Lori, you didn't ask for it. It's never the victim's fault, and this is one situation where I am confident about using the word never. I'm sorry that you had such rotten things happen to you. Nobody deserves that.

The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root it doesn't need its brain any more so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure.
Rodolfo Llinas, neuroscientist (from Daniel C. Dennett's Consciousness Explained).