Hi everyone. I'm wondering if anyone can relate, offer suggestions or simply validate this experience as being somewhat normal. I've been unable to discuss my trauma in detail except with my husband, a little with my mom and a bit with my best friend as she witnessed quite a bit of it. Anytime I discuss it, I'm overwhelmed with guilt, worry that I will be judged and attacked or blamed and told I deserve it. My abusers did tell me I deserved it and for many years, I felt them right. For a few years now I've known 100% that I didn't deserve it, but only from the logical side of my brain. My emotional brain still harbors the guilt that I did. I haven't been able to discuss it in therapy, mostly because it's group therapy with regular people who aren't held to confidentiality laws and I have been verbally assaulted in group therapy several times making it worse. I try to talk about it on here a bit, or sometimes it just leaks out in my writing, then I feel such overwhelming guilt and shame and feel I'm bracing myself for the onslaught of accusations that I deserved it. I just don't understand. Why? I know that when it comes to discussing abuse I received from my loved ones, I feel guilty because I love them so much....I understand why they did what they did based on their own traumas and I know that laymen will judge my loved ones unfairly because they don't know the wonderful people they usually are....but why do I feel a need to protect the evil azzholes who I don't love or care about? Why do I feel guilty for telling the truth about them? I don't understand. Can anyone shed light or at least relate? Thank you for reading.