Hello (((MOUSE))). I am sorry that you are struggling at this time with all of the questions that you are having to explore at this age.Sometimes when you age then you tend to look back on things when you were younger, and feel that you should have been stronger as a young person and have been able to protect yourself. First of all if you were not aware that what was going on was not something you should have been doing, then you had no way to need or want to protect yourself. It is only when you get older and realize GEE why didnt I try to help myself at that time. Unfortunately with abused people the love and attention sometimes becomes distorted, and the intent and failure to understand becomes very confused and the person just learns to accept rather than be hurt emotionally. I can imagine that you are very consumed with the thought that there should have been something you could have done to stop things or protect yourself, but in all innocence you did not know to protect yourself. It is very hard to heal the pain of the past when you are still looking for the answers that you feel should have lied from within when you were younger. I agree with your therapist that you could not help yourself then because help was not needed from your interpretation of what was happening at the time. Now I am sure it looks totally different since you have the means to help yourself to see what was happening when you were younger, and you can see clearly that it was not a good situation, but at that time you did the best with the decision making, and coping skills that you had at that time. Fortunately at this time you have more coping skills and more comprehensive recognition of right and wrong, and you should not try if possible to compare situations since you did the best you could do at that time, and if you are safe at this time and making better decisions, then hopefully in time you will understand that you were not thoroughly in control at your age of the situation. You can not be expected emotionally to make Adult decisions at a young age, and understand everything at the age that you were when all of this happened. Hopefully one day you can get past some of this and try to stop comparing then to now. The past is sometimes something that can not be redone and sometimes that is a good thing. Take care Mouse. Soidhonia