I posted this somewhere else, but I feel that it is also very relevant in this thread too. And when you read this, please don't let this get you down, but instead understand that it means that you are not alone and that if you understand this, you can use it to for communicating your feelings, even bring it to a therapist too. I think it embodies how many feel that struggle with PTSD and boundaries as well. So just think about it and anyone is welcome to post to this, add their thoughts about it too.

When someone is a victim they are hurt in ways they don't always understand.
And from the moment "safety" in anyone is compromised, that person begins to have a sense of "low self esteem" because someone "overpowered them in some way".

The one thing that a victim begins to "respect and need" is "truth". People who suffer abuse begin to wonder why and what they want is the "truth" most of all. The "truth" represents "safety" as well.

When you go and sit with your therapist and she asks you "how was your day, or how was your week" you struggle with that question because you know that it is important to "speak the truth". So, from the very beginning of therapy your "self esteem" weakens. And often the rest of the session fades away into "it is not helping me"

One of the problems with a victim not telling the truth, is that they deeply fear they will be handed answers to their struggles that will only make them feel worse. They feel that they are "unworthy" because that is how their abuser made them feel, their pain was not important, their job was to just take it and shut up and give in. What they want to do is "hide" and find ways to shut out the world and somehow create their own "safe" world, and that often can creep toward wanting to sleep alot too.
((Obj)) that is your answer, your way of being safe.

When you sit with a therapist you are across from someone who appears to you as being strong, intelligent, capable, well educated, and may be "judgemental" if you really talk about "your personal struggle".

So when you are asked, "how was your day or week" instead of saying the truth, which is something you know is important, you try to find ways to "avoid the real truth and you say you are ok". All victims feel that no one will understand them or can really help them, because no one did that when they were victimized. And in many ways the person who abused them told them that. And because they were overpowered, they believed it on some deep level. A victim begins to "believe they are powerless, no one will believe them or understand them". A victim is deeply confused about how they feel and they can get very tired and depressed about it so they try to "avoid" it because they don't think anyone can truely help them.

Your therapist is "healthy" and you are afraid of that, you are afraid of her seeing the real you, and you have learned to protect that, because other people have showed to you that they will not help or believe in you. Your piano teacher did that to you, that situation was very close to what an abuser did, told you to the depths of you that you were "unworthy" and even "damaged".

When it comes to abusers, they can be someone everyone fears or dislikes and they are a threat but "you" are their main victim, so because you know "everyone" fears them, you wont get helped. Or, they seem to be so liked and respected by others that you feel that "no one will believe they are hurting you". Somehow your message is that if you are "honest" and try to get help, "no one will believe you or really help you". And you also know that if the abuser gets really angry because you try to tell, they will really hurt you and punish you. There will be too much risk so you are trapped somehow. Children do not understand how to deal with this, even adults can't deal with this problem. And often a victim can be a target for others to pick on, overpower and abuse and they form a "victim mentality". But they don't truely understand what that means so they find ways to "hide" and "withdraw" and they don't think anyone will understand that, so for them the truth is not something they believe anyone will be able to believe or help them with.

When people say that "you are not trying hard enough" it hurts because the mere fact that you are trying at all takes a tremendous amount of effort for you. And no one is going to see that, so you begin to feel hopeless as though it will only be a matter of time before you fail and someone will abandon you or let you down somehow. And that means you were right, it was just too hard and all your effort was a waste of time. You think in the back of your mind "if only I could get past that somehow" so you continue to "try" and make some efforts in ways "you can manage these efforts to control the hurt".

When you sit across from a therapist, to the depths of you this smart, educated, strong person just "ISN'T GOING TO UNDERSTAND THAT". And that is why most people give up on therapy. They begin to think that they are the only ones that can see themselves and it is them that has to find a way to figure it out somehow. And they really want permission to "climb into bed or withdraw when it just gets too hard".

Does that sound familiar?

A good therapist will understand this and help you, really help you, but they have to see it and know that it is very hard for you and you will need to withdraw and they need to know to back off and let you do that. And most of all, they have to believe you because if they don't it will not help you at all, and it is already very hard to sit across from them and hope they really can see "you" the way you need them to. Because to the depths of you, you already know no one else has truely "seen you" and helped you. And you want so bad to find that "special rescuer" but you never seem to find that person. You want that presence that can know your pain so badly, someone who will somehow sweep you up and hold you and give you the validation and permission you really need to find your way to thrive somehow. If only someone could "really see you" and you could look back at them with the "trust" you so desire, if only you think to the depths of you.

If only a therapist could really see, instead of asking questions and writing things down that say, patient could be this or that or they start to prejudge and misunderstand the you that you have become in order to survive somehow. Inside you is a very complicated puzzle and you are often so misunderstood and you keep getting hurt every time you try to make some kind of effort somehow. Your life becomes more about "who is going to hurt me next"? How is a therapist going to see that? you wonder.

If this is you, what I can say, what many can say is "me too".

Open Eyes