I think it really is more challenging to know the abuser is still free to harm others. Uggggg. Sorry it is that way for you too, Oceanwave. I love that name BTW!

I do sense what you are saying though about not allowing trauma to define who you are as a person. I think that there is a time and place when it has to be your work to focus on the healing. But I do know now that there is more. I had my first T once ask me a question that ticked me off big time.

"What would it look like for you to live a single day without a conscious memory of any past trauma?"

It ticked me off because I thought about how unfair it was that I had been abused SOOO much by so many different people in so many different ways that something every day would trigger me. But I didn't realize at the time that I was ticked of for another reason as well. I had to admit to myself that I would not know what that day would feel like because I never had one of those before. In fact, I was living with constant triggers! I told my T that and he said "What would it feel like for you to go a single hour without conscious recollection of the trauma?" I told him I thought that would be the best hour of my life. He then had me feel harder on it and I realized there was another feeling there - fear and terrror.

I had no idea what that experience would be like - to be FREE for even five min of time. T told me that humans do tend to stay with what they know. If we only know pain and living with trauma every second of the day, even the idea of NOT being in that place can terrify us. I started watching myself to see how I felt when I was just going about the process of living - doing the laundry or going to the store. I discovered that I would be having a great time and then I was the one who would end up stopping myself and thinking "What is this? How can I be happy like this! Don't I know that XYZ could happen again and did happen??? How can I trust THIS state of living to be MY life?" That would trigger the downward spiral and depression. I discovered I was actually feeling "better" when I was sad about the trauma than I felt when I was just living life and waiting for the bottom to fall out.

I did not TRUST the act of being alive.

Hope this makes some sense.