What this guide is about

How it could help

Talking about what happened can bring relief, create space to express feelings, and remind us we’re not alone. It can also help us reflect, find clarity, and take back a sense of control over our story. In the course of this guide, we’ll share ways to think through your options, prepare if you decide to tell someone, and care for yourself before and after the conversation.

Who it’s for

This guide is for anyone who has experienced abuse, assault, or another form of harm and is thinking about sharing what happened. It’s for those who want to understand their options, explore what safety and support could look like, and make choices that feel right for them. You might feel unsure, ready but afraid, or somewhere in between. Whether you decide to tell someone now, later, or not at all, this guide can help.

Have feedback?

If you feel able then we’d love to hear from you, whatever your thoughts. You’ll find a general feedback option at the bottom of every page, and we also provide the opportunity for more detailed feedback at the end of this guide here.

How you can use this guide

This guide covers a variety of considerations when deciding whether to talk about your experience, but we understand that different people will be at different stages of the journey. Our aim has been to design it so you can get to the information you need, when you need it. 

Jump straight to what you need

We’ve structured the sections in this guide to cover different situations, so you can head straight for the content that applies to you. You can do that via the navigation options below, or you can use our What do you need right now? selector.

Finding your way around

Each section of the guide is on a separate page, and there are a number of ways you can find your way around the guide as a whole:

• The navigation bar (mobile or tablet): This is the sticky menu at the bottom of your screen. From here, you can quickly get to the previous or next page by tapping the buttons on the left or right, and to any other part of the guide by tapping ‘Guide contents’.
• The contents panel (desktop): This is the panel on the right hand side. You can access any page from this linked contents list, as each section expands/collapses to show/hide its contents.
• Previous/next buttons (desktop): At the bottom of every page, there are buttons to take you to the previous or next page, without having to use the contents panel.
• The progress bar: On mobile, you’ll see this at the top of each page, with a numbered circle for each section and the current section highlighted. On desktop, you’ll see this represented in the section numbers in the contents panel.
• Contents list for each section: At the top of each page, you’ll see a linked contents list so you can quickly skip to any particular part. 

Before we begin

At Chayn, we’ve developed our own set of trauma-informed design principles that we follow in everything we do. Experiencing abuse or harm of any kind can be deeply distressing, traumatic, and draining, so it can be helpful to take a pause before beginning and set an intention to approach this guide in whatever way feels comfortable. It might be to just read one section at a time, or to only read for five minutes before taking a break, or to explore the guide without putting any pressure on yourself to do anything with the information. It’s whatever feels right for you.

We set our own pace

We have permission to go at whatever pace feels right for us. It’s okay to skip sections, come back later, or just focus on one small step at a time. Our wellbeing is the most important thing.

We ground ourselves

When dealing with difficult emotional issues, it’s important to take care of ourselves and our nervous system, and grounding exercises can help with that. Here’s one example that can be used over and over, but other breathing exercises, meditations, visualisations and more are available free on our healing platform, Bloom.

What do you need right now?

This guide covers different stages of deciding whether to tell someone about your experiences of abuse and how to go about doing so, and they may not all be relevant for everyone. You can skip straight to the part that resonates most with you, pick out a few to focus on, or read them all. Choose your starting point below.