Quote From: amazonsole Upsflyin may be quoting me (amazonsole) but I believe she missed the point. I said you never get over this kind of assault however, it is paramount of importance for you to hear the rest of the point I made, you can live with it and do so very well indeed. Life can seem to end for a time with the recovery of memories and flashbacks while you are in them, and for a long time after. That is not the end of the story of your life. You can choose to change the final outcome and heal and move on with your life intact, love your self, like whom you fight to become, and be stronger and filled with self-esteem in the end of the process. You will find peace if you are willing to work for it. Healing is a process and a powerful part of that is grieving what was, what should've been, and what should never be but IS.
Upsflyin had some good points about therapy and getting help, pacing your way thru the process. My experience is in complete agreement but I honor the fact that you are the one doing all the work. You are the one that must change you and your thought processes to become more than you ever dreamt you could be. The point is you can do it and I have faith in you.
I've been thru it all and back again, every form of abuse there is. I've even gone thru the deaths of my children and found a way, 20 years later, to live with it and their absence. I ask all the hard questions and seek my answers then use them to change my life for the better. I don't ask why so much as I ask what can I learn about my self and life thru every experience I get my self into. You can do it too. My point is that no matter what happens to you in the past, or the present for that matter, you can do more than survive it, you can thrive thru it and in fact because of it. I do the work daily to stay on course to stay healthy and deal appropriately emotional with everything I encounter. I'll be honest it is never easy; it is just worth all the effort I put into it. And I know it will be for you also.
You deserve more than you know. You are special in a very good way. I'll hold that thought for you as well until you too find a path to believe it, and can do this for yourself.
I encourage you to search my other responses. Thru them you will learn to know me.
My heart and prayers are with you. Amazonsole
...from a hideous truama. It "sounds like" you prefer to avoid therapy, but talking is good, and one finds oneself within the therapeutic process.
There are many new posts today mentioning guilt, and an aversion to yesterday's show for a myriad of reasons, or unknown sources of stress. I, too, experienced an growing sense of grief during the show I watched, and I did not complete watching the entire segment. For one reason, I am not comfortable with non-professionals baiting these blokes who know darn well what they are after, and in too many cases non-professional interviews of these perps are thrown out of court.
At the same time, I know we're in a new world, but frankly nothing has changed among homo sapiens as a lousy group of the earth's inhabitants. Not even the Internet. I've been on it since the mid-1980s and never once encountered a "off-color" site, or worse, and parents must realize they are giving their chilren a vehicle to drive cross-country without enough gas, in essence. Thus, they must not permit juveniles to use the Internet--period. We still have online libraries with great firewalls in the schools, and I achieved graduate education w/o the Internet.
For those who fear being abusive parents, they may contact Family Outreach...an organization I started the Needs Assessement for in the mid 1980s and its now nationwide. If not in every city, the municipality should be ashamed of itself for not supporting FO. Its mandate is to work with parents in their homes, help send children to summer camps, etc. and teach parenting skills and help parents go on to seek more education, etc.
Guilt is not a static emotion if one is a survivor of child abuse. It takes all forms, and comes up and knocks one flat without notice at times. There is always more to deal with in therapy, even though we start it and think 8-10 years will be the end of it all...then something seeps out but by then there is more preparation to deal with it, until returning to a therapeutic mode. Believe me, I had no idea that yesterday's show was going to hit me so hard, and take off in a different direction requiring my complete attention to my own feelings, but it did.
I am relieved to have now integrated the full impact my parents had on me and...the reasons I didn't tell the whole story (other than the Detroit Police ignoring my wounds and nearly leading me into death). Children are born trusting their parents, and even when assaulted over and over again, they still seek that protection and care. Its inate and when they rape, beat, whip, kick, bang our heads against the floor, or put us in "bull pens" to whip, they are also telling us how bad we are and that we deserve whatever they are dealing out to us...but if its rape, its usually because "Mommy isn't well, so be quiet so you don't upset her," all of this builds a gigantic mountain of guilt in the victim, ala Patty Hurst, we become one with our abusers without realizing it, hence, we do not tell. Besides, if we tell, we are the bad ones, and deserve what happens to us, afterall they are our authority figures.
Even when I did reach out and tell the police, it did no good, it just made my life Hell for over an hour. I once witnessed my mother hit two girls riding their two-wheelers on the curbside of a road going out to Ferndale, Mi....in a rage because I was using a GM Infant Seat in HER car, and I was sitting in the back with my infant. She was enraged yelling I had no gratitude for how she raised me, "without those seat things," and was speeding faster and faster, as I prayed for the police to see her...but it was too late. Had I tried to force her to pull over, I knew my baby was in danger, and all I could do was look back and see those young girls lying in the street. No, I wasn't a kid, I was 27, and she went on babbling Bible verses for the next twenty minutes, until she picked up my father--who continued the tirade because I'd "made your mother upset, again." I was always the one to blame for the violence and terror. And, they were ever so charming, few would guess they were Bonnie and Clyde in our home. But, that is how guilt begins, and its not so easily resolved.
No child grows up wanting to think they caused their parents abuse, but even after I was told at 17 that my mother had schizophrenia, and never went back, I had to go through college hiding from them, and listening to outlandish lies they would call the university PRESIDENT no less to tell about me...the "evil person who was obstreperous from birth." Yet my little brother was tied spread-eagled in his crib to cry for hours and hours, and my little sister was mine to raise, until I left home. Then in her preteens my mother started her on oral Flagyl, which causes blood dyscrasias if taken over ten days...by the time she reached my home at 17, she'd been on it for four years thanks to the local pharmacist, and yes, she died at 25 from uterine and cervical cancer, leaving young children. That is MURDER, my friend. My mother wanted none of us.
The Courts better wake up and stop spending money on internet surveillance and help those of us who already know who the abusers are, regardless of time limits. There is no time limit for murder, or rape (in most states), so let's get this on the dockets and force the States to prosecute perps, parents or strangers who are known by their victims, and analysts/doctors, etc.
So, there is no way I believe that such torture may be overcome without professional help, at least not in my case. I know much more about my reactions and actions, feelings, and fears than ever before. Initially, that doesn't help until I realize my reaction may be from "then, not now" so I can withdraw and let things lie until I figure out what is going on. It definitely gives one the courage to care for oneself, indeed, I'd "divorce" any member of my family who was abusive towards me, and be open about it...including my children. There are no golden bonds in my life any more except for that gold thread that connects me to life and this existence. In closing, your comment "You are the one that must change you and your thought processes to become more than you ever dreamt you could be," is not accurate. I couldn't have survived had I not realized I was better than my abusers, and the therapeutic process does not force one to go it alone. Try it, you may like it.
