Hey All,
I thought I would share the story or my life with all and the struggles I have dealt with.
I imagine the best place to start is where it all began. I was at the lovely age of four years old. My younger sister had just passed away. At first in thinking back that would have been bad enough, but too top it off my crazy uncle decided this would be the time to teach me new things. Of course his new new things were sadistic in nature, needless to say for roughly six years I was sexually, emotionally, and at times physically abused by this man.
I did not start receiving counseling for this for many years, my dad was in the military and thought all therapists or counselors were quacks. So that left me to heal myself, where I then turn to self medication, which at first intailed self harmful behavior, and then alcohol. When I was a teenager I impressed the friends with how much I could drink and also how well I could fight. After being abused I had decided no one would hurt me again, and I learned how to fight.
I eventually received some counseling, and joined the military went to college and got married. Throughout this time I would have relapses, and be back with the therapist, but usually able to bring myself out of the slums.
Then last month the first of november, I was standing on a chair when it broke and I fell, receiving a concussion, broken wrist which needed plates to heal, and a dislocated shoulder. I had managed to injure both arms, making life miserable. The worse part was needing someone to bathe me and help me in the bathroom, it caused all of my earlier trauma to come back, and I hit my lowest point in my life. I had considered ending all, but did not have guts or stupidity to complete it.
A breaking point came when I realized, what was happening to me. Not that it got instantly better, but I had a point to go on. Went back to therapist, and now rehashing all of the abuse again. What I could really do with to help is a physical support group to go to, but cant find one.
I think by some miracle I found this place, and hopefully, I will soon be back on the road to recovery.
SP
:poke:

I got on tonight to try and relax and calm myself down. I then made one error and read anothers persons story that was so close to my life. If smart I would have stopped reading when flashbacks hit the first time. I am not sure if flashbacks is the right term, I just started to visualize the abuse.
Its amazing for me to think that 19 years have gone by since those days of abuse, but at times those moments still haunt me.
I am also at this moment angry, I just talked with a family member tonight that said I need to forgive this man, I am not sure that will ever happen, all I ever feel like doing is putting him out of his misery.
As I look at my life it is amzing to think that some of the awful things he did to me back then still hurt me today. I have internal scars in me now that will never go away, and at times still cause me problems.
I realized today that over the years I found new ways to self medicate myself. I joined the military, full of action. I have been sky diving, bull riding, and bronc riding. i eventually joined the fire company, and did this till that one day, with the bus accident, all of those kids hurt. It killed me that some of them I was not able to help.
Well gonna stop for now, just getting more stirred up anxiously...
SP
:dontknow:

Splost, I agree with you, in that you do not have to forgive an abuser. Sure, some do so because it gives them inner peace, which allows them to heal. Basically, that is how they are wired, so they can forgive an abuser. What is more important, is that we forgive ourselves. Instead of blaming ourselves, finding all the "what if's" and like, we deduce our own thought patterns to what is real, what is life itself. A person does not need to forgive another in order to forgive themselves. Often we feel guilty, we feel at fault as the victim, but we are not at fault. Victim is a word that many don't like, some like it too much and play on it, but the intent of victim, is that we are not at fault, another is.

Anthony, At times I know without a doubt that I was not to blame, but my fault in life is that I am a thinker. At times I can actually get myself to believe that I hold some blame, I mean it did not just happen once but many times, over several years. At times I forgive myself, then other times, I say to myself I was a male, wasnt I supposed to take care of mysellf in a way.
SP

SP, you are exactly on the mark actually, in that we are our own worst enemy. We control our mind, even though some may not think that be the case, we do. The key to many things within us, is that we know how to dispell fiction from our own logic, by replacing it with fact, reason and reality. If we do something wrong, then accepting we have done wrong is part of the process, but instead of dwelling on the negative aspects, we must learn to use the negative aspect as a learning element. That learning element can then be transformed into positive active within us, which means we go something like:

I just shot a man, taken a life. Why? Was it in self defense? Did I do it just because I didn't like the person? Was it an accident? If we are guilty off an offence such as severe as taking another life, then we serve time in jail for doing so. Jail is our sacrifice for committing such an act with no underpinning factors. We serve our time, get released. Now we either go and shoot another person and have learnt nothing, or we have learnt from our mistake, or injustice, forgiven ourselves and ensure we never do such an act again. We ensure we do not get involved in wrong activities that could put us in such a situation again. We do not own or possess a gun. We move on in life, even though such an injustice has been committed, we have served our time in jail for our crime, if it was a crime.

If self defense, then what was the outcome going to be if we did not shoot that person? Would we be dead instead? Self defense is something many people struggle with guilt wise.

This goes down to the most insignificant of life factors, such as did we check our mirror before changing lanes? No... we hit another car. No persons hurt, just objects. Our punishment is going to come in the form of payment off insurance, and so forth. We made a mistake by not checking our mirror when changing lanes, an accident occured. Learn from the lesson, in that regardless what is happening, we must check our mirror before changing lane, and look over our shoulder for visual even.

This is what blame and guilt are about. We can dwell on the negatives, the actions we performed or where involved, or we can forgive ourselves atleast and use our mistake to learn from, so that we don't make the same silly mistake twice.

This applies from little to big things in life.

Anthony,
Not sure how you became so wise, but thanks I will think about this. I wish we could have met years ago, and maybe life would be a bit more hopeful now. All I wish for now is the knowledge of knowing I will eventually dig out from this dark abyss, I am in.
SP

Hi,

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post replies in here, I hope you don't mind?

I just wanted to say I totally agree with anthony's wise words about forgiveness. For some it helps, for others, it doesn't. The important part here is not whether you forgive him or not, it is doing what feels right for you. Sometimes NOT forgiving is helpful - a sort of reminder that it wasn't, and isn't okay that he did what he did. Sometimes that can allow someone to be angry at the person who is to blame, and that in turn puts the guilt and blame where it belongs.

But I know that guilt is a difficult issue in abuse, and often it is a matter of bouncing backwards and forwards for a while. Children often make sense of things the only way that they can, and this can be that it was caused by them. This is often put there by the abuser, or reinforced, or both. It isn't easy, because it is for some at least, changing a belief/feeling/sense of guilt that has been around often for so long. It takes some work to change that, and readjust to the new way of seeing it - that you were not to blame. But you have said that at times you do know that it wasn't your fault, which means that you are on the right track and have made a big start.

I just wanted to put in some words of encouragement, support and understanding here. Hope that was okay!

Lisa.