Tonight in therapy we did holiday survival planning. My mom (my abuser and still-tormentor even though I'm a grownup now) will be at my sister's for Christmas. I'm only putting up with it for 3 days, then getting the hell back to my own space and trying to recover.

But anyway, my T and I were talking about my sister, who has spent 25 years in the mental health field and recently has decided she wants to do family sessions with my pdoc, etc, "so that I can support you in the way a family member should." To which I say -- NO. She's much older, moved out when she was 15 and I was 3, and doesn't know a thing about the abuse, nor do I want her to. I've talked to her about the depression, and she knows I have PTSD, she just doesn't know why.
I told her about the cutting a while ago and she was good with it, didn't go all wacky on me or anything.

Anyway. At some point during visits with my mother, I end up wanting to hack my arm off with a rusty handsaw, much less cut with a knife. I can get pissed off just by LOOKING at her. So T and I talked about that too.

I was just laying here, looking at my scars, and feeling really sad about them. I made them because I was trying to overcome emotionally overwhelming stuff and I needed tangible evidence of the emotional pain. But other people caused that pain, not me. I'm innocent in all of this. Why should I attack my body when I'm not the one who did the initial damage? Looking at them just made me very sad.

I don't know if that's progress or not. Gregory (T) asked me to find a picture of myself from around the age the abuse started. I found my First Communion picture. I was this cute little kid, so happy and smiling, didn't look like an abused kid at all. How did I get from there to here? Where did that little girl get so lost that the grown woman has to beat her up so bad?

So I'm just sad for myself tonight, and confused because for once I'm not blaming myself. Usually I cut when I'm angry with myself, because I think I've done something stupid and deserve to hurt and punish myself. But tonight I'm just sad. I can't quite get angry yet, at least not all the way, at the person who caused all my trauma in the first place, but at least I'm not blaming myself for it. I just feel bad for that poor, INNOCENT little girl who got caught in the middle of some adult's pathology.

I dunno. I guess this is progress?

Candy