I changed my mind. I felt it safe to answer every one of the questions except the fifth one about the victimization. That will take me some time and as I have said I need to speak with my therapist and make sure I have either my sister, husband, or best friend available to me when I am writing about that stuff in case I go into emotional crisis. I want to be safe.

This is a strange way to answer this question but it is the answer from my heart. I love my life. It is not my life I want to give up on. I have a loving, caring, husband of nine years who is both my love and my best friend. I have two adult step children that came into my life when they were teens. They call me “mom”. They do this because I love them so very much as though I gave birth to them myself. Even though my step son has problems in his life, I find so much of his father in him it is very easy to overlook the problems he has and give him time to figure his life out on his own. I have three biological kids that fill my heart with such pride I could bust sometimes. I look at them and realize there must be some good in me or I would not have such wonderful children. It is the ghosts that haunt me, the shame that binds me, the pain that feels debilitating that makes me want to give up on my self. I have laughter, joy, fun, and purpose in each day I live. The component of my life that I am lacking is PEACE from within.

I have been a very emotional based person my entire life. Although there are times I become numb, it is only superficial numbness. Underneath the numbness and flight from myself is a deep and foreboding pain worse than a stake being driven through my heart. When I let it surface, I fear I will die. I love the people who hurt me.

I can not begin to tell you of the anguish. But in answer to the question do I feel safe around the males in my life now, the answer is “mostly”. My husband is a man of honor. We are both of Irish descent and our personal values and cultural heritage are very highly family oriented. Meaning the man of the house is a protector of the family. Were my trust is very shallow is with the men of our church, the men who are on the pastoral staff. I have went to them to try to deal with my feelings of shame only to feel violated by their lack of willingness to listen to my plight. They avoid me as though I would try to seduce them or something. In reference to friends in general, I have very few and trust very little, because you see, it was and still remains my mother who has the ability to continue to violate my trust. She is not a mother to me and never has been. I am her mother. She is my little girl. It is very hard for me to trust other women to be my friend and I simply will not become friends with a male because of my humanity and the possibility of impropriety. I love my husband and am committed to him for life, but no one human being can meet all the needs of another person. I believe that for this reason, forming a close friendship with a man who is not my husband is not good for me as a married woman because it creates temptations based upon my own vulnerabilities.

The answer to that question is NO. I do have self esteem. I think I am intelligent, compassionate, creative, trustworthy, honest, and a DAMN GOOD wife and mother. My self confidence has been very shaken in reference to my chosen profession and that is very painful but overall I feel I am a very good person. I need to say more about this because what happened to me at my last job was very traumatic to both my soul and spirit. When I talk about this I feel selfish and like I have my priorities in the wrong place but as hard as I try to shake the hurt I can not. Being fired from a job that I was doing good at made me again feel like a victim. I felt helpless because I could no longer provide love and care to the clients I had grown to care about and whom were beginning to experience some healing in their lives. It was like we were healing together! The text books would say that that is a professional boundary violation. I say POOP on the text books. If a therapist is not growing and learning and healing with their clients, in MY OPPINION, they are lifeless, torpid, self serving, pompous, bombastic… OOPS! A little anger there. Because of some very painful experiences I have had with PhD’s, although I do not believe all doctorate level psychologists are arrogant, I believe some of them are very much arrogant and look to clients to feed their own egos. Most of my negative experiences have been with two of the male PhDs I tried to acquire therapy from. Much like the pastoral staff at my church, they were unwilling to discuss the events surrounding my PTSD. I am very angry and bitter at the PhDs because they should be trained and know how to deal with folks with PTSD regardless of the complexities and awkwardness of the trauma surrounding it. However, although very hurt by the pastoral staff at my church, I forgive them because they receive training in pastoral care and council which often negates discussion of personal unresolved issues. Now I must turn back to the issue of my own self esteem and confidence. A ghost lives inside me that I hate. I hate her. She is naughty, bent on self gratification, thinks only of her self and her own pain to the exclusion of empathy toward others. I so very deeply want to tame this shrew! I know she is a part of me that I must learn to live with and deal with. Not that I’m saying I have duel personalities. I’m simply saying this little gal is the egocentric little 3 year old that enjoyed the soft, gentle, and exciting touch of her father even though she knew that what her mother said was true. “Letting someone touch your privates is very nasty and only bad girls do that.” I know on a cognitive level that at age three I was not morally responsible for my actions and was not developmentally able to make moral decisions. However, when in my very soul I flash back to those private moments with my father and my brother, I am that guilty, ashamed little girl emotionally and I feel helpless, trapped, hopeless, and afraid. I feel like the pain will never end. And with every pleasure I experience I automatically feel somewhat guarded, waiting for the hammer to fall and the joy to sour.

