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Old Sep 18, 2005, 07:47 AM
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shadowdancer shadowdancer is offline
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Member Since: Jul 2005
Posts: 558
(((((((((CMFox))))))))))

Her knowledge that you are hurt is probably only a very small part of why she doesn't want contact with you. The larger part is probably that you remind her of good things she doesn't think she deserves. It would be like being in the middle of a desert and dying from thirst while having a companion who has a million bottles of water and yet won't give you a drop. You are a painful reminder of what she feels she doesn't deserve, what she feels she can't have. Contact with you is like rubbing salt in her own wounds.

Now granted, that isn't your fault. the problem is that she doesn't know any other way to protect herself from the additional pain of seeing you. She has settled for what she has with Jack because she can't have what she wants. She can't have it, NOT because you wouldn't give it to her, but because she can't allow herself to have it.

In her mind it is better to go with something that is and always has been bad then have something that was so good turn into something bad.

Yes if you were to act bitter and hostile then it would simply justify what she has feared all along. if you can help it, please don't do that.

i know this hurts you but she isn't doing it to hurt you. she's doing it to protect herself. that doesn't lessen the pain for you and probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense to a healthy way of thinking. the problem is that she's not healthy right now. she really needs therapy to help her sort out the ways that her abuse has skewed her reality. if she gets therapy it will still be a long and painful process for her.

her abusers have gotten her in many ways: they have hurt her once (when it happened), they have skewed her entire outlook on the world so that she has come to see pain as what she deserves, if she does get help then they will hurt her again (because she will no doubt have to relive much of it), and once she is healed enough to have a normal relationship her view of the world will still be somewhat tarnished by her experience and it's aftermath.

i understand your need to validate what has happened and help yourself understand her reasons. as cliche as it may seem, i will tell you that it isn't you. it is the good stuff you represent that she "doesn't deserve" and "can't have."

if she doesn't want contact, which isn't surprising to me (having been in her shoes), then there is little you can do. if she does get the help she needs then she might search you out later. or maybe not. i would tell her brother to suggest to her to get therapy. unfortunately, no matter how much you care for her, that is all you can do.

i've been here and done this and seen it from both sides. if you want to talk more about it you are welcome to PM me... i will be happy to share my experience with you.

in the meantime, i am sorry for your pain and for Sarah's. i hope that she can get the healing she needs and i hope that you, too, can find the healing you need.

-shadow
__________________
i tear my heart open
i sew myself shut
my weakness is
that i care too much
the scars remind me
the past is real
i tear my heart open
just to feel
~Papa Roach