I have been giving this a lot of thought and the dangers of confronting an abuser if not really prepared. I have a lot things that are going on in my life that have violated me in many ways. I couldn't understand why suddenly I was getting flashbacks from my past and lets face it any kind of flashback brings on more than just a memory, it brings all the emotions and anxiety as well that can be very disabling. It doesn't always start with a flashback either. What can happen is we can be in a troubling situation where we begin to stress, then our brain and body somehow presents a reminder from our past where we experienced the same kind of violation. If we do not recognize what is really taking place, we can catastrophize the whole experience without realizing what we are doing and the whole situation can become very crippling and extremely confusing.

It has taken me many months to figure this out and as beauflow states, alot of what I have gained has come more from coming to PC than in therapy. Being able to be anonymous and just let out all my thoughts, in way I have never been able to do before was very helpful. What helped me was recognizing that I wasn't alone and I could hear others speak of the same psychological struggles. I could read articles and slowly gather information and what was very important was the validation of what I was experiencing. The PTSD I struggle with is very hard to explain to someone who has never experienced the symtoms that can be so overwhelming and that it is simply not something that one "Just gets over or Just deals" no, it is not that simple.

If someone takes that step in facing an abuser and the effort results in further invalidation or any kind of dismissal that only serves to add to a sense of loss of control, it will not benifit the victim. What has to take place is the victim truely has to have the right kind of validation and personal healing first, and that truely takes time. Especially if the victim was abused as a child in someway. Because all of us, no matter how old we are, carry that childhood inside us, and it is our weakest most vulnerable part of our lives and ourselves. This is one of the reasons why it is so very difficult to talk about or make efforts to recall childhood abuse. It is a real concern for each person with such a troubled past that has to be very carefully addressed.

It is said that one of the symptoms of PTSD that can stem back from a childhood that was troubled, is a search for a rescuer or strong presence of somekind. I have felt this many times, searched many times, and have to say that I really didn't find it.
What it really means is the search is about a person that will somehow not only believe our personal story, but will also serve as someone that will stand with us, show us how to address it, or perhaps even address it for us, most likely the way a parent should provide that for their child, thus teaching the child how to stand up and say something is wrong and know how to address it. What also comes into play is a deep desire for some kind of "justice", something that will recognize the truth and somehow punish bad acts or intrusions caused by abusers of any kind.

When a child is abused in any way or truely doesn't get the message of safety and value and respect, the journey of life has a missing piece that is not easy to fill. I call this "the missing piece" of what we are supposed to learn as our brains grow and develope and learn how to survive. This "missing piece" CAN be filled in different ways. It CAN be filled by a sibling, aunt, teacher, mentor of some kind that helps a child by validating them, respecting them and providing the support necessary for learning how to overcome the abusive situation and gaining personal self esteem and strength. However, the person that provides this assistance has to be able to identify that troubled part in the child or even young adult, as often the child or even adult doesn't necessarily know how to express this very troubling "missing piece".

This missing piece is supposed to be understood and addressed by a therapist when a patient finally asks for help. And I can say myself that even though I may be considered very intelligent or somehow able to reach out to others somehow seeing their missing piece, I still struggle with my own missing piece and I have been very confused by it. I have been very misunderstood and though I have spoken the red flags that should have been clearly identified, I wasn't heard, and that strong entity that I have so looked for is still somewhat elussive.

Though I have finally found the words to express to my therapist what all the messages I gave him that literally filled his room with many events where I was so mistreated or rightfully struggled, he may have failed me once again. I often wonder how others may have the same thing happen to them, I DO hear whispers of it here and there in PC. And I have to say, that whisper is in a lot of different places. I finally realized that what I wanted my therapist to be was something my father wasn't, a person that listened and agreed that things that happened to me WERE bad and SHOULD BE VALIDATED AND ADDRESSED.

