This was hard for me to hear. I did not want to hear it but t insisted and gave me the evidence to back up her claim. She was right- there is no denying it.
I hate it about me but it's the truth. I am protecting a lot of ripple who have abused me in various ways and for some reason I refuse to acknowledge what they did and even minimise it. I didn't realise I did it so much until yesterday. T said I have to start protecting myself but it feels wrong to complain about them or bad mouth them- I feel like I should never tell about them. Can anyone relate?

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[someone321]

7 years ago, my world was upside-down and I went to psychologist. After 40 minutes of asking about all details who/what/when/how she said that I am selfish and egoistic as I protect abusers instead of thinking that they still can hurt other children... That was my first and the last appointment with this "t". Of course, she could be right but for sure it was not what I wanted to hear from her at the first meeting...

Do I protect them? For sure, as they have happy life instead of sitting in the prison but it took me some years to understand this and it does not mean that I want to change it... Thus, I can totally relate to this what you wrote... I won't hurt my abusers and I won't allow anyone to do that... That's why I can talk about them to my current T but not to anyone who knows them...

[archipelago]

I have done this in the sense that I have never reported on anyone. And I was silent for a very long time about what has happened to me. It did come up in therapy. My shrink talked about the famous essay by Ferenczi that talks about "identification with the aggressor" and the way that especially children accommodate their abusers. I read it and found some things that helped me explain what I had done in various situations and why. Since this essay was ground-breaking, I take it as definitive in the sense that this kind of response happens a lot so it put me at more ease and I didn't blame myself for doing what I had done up to that point. But it did make me feel more comfortable with becoming more clear about how complicated and wrong the situations were so I was able to break away a little bit from the way I had been dealing with it.

[unaluna]

I can relate. I have been going to t 4 days in a row every week for over a year. At first it was good - i am very grateful and i think i got a lot further, but lately, especially as it has become colder, i have been so tired, and i have just been blaming myself for not being more disciplined. But i am totally falling behind in my self-care. Also my tuesday and thursday appointments were changed from afternoon to morning, so it seemed like as soon as i woke up, it was time for bed again (like the l'allumeur - the lighter man - in the Little Prince; or time to make the donuts!). I needed longer days! I started hinting to t that i needed a vacation, that the schedule wasnt working, blah blah blah - but it all boils down to, i dont want to go against what he says. I cant distinguish what i need, even as im getting chest pains and high blood sugar.

And ts have always said, "oh a child will see themselves as bad before they say the parent is bad." I dont think i ever saw myself as bad. My parents, esp my mother, wouldnt call me bad. She would put it more as, i just had to try a little harder. I didnt quite make it. Whatever it was, was just always a little out of reach. Just a little more effort. My chest is tightening just writing this! When is it enough? My mother says im stupid. I have to agree. Im stupid for trusting her. Youre supposed to be able to trust your mother. If not her, then who? Otherwise its like jumping out of an airplane. There is nothing there to set your feet on. Well, thats what ts are for. Because really, we had nothing to set our feet on to grow from.

Yes I relate. But it's not them we protect. It's our sanity. We will break the denial when we're strong enough.

[skysblue]

I have not experienced the more serious CSA but my T had finally convinced me that I WAS a subject to emotional abuse. I can understand not wanting to 'condemn' the abuser because I had a perverse attachment to 'protecting' that person.

I think there are multiple reasons - at least for me - I couldn't be absolutely positive that my memories were accurate or that I wasn't blowing things out of proportion or I wasn't being a bad person by telling these horrible stories. I didn't trust myself to know the whole truth.

Of course, my abuser knew very well how to confuse me - by subjecting me to a ton of criticism and then by being sweet and nice. So, I would remember the sweet and nice and minimize the abuse.

So, how could that person really be an abuser, I'd ask myself? So sweet and nice to me - I must have it all wrong. And my abuser could so easily convince me it was ME who was screwed up. (oh, my abuser being a practicing therapist made me even less able to trust my own judgment)

So, sure - I felt guilty about any bad-mouthing or complaining. It took awhile for my T to finally get me to really see that I had been abused. And it wasn't her just saying so because she had said so during months of therapy and I just couldn't believe her. I knew she was wrong and that I was just a whiny person.

