I get very anxious when I talk about my abuser and how I hate to see him at family events, because he's fine now, normal, and I feel like, how dare I get upset when he's FINE now? But T always says, you don't react to how he is NOW. You react to what he triggers in you.

I'm not saying this is what's happening, I'm just thinking aloud (so to speak): but what if this is not so much about how T sees the abuser, but how you do? Maybe you are becoming brave enough to claim your feelings about that person. Maybe it's scary to be able to say, unequivocably, what he did was bad, even though it was decades ago and even though he's fine now, you still have a RIGHT to be hurt and scared and mad. I don't know, I just find that often when I tell T, "YOU feel this way," it's because I'm not yet ready to say "I feel this way."

No matter what, it sounds like you are struggling with reconciling that people who hurt us are not always abusive and terrible towards us. That doesn't mean the abuse didn't happen. It doesn't mean we weren't hurt. And it doesn't change the fact that the abuse was wrong.