This is a question it will take me some time to answer. And I must have my 3D support system in tact before I try to talk about it again. I tried in my private and public diaries to reveal some of these things and as I began writing it was as though I had the flu and was uncontrollably vomiting the horrible traumas out of the flash player in my head. I will take a break on this one until I am a little more ready to feel. I am so afraid of drowning in the pain, shame, anger, and confusion I feel.

I feel very deeply committed to the relationships I have to the people in my life, across most contexts, meaning romantic, Parental, familial, friendship, cohort, and professional relationships. People are human and even though I may allow myself to be hurt by the actions or words of the people in my life, my commitment to my relationship to them remains very deep and loyal. I even get angry at GOD sometimes. I wonder why He/She could create a world where there is such intense hatred, violence, selfishness, and sorrow. Then I remember, God was human too! And I begin within the very heart of my mind, within my very soul, to understand GOD! God is not Santa Clause. God is not a Genie in a Bottle that exists to grant our every wish. God is only perfect at being GOD! He did not create a perfect, fair, justice filled world. I am committed to my relationship to GOD simply because God is such a marvelous creator, because He/She did create every human being with the potential to be the best they can be should they choose to be so. And I firmly believe that should GOD choose to use His/Her power to create the perfect world, the world would be purposeless, meaningless, robotic, and unanimated. Sorry Anthony, that was a duel purpose tangent because I want someone else (besides my best friend Wayne) to see my ideas as making sense and because even though I do not know you and probably could not pick you out in a crowd even if I was a mystic, I genuinely love and care about you. This is not a neurotic attempt to gain your favor, or get your attention!!!! I love and care about you because you genuinely love and care about other people like yourself who suffer with the arduous and chronic plight of PTSD! And whether you choose to believe in GOD or not He/She believes in you!!! I do not know about an after life. But I know this one thing, I am glad GOD chose to create YOU!!!!!

I keep deep dark secrets about sexual issues that have occurred in my life because I am ashamed that I enjoyed the horrible things my X husband did to me. It felt good when he hurt me, when he pulled my hair, when he beat me with sticks, whips, and belts. I am very ashamed of myself that I enjoyed the pain. I enticed him to hurt me. I challenged him to see how far he would go. In the end I knew I would always receive the soft side of his love in the form of oral sex. Then, as in complete mental defiance to my traditional family values I began to experience sexual arousal at the thought of having a sexual relationship with another woman. I still feel great guilt and anguish because of this because the thought of the soft tender skin of another woman, her plump silky body, one similar to my own makes me feel sick at the thought of having sexual intercourse with a man. Am I a lesbian? I do not want to be! I want to enjoy sexual love with my husband. But I just do not feel safe. Even though he is a soft furry sweet handsome teddy bear, I feel unsafe having sex with him. I feel very guilty because of this. What is wrong with me? I love Wayne with every fiber of my being!

I do not feel this way right now. I am trying to change my thinking. I feel pain sometimes so intense because I make a fool of myself trying to get attention, trying to get someone to save from the fake self that doesn’t exist. I do not want to die. I do have hope for the future, but I am so afraid of that hope I do not know what to do with it.