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Old Aug 03, 2012, 01:37 PM
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Open Eyes Open Eyes is offline
Legendary Wise Elder
 
Member Since: Mar 2011
Location: Northeast USA
Posts: 23,288
(((My kids are cool))) Its ok, I think you have a good idea for geez.

geez, I am sorry that you don't have a direct path to closure right now. That desire if really strong geez, I have it too and for 5 years I have been waiting and jumping through hoops to get it and the whole time had to "keep quiet" and hold in an unbelievable amount of anger. It has been an awful experience for me because I have run into so many situations where I felt so completely invalidated.

This need for closure has been recognized for the vets that present with PTSD. And they designed a new program called "operation proper exit". They bring the vets back to where they were stationed and even where they lost friends or got taken away from where they were trying to fight and gain a way to rebuild too. And this has brought a lot of relief to these vets.

When I was growing up I can remember my father constantly watching anything that was on about WWII. I could not understand his facination with having to see it so much, to me it was just a bunch of men "killing" and "fighting". And just recently I finally realized what that meant to him. My father always wondered what happened to the men that he dropped off on the beach to go off and fight and he wanted to know what happened to other service men and even how things were restored etc.
He was constantly looking for "closure" in some way.

It is also very "normal" for all human beings to have a strong desire for "justice" too.
And when someone is struggling with PTSD, that desire is so strong and even very raw. And since I have been coming to PC alone, I have read so many posts of members wanting to confront whomever abused them in someway. They want to somehow also make an abusive parent have to sit and listen while they can say,
"you hurt me and abused me and I am angry and you are not a nice person". Or they may want to say, "someone hurt me and you were not there for me to protect me".
It could all kinds of different situations where someone was abused somehow and never got to say how much it hurt them.

What you need to understand geez is that at least you are at this point where you are expressing this strong desire. You have finally gotten to a point where you can not only identify the person who hurt you, but you realize "it was not your fault" and that you "have the right to express your anger about it".

When an abuser "dies" and that step is not there anymore, we do have to grieve that too. And often it doesn't even have to be that someone died either. I have spoken up to my father (recently) and told him what happened to me as a child and all he did was say,"that was a long time ago, and kid stuff, I can do anything about that now".
Wow, talk about a major let down for me.

And I am in a lawsuit where I have had to shut up for years and wait and watch my neighbor carry on like not big deal too. And wow, I feel like I am never going to get closure and be able to express what his families carelessness did to my life. And I am still paying on the bills and caring for the crippled animals that was all created by his not fixing his electric containment system for three months, knowing that his dog was getting on my property and harassing my horses/ and ponies at night while I was sleeping. I see them constantly every day and I have to keep silent.

So geez, I can totally relate to how you feel right now. And it is ok to cry too, because you need to be able to grieve too. And these emotions have been held in for a long time, so you have to finally allow yourself to just grieve.

(((Hugs)))
Open Eyes