lives who we care about to leave. Therefore it is beneficial to proactively try to ensure that the people in our lives are comfortable coming to us with this information. If you are successful doing this, it has the knock-on benefit of modelling for others that these conversations are not scary, and in fact build trust and intimacy when done with care.
So, how do we create a relational atmosphere which lets the people we care about know that we can be trusted not to punish them when they share this information with us? This is the tricky part! It involves a lot of trial and error, and of course our own behavior is not the only factor; most people with relational trauma will feel an aversion to being honest with someone who has hurt them simply based on past experiences, and this often will be true regardless of who they are interacting with. I pretty much only interact with fairly profoundly traumatized people, so this part is important for me to keep in mind. I don't just want to make the experience of sharing this information feel safe, I want it to feel rewarding. I want to behave in ways that encourage it. Again, there is the knock-on effect of modelling this behavior for others: responding gracefully and productively to conflicts shows other people how that can be done, and shows that the results are preferable to trying to make every conflict into a Dominance Battle, which encourages them to try to do the same. If you get two people who are both genuinely trying to do this with one another, you can really speedrun the process of unlearning conflict trauma! So my first piece of advice is: buddy up! Find people who you trust who want to practice this with you.
That all said, here is my personal process, which is geared towards asynchronous communication but which has some utility for phone or in person convos as well:
1. Upon receipt of information, monitor my body. Typically receiving information that my behavior has hurt someone will trigger some pretty Big Bad Feelings; I have learned to identify the specific physiological reactions my nervous system triggers when this happen (for me it's usually a feeling of like, my chest feeling "empty" often combined with that sinking in the gut, I frequently feel a weird "disconnect" behind my eyes, my heart rate picks up and my breathing becomes tighter, etc.)
2. If the aforementioned things happen, take a moment to close my eyes and breathe deeply a few times.
3. Immediately thank the other person for telling me and let them know I need a little bit of time to think about what they have told me before responding. It helps me to have a script for this ahead of time so that I don't accidentally inject my statement with any of my Big Bad Feelings.
4. Having disengaged for the time being, I do all the stuff I usually do to put my nervous system back into parasympathetic mode: have a snack, listen to calming music/sing, curl up with a comfy blanket, ask my partner to hold me (coregulation is sooooo. helpful.)
5. Often I will brainstorm about the situation with my partner or another trusted friend. It's important to do this in a way that isn't just bad faith sniping about the worst possible framing of what the other person is telling you or reacting to, because that can be very tempting, especially when you haven't practiced this a lot. I usually go with, "here's a brief description of what I thought I was doing/saying and the context. Here is how the other person received it. Here is how I am feeling about that and some of my theories as to why those feelings are coming up right now." Talking things through with someone is only helpful if that person is willing to challenge you/won't feel pressured to "take your side"! Its very important to have that kind of person in your life.
6. Speaking of taking sides: I consciously remind myself, repeatedly, that this is not a battle. There aren't sides. My goal is preserving and strengthening my relationship with this person. My goal is responding in such a way that they do not regret providing me with the information they have given me.
7. I usually draft some thoughts in a notes doc and periodically update it over the course of a day or two while I process the situation. Important to keep the other person informed about how this is going so they do not feel they're being ignored -- I will usually say something like "hey just checking in, I'm still thinking about what you said earlier and I really want to make sure I take the time I need to respond with the care it deserves" and give them a rough ETA for when I think I'll be able to do that.
8. I edit/polish my response and send it. Responses can be apologies or not; sometimes the other person is not asking for one, sometimes the context is such that one is not required, but it's smart to read up on how to apologize well and apply those techniques to your reply, even if it is not technically an apology. It's possible to come to the conclusion that you did not Behave Badly and still say "I'm really really sorry that my words hurt you," or "I really regret how that interaction went," etc, and it's important to follow it up with a description of what you think happened wherein you restate and validate their experience of the interaction or behavior. Its important too to stay curious in the reply: "I think in the future it would be better if I handled situations like this in this other way, what do you think?" and so on. This step is more vague than the others bc it truly depends on the situation/context/other person. If I have genuinely Behaved Badly vs a miscommunication (and this is one of the things I reflect on when I am Taking Time: to me, having Behaved Badly means I have acted out of step with my values in a way that I want to globally correct. Miscommunications etc mean I want to correct my behavior *with this person* going forward, because I have been given information about how they are receiving my behavior that shows me that it is not effective in maintaining trust. The distinction is important bc it determines what work I do internally) then I will be specific about that: "that was really inconsiderate of me, I prioritized my own comfort over being fair to you about your experience, because it was easier for me," etc. With miscommunications it will often look more like "I was trying to say x, but it's clear I didn't do that successfully; thank you so much for telling me that so I can adjust how I do things in the future and I'm very sorry I hurt you." <- even with miscommunications wherein you have not actually acted counter to your own values, it is important not to do the Bad Apology "sorry you felt that way" thing!!! Bad Behavior vs Miscommunication is a distinction I find helpful to make FOR ME in my own head. It's not one that needs to be expressed to the other person.
9. Ideally, in this response you're also modelling how you want the other person to approach this discussion: thoughtfully and with care and curiosity for your feelings and experiences. Don't be defensive about behavior you don't want to defend. Keep in mind that this is not a personal attack and you're not under threat. This is a chance to prove to someone that they can trust you. It is an opportunity.
10. None of this addresses that sometimes people with relational trauma will inject to your behavior and demand apologies and change as a power play or attempt at coercive control. Those situations are tricky and responding to them depends a whole lot on your relationship with that person. Remember that the point of a response/apology is not to grovel and fawn; it is to repair. This makes it important to keep in mind your own boundaries. Sometimes people in my life who are also working on healing relational trauma will share information like "seeing you say x made me feel y" and they're referring to, like, behavior wherein I assert my right to do something like "express frustration," and in those cases I will usually say "it makes a lot of sense that you'd feel that way; here is where I'm coming from when I make statements like that" and then express curiosity about where the feelings are coming from. These situations aren't the same as someone saying "the way you treated me hurt me," but they're ways you can troubleshoot trauma responses with friends with similar experiences without anyone feeling Bad for their reactions, if that makes sense. I hope it does, I know a lot of this is kind of vague.
Crucially: you can't be saying any of this to placate the other person. You have to actually synthesize the information they give you and apply it to interactions and behavior going forward. This is the part that ultimately proves you are trustworthy.
Something that's also helped me get better at this is practicing how to let people know they have hurt ME in a way that's kind and productive! Often I can shape those sorts of statements in such a way that encourages a thoughtful rather than defensive response (reiterating that I understand why they behaved a certain way while not downplaying the impact it had on me, saying that I know it might be tough information to hear & that I understand if they need to take some time to process it, etc.) which also give them a model for approaching me about any harm I might do them in the future. It's collaborative!
That's all I can think of rn. If anyone wishes to add thoughts or expand on anything based on their own experiences please feel free to do so; obviously this account is based only on my own, but I really hope it provides at least some framework for how people might consider approaching these things in their own lives.
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