It wasn't until I met someone who is a national expert witness for abused women who showed me all the signs that I was being manipulated. Her credentials and her firm and blunt analysis of my situation finally helped me see the truth.

But, even now, I feel guilty about talking about what had happened. Even now I feel the need to protect the abusers' privacy. But, emotional abuse is different from CSA and I agree with some posters that switching loyalty from abuser to any potential future victims is a goal worth pursuing.

It takes awhile for the cognitive rational brain's acknowledgment of a situation to transform into clear emotional acknowledgment of that same situation. It's easier to 'know' the facts than to 'know' emotionally. So, don't worry if a bit of time is needed before your emotions catch up, ok? Good luck. Hugs

Thank you all for your replies
It is most helpful to know that others can relate to this because it made me feel ashamed and dirty that I could protect these monsters and if we were to out them we would have to admit it happened and i am still in the denail stage, I think.
They have brought in a new law here in Ireland that once abuse is mentioned that the therapist has to report it and this will make many people afraid of saying anything, it won't be safe anymore. I think that we go to counselling because we really need to talk about what happened to someone safe who won't tell. If I was to tell who this man was she would have to report it, he is old now and I don't think it would do any good only harm to his family to tell.
I had emotional abuse by my ex parnter and my mother for years and am still confused by it all and what happened, over time it peels back your layers of skin, right down to the bones. Till there is no self esteem or confidence anymore. It is frightening

[Asiablue]

Your therapist can only report someone if she knows who it is. You can talk about the abuse without giving him an identity.
Sounds like you're doing some good work.

[Syra]

I think it is harmful for a T to recommend, nudge, encourage, or make a victim feel guilty for not reporting. This is a trauma. reporting too early can increase the trauma.

I agree you need to protect yourself, and not your abusers. I don't agree that that means immediately outing them as abusers. It may at some point mean saying or doing something that will out them, but protects you. For example, a survivor may refuse to go to a family dinner where the abuser is presnet. The intent is to protect themselves. If people pressure the survivor so that she tells the truth why she issn't coming, she is doing it to protect herself, not her abuser. Protecting yourself doesn't mean you out your abuser. And it doesn't mean you don't out your abuser. It means you do what you need to do to heal, without regard to them. At some point, that MAY mean outing them to protect others. But it takes a while to get there, if ever.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by monalisasmile

They have brought in a new law here in Ireland that once abuse is mentioned that the therapist has to report it and this will make many people afraid of saying anything, it won't be safe anymore. I think that we go to counselling because we really need to talk about what happened to someone safe who won't tell. If I was to tell who this man was she would have to report it, he is old now and I don't think it would do any good only harm to his family to tell.

I think the mandatory reporting law to which you are referring really applies to current or active or recent occurrences of CSA, where the child or a vulnerable adult is still endangered, just as a t would have to report a threat by the client. We have that in the United States. I dont think it means a t has to report everything that happened to every client in the past, such as emotional abuse. Like sometimes on Dr Phil he tells the parents, you guys accept my help or you will hear from Child Protective Services because i (dr phil) am a mandated reporter.

[wotchermuggle]

Originally Posted by skysblue

It takes awhile for the cognitive rational brain's acknowledgment of a situation to transform into clear emotional acknowledgment of that same situation. It's easier to 'know' the facts than to 'know' emotionally.

This is so true.

[ECHOES]

Originally Posted by monalisasmile

This was hard for me to hear. I did not want to hear it but t insisted and gave me the evidence to back up her claim. She was right- there is no denying it.
I hate it about me but it's the truth. I am protecting a lot of ripple who have abused me in various ways and for some reason I refuse to acknowledge what they did and even minimise it. I didn't realise I did it so much until yesterday. T said I have to start protecting myself but it feels wrong to complain about them or bad mouth them- I feel like I should never tell about them. Can anyone relate?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I hopw you are talking about this as a coping skill you developed (and when and how and why you did), and not a judgement about what you do.

