Hi Justy,

I want to take a shot at this, although I'm no expert, just a fellow traveller.

I believe that when we were children we desperately wanted things to be normal, so we did what we could to do to escape from the chaos and pretended to ourselves that it wasn't happening.

In later life, maybe once our tormentor has died, the deep subconscious wakes up and gives us some symptoms. Perhaps the bereavement breaks through our defences and the subconscious says, Hey! this wasn't normal, bad things happened, and they happened to you!

No one wants to be a victim, but I believe that we have to face up to the fact that we were victims, and feel the whole pain of it. Then, with luck, we can move from victim to survivor.

If we can go to that bad place, and be in it, then perhaps we won't have to go back into the closet again. The bad place wasn't the closet, it was what made us want to go in there in the first place. My bad place is the sound of my father's voice when he was going to start on me. To this day I hate bullies, particularly psychological bullies.

My closet was the bottom of the garden. If I ever feel that I need the bottom of the garden again I know that there's been a trigger, and I find it and face it. I've spent too much of my life hiding and I don't want to do it anymore.

When we share on this board we are not hiding, we are facing up to our fears, and I think we should be proud that we can do it.

Cheers, Myzen

PS - Sometimes it helps to look at old photos, and you can see the dynamic recorded on film. The evidence is there in the faces. At least it is with my family.