Hey everyone,

I want to thank each and every one of you for your heartfelt, helpful replies, I am so grateful and it is so heart-warming to know you all understand and care. Sometimes when we are dealing with things we can grow to believe that we are the only ones who feel the pain, and it can be a very lonely place, so to hear you all support me and be there for me showing genuine consideration, really does help.

Sannah - When I said how I love and respect my family too much to not tell them, I mean that none of them know about it...I have kept it from them for over ten years, and I intend on keeping it from them for longer, I will take it to my grave. It will break my dad's heart if he found out about it, as it would the rest of my family. They can't help me with it specifically, and if they found out it would just make things so much harder.

Silversparrow - Thank you for your kind words. It helps me to know I am not alone in this, but I am very sorry you feel that way too...I find it sad that the abuse we endure as children can have such a lasting effect on our adult lives. How old were you when you were abused? I agree about the fear thing, it makes me so scared to even get close to someone and has made me breakdown in tears before (not in front of the person though) and even made me sick. When my mood is up I am able to believe I can fight it, and that it will get better, but when my mood is down, I can't believe it and I get so scared. I have noticed my moods usually play out in the same order - I wake up feeling really lousy and panicky first thing in the morning. Usually feel sick too. Once I get up and out for work I don't feel too bad but my mood will go up and down a little during the day depending if I am triggered or whether I think about it or not. Then by the evening I usually feel a little better...maybe that's the anti-depressants.

imapatient - It is such a relief to know you know what it's like, but as I said to Silversparrow, I am sorry you do know what it's like - I wouldn't wish this experience on my worst enemy (not that I have one). Do the women ever question why you were panicking so much? It strikes me that you say you felt "repulsive" - that is something I too sometimes feel about myself. I agree about the commitment thing you said about. I believe I am very mature for my age and have felt more mature than most people my own age - even being told how mature I am. Yet I feel like I have gone back partly to a childlike state of fears etc. My T says this stress of the memories have caused me to become unbalanced and that it will level off with time and hard work. While I am on the subject of my T, I am unable to have more sessions and am currently only having one session a month. I have been going to therapy since I was 15, so 6 years now. It was 3 years into my therapy that I was able to finally share with T about the abuse. My T has been so helpful, she is my lifelong hero, and she has helped me through it all. She has given me some helpline numbers and websites to go on that are specifically aimed at abuse victims but I haven't felt like calling them or going to the websites yet. That's why I came back here, because I feel safe here and this site has helped me so much in the past, I knew I could return here and seek the help I need. I think maybe it's a good thing that I am unable to see T more often because it is helping me deal with these issues without being dependant on my T...up until a few weeks ago we were actually winding my therapy down in order to stop it, but becuase of my recent downturn we are continuing, but only once monthly. I too feel like I am the only person my age who isn't in a relationship, a lot of the problem is that sex is so highly publicised in the media, it is everywhere, and it drums it into your mind that you MUST be having sex otherwise you're a loser, you know? Sex is so highly publicised, yet it is still a little taboo so people just don't share the fact they feel sexually unhealthy or inactive etc.

Exoticflower - Thank you for checking in to see how I am, when I read that earlier I smiled as it is such a nice thing for someone to do. It made me feel so less lonely, so thank you for that. In regards to Christmas, I am trying really hard to make it work, I usually am really into Christmas and am usually the one who drives people along at this time of year, spreading the festive spirit, so it feels un-natural for me to feel like this, and it makes me feel confused and frustrated about it. Maybe 2009 will bring a lot more happiness and freedom of this pain...

Capp - I know this may make me sound a bit un-educated, but what does "jmo/jme" mean? I have been able to work past the sense of shame about actually being abused, the shame I feel now is about myself and the way it has affected my life. The guilt and the shame are so draining and makes things ten times harder to handle. With my family, I can't say I feel responsible for their feelings and I have thought very long and very hard about telling them, but I have decided to never tell them. It isn't fair on them and I know it wouldn't help me, my dad is a recovering alcoholic and this will push him backwards. It just isn't logical or fair for me to tell them. I understand why you say maybe I should, but if I could see how it would benefit them positively to know, then I would consider it, but it won't. All of what you say about fighting it and carrying on makes so much sense and I agree, when I feel lousy it feels like I just want to give up, and it really pushes me, but I try to keep fighting it. the stage I am at now is where I notice how I am talking myself into a bad mood, and when I start feeling good I tend to think of the things I know will make me down...I am working really hard on getting out of that stage, to think positively and not be hard on myself. Before this was triggered, when I felt happy, I was a really positive person. I have been through some tough stuff in my life, more than just the abuse, as have so many others, and it had taught me to be positive, to look at the good side of things. So when I find myself in this rut I am currently in, it again feels un-natural and leads me to feel like I'm loosing myself, so trying to hold on to who I am, and to what I believe, also takes a lot of energy. Thank you Capp for the assurance that this will pass, the help I am getting here at PC, in the space of 24 hours, is overwhelming and so so so so touching. I feel it is really helping me with it.

Again, thank you all for the help, we all know how hard it is, and how tough it is to keep going when all we want to do is give up. You don't realise just how grateful I am for this...