I have described on several occasions a very dark side of what I am struggling with.
I really struggle with this dark feeling of being so angry for some reason, some loss of that rescuer presense that really hears me and will show me the way out somehow is still not there somehow. Though I am trying to somehow find it in myself, I still struggle. I have talked about SI to my husband and my therapist and even an attorney that is not doing his job. Yet I feel that no one YET believes that I am truely struggling with some very dangerous thoughts. I am not talking about these thoughts to get my way, or for some kind of twisted attention, I am truely saying, I have these thoughts and I need to know you believe me and I need help to overcome them. I also need you to know I AM SERIOUSLY STRUGGLING WITH THIS.

I finally told my therapist that all along, as I have talked about this very deep struggle. I know that it is not taken seriously because all this time next my bed in a night stand, my husband keeps a loaded gun. I had talked to my husband about removing this a long time ago, guess what, he thought it was unreasonable and that I was somehow acting? I told my therapist about this on Tuesday, today is Thusday, and the gun is still there, did he forget what I told him? Did he call my husband and request a meeting and that it was very important? My husband is out hunting this morning and I am all alone here. Missing piece?

Thankfully I can come here and talk about this and someone is going to believe that what I am describing is real and they know this too.

We talk about trying to stay away from toxic people, perhaps family members that somehow violated us, don't understand boundaries or respect our personal right for space. Because what these people do is somehow continue to remind us of that missing piece. And often that comes from somewhere in their past where perhaps they too have a missing piece that they might protect by abusing. So before any of us can address OUR abusers, it is important we understand our own "missing pieces" and also know that though we may express "what you did or do to me is wrong" we have to understand that it is us that have healed, maybe found our missing piece, and the abuser is the one that is at a loss, perhaps they are not capable of respecting anyone.

beauflow, your father admitted his ignorance, so that was one thing you learned. Your seeing how all the apples from that family tree reacted to their own missing pieces. The two older brothers that choose to forget or deny? Perhaps their quiet agreement to control by abuse was ok on certain levels. And no, your mother is somewhere fallen from a tree that set her on her own path of surviving by denial and selfishness.

At least we have each other here to support one another in saying, "It is not easy to fill that missing piece." And it isn't easy to truely understand ourselves what it is either. I have read different stories of different struggles other members have and the one constant message is some kind of deep anger and frustration and even a sense of guilt or personal lack of somekind or recognising something that member is not quite doing right somehow. And there is talk about triggers, a knowing of something that causes some kind of discomfort, a reminder of something deeply troubling. A trigger can create all kinds of reactions, even a desire to lash out at another, somehow calling out something that may cross some kind of bounday of some kind.

I have to say that I have circled around this issue for a while now, for others, for myself and some kind of knowing but not knowing. Then a new member came in and talked about it differently and I was drawn to those messages. I got to know this member and we PM'd each other and then what this member descibed made much more sense to me. I was basically repeating the attempts to find this missing piece, however because it truely wasn't there I was simply hitting that empty space/injury/lack and could not get through or beyond because it is a pathway in my own brain that was never put in place. That is why we ruminate, repeat and struggle unknowingly. That is also why we want to know WHY and abuser abuses, abused us.

Last year I worked with a horse trainer that I would call the all around real deal in every way. Not only was she a really good horse trainer, but she was someone who learned how to feel real joy in her life. And she also knew how to be respectul of other people and is a very gracious person. She is also known to go very slowly in training a horse and she is seriously methodical. One day we were discussing other trainers and horses that perform and are trained very quickly to get to higher performance competition levels. I had always felt that many trainers push horses too quickly and as a result these animals simply do not last, they do break down physically and even mentally. This trainer replied, that if you miss a step in training, it never fails, at some point you always have to go back and address that missing step in the training. This is very significant, something I have always felt very deeply and her speaking of this touched a very deep part of me. In all my years of training horses/ponies and children, I did address this in many ways, I did find many missing pieces and experienced a positive result when addressing these missing pieces and somehow filling them. But I do have to say that it wasn't until I really experienced the flashbacks and triggers and gave it all a lot of thought, spent a lot of time and written a lot here. That I have only just begun to recognize my own missing pieces. And I do admit, I am not sure how to truely fill that missing piece yet, I am trying.

Open Eyes