Every aspect of woman’s life is affected by trauma. a girl’s capacity to form healthy attachments to other people for safety and security can be damaged by trauma that happens early in life.

Coping strategies: As a result of surviving abuse, women may learn coping strategies that protect them during the abuse but become unhealthy over time. These strategies include:

self-harm
substance abuse
high-risk behaviours, such as
unprotected sex
choosing violent partners

Mental health professionals who work with women survivors of trauma recognize that these coping strategies are expressed in variety of ways, such as:

emotions
interpersonal relationships
behaviours
thoughts
sense of self

Just as each woman copes in her own way, her coping strategies can have different results. These coping strategies can result in:

unstable emotions and relationships
suicidal threats
substance use
self-harm (cutting, burning, hitting oneself)
disturbances in thinking
unstable sense of self
feeling of chronic emptiness