Lyrical--you got some really good input here from others.
If only to shift your mind program from that of helplessness to that of empowerment, try postive affirmations daily...it helped me alot---still does.

There are many as rebnsof says, who'd judge you--I know they still judge me today--"I let it all happen", "Why didn't I make it stop" "I allowed".....pay no heed!!!

I was programmed like Pavlov's dogs, to accept the abuse, to incorporate it into my
thinking as being totally "helpless" to stop it. I was taught, before age 5 that this was what I deserved. That I deserved no love, care, kindness-i deserved to be constantly hurt, that this was my life.

This is something that has to be retaught...to heal--We are /were not to blame for what others did to us; even as a grown woman; I thought it my lot to take the abuse--that that was a part of being the "good wife" and "Mother"--I later learned through therapy, and support groups at Victim's Services that this was not true.

It took alot of time, and i still get annoyed at the judgemental attitudes of others--
"Well I wouldn't allow that to happen to me" and all that nonsense...here's a quote:

"We are as forlorn as children lost in the wood. When you stand in front of me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me, and what do i know of yours?...For that reason alone, we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell"---Kafka

--------------------------------------I send you positive affirmations--Theo