[Favorite Jeans]

I think that's kind of the nature of abuse: we are made to think we are inferior or we deserve it or that we'll suffer consequences for telling, we won't be believed, we'll be shamed etc. It's not your personal failing that you "protect" abusers by not speaking out. That fear of speaking up is part of the abuse.

And to be fair to those of us who have not spoken up (or did not for a while) or have not reported abuse to the authorities: look what happens when people speak up. Some infinitesimally tiny proportion of rapists do any jail time and victims are blamed and shamed, rampant sexual abuse has gone on in the church forever and the abusers have been continually protected and the victims continually silenced, women are most likely to be murdered as they are leaving an abusive relationship etc. I say this not to be depressing but to point out that there are powerful disincentives to speaking out.

So I hope your therapy is helping you cope with the trauma and shame of abuse and helping you understand that the shame belongs to the abuser. I hope you are not being judged for having a normal self-preservation response to abuse or being told that you are somehow at fault for not reporting what happened.

I'm all for speaking out and getting justice but to pretend that our system doesn't work because victims don't speak out is really, really unfair.

[someone321]

On Tuesday my T told me that he can understand a lot and that he is not angry when I e.g. accuse him for the lack of empathy (he said he's not angry about it because it's just not true ) but there is one thing which makes him very angry and which he cannot understand at all and he doesn't know how to handle it... He cannot stand why I do protect my abusers so much and why I support the whole "system" so much... For me that was a surprise because I think that it is quite simple and obvious, right? I do that because telling others (or any other method for stopping protecting the abusers) won't make me feeling better but it will destroy many other innocent lifes (e.g. families) and it won't help anyone as e.g. one of the abuser is old and another would never hurt anyone else (complicated story). So is it really so difficult to understand why "victims" protect their abusers?

[Syra]

1. no, it is't difficult to understand.
2. even IF someone doesn't understand it, the number of victims and survivors who DON'T report suggest that there is something going on, and even if he doesn't understand it, he can understand that it is a common and protective reaction.

I can understand a T telling a client that his experience is that oftentimes (but not ALWAYS) when a victim starts to talk to others, and tells ______________, that the victim starts to become a survivor BUT that there might be a lot of work that has to go on before a victim can even see how it MIGHT be helpful, and then more time to be prepared to do it, AND sometimes the circusmtances are such that the victim can't ever get there, and that is okay, and they still deserve comfort and empathy. and it doesn't mean they can't work on other, perhaps related, issues. Although there are patterns of behavior in survivors of abuse, each case is different. EAch case has different ripple effects.

No one knows what is best for the victim better than the victim. Others can have things to think about, but NO ONE KNOWS.

[someone321]

Originally Posted by Syra

1. no, it is't difficult to understand.
2. even IF someone doesn't understand it, the number of victims and survivors who DON'T report suggest that there is something going on, and even if he doesn't understand it, he can understand that it is a common and protective reaction.

I can understand a T telling a client that his experience is that oftentimes (but not ALWAYS) when a victim starts to talk to others, and tells ______________, that the victim starts to become a survivor BUT that there might be a lot of work that has to go on before a victim can even see how it MIGHT be helpful, and then more time to be prepared to do it, AND sometimes the circusmtances are such that the victim can't ever get there, and that is okay, and they still deserve comfort and empathy. and it doesn't mean they can't work on other, perhaps related, issues. Although there are patterns of behavior in survivors of abuse, each case is different. EAch case has different ripple effects.

No one knows what is best for the victim better than the victim. Others can have things to think about, but NO ONE KNOWS.

I like your sentence that the victim can become a survivor - maybe one day... My T called me today a victim - not extremely pleasant feeling about that...

[Perna]

One cannot change a behavior until one knows about it. It is painful to learn and to be in the position of seeing a way of being that one is familiar with but that no longer works for us. I would just start imagining being more assertive and an adult, able to learn to take care of one's self and go from there. Not telling is in the past when one was a child and had no other defenses. Now one is able to not allow abuse in the first place, if only by "leaving" the situation.

[Auntie2014]

I will not protect my abuser ever! I will do my best to protect and/or help someone that is/or has been abused The biggest regret in my life is that it took me over thirty years to be able to even tell someone about my abuse.