Ways to Cope with Feeling Violated

A few weeks ago me and my family's cars were broken into at our house. We live in a pretty nice spot of town and it came as a shock initially and the feelings of violation set in pretty strong after that.

I took the initiative to install a camera system and a security system. This certainly helped to ease our anxiety and seemed to help my family regain control of the situation.

However, I still feel on edge and I can see that everyone else feels the same way. Does anyone here have some insight on how to cope with this?

I have been severely violated in the past and have been working to cope with those feelings as well so any information will be helpful.

I am so very sorry.

I had a car broken in twice in my life and the house twice. One was major burglary. Different areas. Different houses. Different cars. Different countries. I was also scammed once. Just terrible luck in my case. Yes major violation.

The way I see it is that I can’t change it so I just live with it. I also find positive in it as I or my daughter could have been home or in a car and it would be much worse. Stuff is just that.

Hugs. Hang in there and will get better

Hi BonsaiGuy.

This type of thing has happened to us a number of times, in a number of ways.

One particularly demoralizing event occurred a couple of days after Thanksgiving several years ago. The day before, my husband spent hours installing a new car stereo that he had just purchased. He was going to play golf the next day, there was a long drive to the course, and he was very much looking forward to enjoying his new stereo on the way there.

What happens?

The following morning he comes raging back into the house, his face a mask of fury. (He's not the explosive type, either). During the night some A------e had bashed his way into the car, ripped out the new stereo, did major damage to the car door, and disappeared, all without our knowing it. We never heard a thing.

The whole next day we were both majorly bummed. He played golf, but he didn't enjoy it. And I spent the day feeling violated too. It's just that most of the time this stuff doesn't happen, so you tend to develop this feeling of invulnerability. So when you realize that it can and does happen, it's just a devastating feeling. You start looking around you, seeing threats everywhere, afraid to leave your car, and so on. I mean, it just makes you so G---- D---- mad!

The only thing that helped both of us slowly begin to return to normal was to talk about the incident to people we met that day, just raging and venting about how s----ty it made us feel. And what happened was, it turned out that just about everyone we talked to had had something similar happen, and somehow just the act of commiserating began to relieve some of those feelings. It was a blessing, the way people would share this stuff.

And of course I might add that we felt like such dorks! It's like, Why didn't we do this? Why didn't we do that? And so forth.

In short, BonsaiGuy, I feel your pain.

Thank you so much for your kind words! I really do appreciate your response. Also, I sure do love your bird avatar

I'm so sorry you and your wife are going through all of this, BonsaiGuy! All the other great, wise, wonderful posters have already gave you lots of great, wise, wonderful advice so I won't repeat it too much! I'd suggest to listen to them as much as you can if you need to and want to! They ALL always give wonderful advice to everyone! I'm so sorry you and your wife are feeling SO violated! It's certainly a TERRIBLE thing to go through and I certainly don't wish it upon everyone, not even my worst enemy, let alone such a kind, sweet ,wonderful person like you, and you wife as well! Do you remember that techniques have you used in the past when you've been feeling violated? I'd suggest to apply those if you remember them and see if they work out! Just remember that it WILL take time but it WILL pass sooner or later, like the wise divine1966 has already wisely said better than I ever could! Let's hope sooner of course! I also completely agree with the kind and sweet Mopey about talking about it with other people if you can and want to! Hopefully it will make you feel a little bit better! I'm so sorry, I wish I've had more advice to give to you! I'm here to listen if you need it and you want to! You know I'm always SO happy to hear from you! I'm sure everyone here on PC will gladly listen to you as well! We all care about you here! We all love you here! Feel free to vent and write here as much as you need to and want to! You know we'll NEVER judge you! I promise you that! I'm so sorry you and your wife are struggling so much and that you're both going through all of this! You and your wife don't deserve to suffer at all! Nobody deserves to suffer at all, certainly not you and your wife! I'm so sorry you and your wife have to deal with all of this almost entirely by yourselves!

Some neighbouring kids on drugs broke my front door down the day after I painted it and shined up the brass. The police came and dusted it for fingerprints so there will be black graphite all over it for years to come. The door frame was so smashed to smithereens that I had to wait for a technician to fix it up so as to close it before going to sleep.
But other neighbours left gifts and cards and said how sorry they were. The insurance people were comforting.

It still hurts, but that's the other side of living in a mostly safe neighbourhood. When I lived in public housing this stuff happened every day and I couldn't afford to be upset by it.

It's brilliant that you took action to put in alarms and such. Doing that was what enabled me to feel safe enough to sleep in the house again.

The feelings of violation become less raw over time. It's important to re-member the respectful people. It's important that people around know how to be respectful. How my neighbours, and even the cops, behaved made a big difference to how I felt. My beautiful shiny painted door will never be the same but I'm safe!!!

Living in public housing for 8 years made me value how important stability and responsibility are in people's living situations.

You could put a blanket around yourself and allow the feelings to happen in warmth and safety now that you are actually in an ok life situation? Bring the past feelings of violation into a safe present - that's a most loving a compassionate thing to do. After some effort doing that, I find that it releases good energy.

I appreciate your response more than I can put into words.

I bet losing the stereo was really tough but the feelings of being violated were even worse. You actually brought up a good point with the ways of coping with the feelings. We talked with a lot of people too and it really seemed to help us move on.

Also, the action of installing a camera security system helped us ease the feelings of being violated.

I just think that the anxiety, fear, and stress of being violated is easily the top three worst feelings you could ever have. Unfortunately, (the officer that took our report confirmed this) the drug epidemic plays a huge role with this type of crime moving into nice neighborhoods and nice areas.

Thank you for sharing your story.