I am just coming to realize something more clearly that may not go over well on Psych Central: my "abuser" was a person, not a "monster." All the terror that she and others who were incompetent at best caused me, all the many "lost" years of my life, and I can see that she was herself terrified and did not know what she was doing. It makes it much harder for me to comprehend, in some ways. Harder to know how to handle it. But it won't help to deny it.