Emotional and psychological harm

Having a pet hurt or threatened to control or punish you

An animal you loved being hurt, killed, given away, or threatened in order to frighten you, punish you, or keep you from leaving. Including being made to watch, being blamed for it, or staying in a dangerous situation because you would not leave an animal behind.

Hurting an animal you love is a way of hurting you, and it is one of the clearest warnings that a situation is dangerous. Many survivors carry enormous guilt here, usually for the impossible choice they were handed rather than for anything they did. That guilt is worth putting down, and this is a place where it can be.

What can follow an experience like this

No two people carry the same experience the same way. These are some of the effects that people with this experience often describe. Having some of them, all of them, or none of them says nothing about how real what happened to you was.

Flashbacks and reliving what happened After certain experiences, the brain can get stuck, replaying what happened through flashbacks, nightmares, or sudden intense reactions to things that remind you of it. Clinging or shutting down in relationships Attachment is the system that governs how we connect with other people, how close we let them get, how we respond when they pull away, how we handle being needed. Complex or ongoing trauma and its effects When trauma happened repeatedly, over a long time, or at the hands of people who were supposed to care for you, the effects go deeper than a single event. Emotional numbness Not depression exactly. Making yourself small or invisible Anticipating what others need before they ask. Shame or feeling like something is broken in you Not guilt about something you did. Depression Not just sadness. Freezing up or going blank when things get intense When the nervous system learned that neither fighting nor fleeing was possible, some people learned to go still.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

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