Life Hacks/Charity-preg/rp-sld, "roses" (sensory-)/perfect/non-compete (town)/Danica/Cradle, sooth, and comfort her for a while
After a while of crying, Billy seems to start looking around. She is still unable to get her sobs completely under control, taking in ragged breaths that have been thrown out of whack by her emotions. Her whole body stiffens as her head and eyes flick around all over the place.
“It’s Ok!” you tell her, gently cradling the back of her head. “He’s not going to hurt you anymore, he ran away just now, he’s gone.” You say, gently holding her head.
“Daddy!?” She says in distress. The both of you look up toward the parking lot just in time to see a police car backing out of the parking in a hurry as it is pursued by a guy holding a smartphone yelling at it. In quick order, the car peels out of the parking lot as though it was a giant monster who was chasing him instead.
Billy goes silent upon seeing this. “He drove away,” you say. It’s not as though you think she might have missed it, but given the circumstances, you feel she may need someone to inform her that what she just saw really did happen. You rack your brain in order to try and figure out how to deal with this situation. Victims of trauma, especially long-term abuse, are always a difficult case to deal with, especially when the abuser is a parent. One of the most complicated factors is that there are no hard rules because no two cases are alike. Even if you do have maxed out abuse victims counseling skills, all that skill informs you is that there really IS no right way to approach this situation. However, depending on the situation, there very well could be land-mines that will get Billy upset.
What will you do?
- Repeat that her daddy is not going to hurt her anymore
- Assure her that you will take care of her
- Tell her that you need to check her for injuries (out here in public)
- Take her to the bathroom to check for injuries
- Do nothing, just keep cradling her till you get some other clues to go on (Request) --Tod Naturlich (talk)