I wasn't always this strong someone looked at me wrong and I hid in my books, music, cried, or lived in my head mentally daydreaming about a safe place.

When I became this strong I didn't see it as standing up for myself and being strong. It was kind of like you know how alcoholics have to hit rock bottom before they finally stop using booze to run away from their problems.

Well I hit rock bootm. I was in my 20's. my energy and logical thinking was gone. I had no place to go I was already at rock bottom and no matter where I looked the walls of the pit were shear glass with no footholds to climb back up and run from my abuser. so I basically laid down to die, by writing a suicidal letter to an author of a self help book that my support group was using, and I wanted to let her know how much her book has helped some of us in the group before I died.

Thanks to my penpal montor being there for me when I needed her and her pointing out all sides of what she was seeing from me I slowly I began to see that abusers want their victims to remain quiet, so that they can continue abusing them until they are used up and ready to die like I was.

So here I am ready to die corresponding with my penpal mentor who happened to be VERY vocal in the public eye and known for putting things right out there no matter how controversial the way she sees it telling me that I have alot to live for and the strengths she sees in me and so on because instead of just killing myself I had picked up pen and paper and her book and wrote to her.

If I choose to hold on Something will come along that will answer my questions of why me and why wait for him to kill me to her. she didn't have those answers but someday I will have those answers I am looking for.

Thanks to her I begain to live again. First I began to live for her and her letters then I began to live for me and take down my abuser in his effeort to mentally and physically kill me.

While I was still in that highly suicidal frame of mind my answers came when the founder of the group came in one night and said she got a call from a prison guard who wanted to come into the group the next week and talk to us. he wanted some vollunteers to be his guest speakers for his inmate offenders program.

At first I was afraid while listening to the prison guard and what he wanted our group to do - go into his group and put back into these mens lives a face and feelings to their crimes so that prison no longer is a place where they don't have to face their victims and what their crimes are doing to their victims..

But when someone in the group had vollunteers and then decided not to go I knew I was going to even if I did not say a word. If I was going to die it was going to be because people knew I was a victim, not silently like abusers want.

Why me? Why wait? - so that I could understand and help other survivors and make this world a better place by taking down my abuser even though I knew I was going to die.

Sometimes even now after all that I have done with going public I don't realize that I have actually grown stronger and have done amazing things. and when that happens sometimes I slip back into feeling helpless or depressed or like a victim instead of a survivor.

So I have no problem with people letting me know when they see something strong in me. in fact my penpan - mentor - friend (for she has seen me through over a decade of lifes awards and joys and growth challenges and you name it. she has been there for me in whatever ways she can be no matter when I need her) never lets me forget how strong I really am and that she sees that I am now not a victim but a survivor. My local friends also tell me when they see something of strength in me, as does my therapist.

Thank you for adding to my list of positives. I believe that life is too short to just focus on the negative aspects. it makes going through the negatives that much easier.

Hang in there you will get there as you heal and are ready.