"Stop Calling Survivors Naive"

WERE YOU REALLY NAIVE? OR IS THAT JUST WHAT THEY CALLED IT?

Has anyone ever called you naive? After everything you went through?

If so, I want to challenge that word. Because for a lot of trauma survivors, it's the wrong word entirely.

What naivety actually means

Naivety means not knowing. It means you haven't been exposed to something yet, so you don't understand how it works. That's what the word means in the dictionary.

But here's the problem: if you've lived through real harm — if you've been close to people capable of real cruelty, manipulation, or deliberate damage — you already know. You can't "not know" something you've already lived through. So if someone calls you naive after that, the word doesn't actually fit.

So what was really happening?

Here's a different way to understand it.

You knew. Somewhere in you, the knowledge was there. But knowing the full extent of how harmful people can be, all the time, every day — that's not something a person can carry constantly and still function. It would be too heavy. So the mind does something clever instead.

It puts some of that knowledge to one side. Not gone. Just not in view all the time.

In its place, you reach for something easier to carry: hope. Faith that things will be okay. Trust that people are basically good, even when your own experience has shown you otherwise.

That's not naivety. That's a survival strategy. And it's a smart one.

Why this matters

If you've spent years believing you were naive — that you "should have known better," that you were foolish for trusting, foolish for hoping — I want you to consider this instead:

You weren't foolish. You were protecting yourself the only way available to you. Choosing hope wasn't a mistake. It was the thing that kept you upright.

The part that makes it worse

Here's the part that's harder to talk about.

For a lot of survivors, hope and faith get damaged twice. First by whatever harm happened to begin with. And then again — sometimes worse — by the systems that were supposed to help afterward. A doctor who doesn't listen. An investigation that goes nowhere. A report that gets one page when it deserved fourteen.

When that happens, it doesn't just feel disappointing. It can feel like the last thing holding you together is being taken apart, piece by piece, by people who are supposed to be on your side.

If that's happened to you, please know: that reaction makes complete sense. It is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It's a sign that something real was damaged, twice.

The truth, simply put

You were never naive. You knew. You just chose, wisely, not to carry all of it at once.

That was never a weakness. It was survival.

You are not alone

If this has stirred something up, that's worth taking seriously.

You are believed. What happened to you, and what it's done to you since, is real — and there are people who will hold space for that truth rather than look away from it.

Please consider talking to someone you trust — a friend, a family member, anyone who'll actually listen without rushing you to be okay. You don't have to carry this by yourself.

You can also reach:

Samaritans — 116 123, free, 24 hours a day, every day. You don't need to be in crisis to call.

NHS Talking Therapies — free, confidential, and you can refer yourself directly without needing to see a GP first. Search "NHS Talking Therapies self-referral" plus your local area to find your service.

Shout — text SHOUT to 85258 for free, confidential crisis support by text, any time.

National Domestic Abuse Helpline — 0808 2000 247, free, 24/7, for anyone affected by domestic abuse.

If you're in immediate danger or crisis, call 999, or go to your nearest A&E.