Cyran.

I agree. abuse has to do with the power difference. That is, of course, seperate from how we feel about the situation, which is also important. I think though abuse ascribes that someone acted to take advantage of us. I think you can feel powerless without being abused. You can be abused without feeling powerless. Its complicated, but most imporant is that we deal with our feelings about what happened to us. I just thing (This may just be me though) that we get too wrapped up in labeling something abuse... for some reason it holds some significance to us. Indeedd, in many cases we need that label to give us voice though.