Do you think after you heal, you can go on without being self identifed with with your past? It just seems like now, it is such a huge part of my present life, being a survivor. Do you think as you move on in your life, you start to use something else to identify you as a person, something more of the present instead of the past?

Yes its possible. I believe a person can have many things that define who they are depending on where their mind is for example -

When I was a child who I was was my mothers child, my abusers victim, my sisters and brothers sister, my school friends friend, my teachers student.

when I first started working on the things that happened to me I felt I was a victim.

I also became a consumer - a person who was paying for a service - therapy, medical health, and so on.

As I got stronger at fighting back I became a survivor - someone who could stand up for myself.

When I was doing my public speaking engagements I was an advocate for past, present and future victims and survivors and for rights for children and child sexual abuse victims and survivors.

when I opened my home to my neighbors and friends and their chilldren I became a day care provider.

When I worked I identified with the roles of - secretary, custodian, teachers aid for pre - K through 6th grade, librarian, tutor,

When I was pregnant and my child was living at home my focus was as a mother.

Now one of my focus points is writing so I identify with the author role.

another focus point in my life right now is healing from DID. Unexpectedly I became an advocate, role model and teacher for other survivores who have DID.

Another focus point of mine is that I run a support group for women survivors so I am a facilitatior and advocate.

Basically throughout a persons life they take on many roles depending on where their focus is and their interests.

Thanks Myself,

This is good to know. I have different roles in my life, but it seems since I am in therapy, I feel more like a victim or survivor role.
Can you please tell my how you got involved with speaking against child abuse. Did your T help you? I would very much like to do this after therapy. We have a big group where i live called Prevention Of Childabuse, but my T is a huge volunteer that works for them, he used to be the president of the group ( i think it is also a national group) But anyways, I would like to do something separate from my T and what he does. Any ideas on how to get started?

No it wasn't a therapist. My public lifestyle began through a friend, a support group and a prison guard.

My first situation I did was testifying before my state governors task on rape and child sexual abuse. I had just moved into a new town by way of the domestic violence relocation program because I had planned on confronting my abuser at my therapist office and I wanted to have a safe place to go so he could not kill me because he had threatened to kill me if I told shortly before I made my decision to confront him. my abuser never showed up to the appointment and I followed through ad moved into a DV shelter in another town.

That first week was really stressful and I was angry at the fact that for my safety I had to keep moving around losing jobs, friends and so on. One day when it was really bad I went in to the crisis center where one of my friends worked. this person I had met when I was in therapy in the previous towns branch office of the one that was in the new town. Anyway I knew her work schedule for when she would be in the town I had just moved to and I went in to see her. she asked me if I wanted to put all that anger of mine to good use. I asked her how and she told me that the state governor was sending a task force around the state and that the task force was going to be talking to teachers, lawyers, doctors and so on and also survivors of rape and child sexual abuse. After they stopped in each city on their list they were going to take the testimonys given in the fogus groups and form law proposals to be sent into legislature to form new laws for the state. She said they were coming to town soon and wanted to know if I wanted to testify in the focus groups. I said tell me when and where I'll be there.

On the day the task force was in town I went in and gavve my testimony along with about 10 - 15 other survivors of rape and child sexual abuse. later I recieved the law proposals bound into a thick blue book, based on my testimony along with every one else that they talked with. Those proposals went on to legislature and became laws for the state.

I later joined in on a therapy group with this crisis center where my friend LR worked. In that group I met a woman S. S branched off and started a new group that was support oriented. I joined that group.

One night S came in to the group saying she recieved a call from a prison guard who ran an inmate offenders program and he wanted to come talk to our group. When he came that next week he said he wanted some vollunteers from our group to be his guest speakers for his group. the inmates once incarcerated do not have contact with thier victims so they really don't have to deal with what they did to their victims, and the prison guard wanted to put faces and feelings back into their crimes. I went intending to just be there for moral support of my friends in the group. I didn't stay silent very long. This A... of an inmate stood up and said his 2 year old wanted it otherwise she would not have taken off her clothes. I went off. Can't tell you today what I said but according to my friends and the prison guard I apparently and effectively (and then some) vented my anger about his ignorant comment and the next time he called for vollunteers he requested that me and another person in our group that laid it all on the line be among those that vollunteered because we made a lasting impression. I think I went back to that same prison inmate program 3-4 times.

After the first guest speaking engagement the prison guard told other prisons with in a 3 hour drive radius and we were getting calls nonstop. Very quickly word got around and colleges and schools were calling us for guest speaking engagements, churches, kwanis clubs, nuring programs you name it soon we had to divide those of us that were going public into groups of 2 because we had so many engagements. This one school had us in for two classes and then asked us to come back and spend the whole school day and talk to every one of that teachers classes that day if we could handle. it was just amazing, and then the local city child abuse protection council asked our group to be a part of the city counsel, then we were asked to help put together a workshop for teachers in the three surrounding counties, some members of the group were interviewed for a television show, a local reporter asked to come into the group and interview us.

the best way to get started would be vollunteering for your local crisis center. Crisis centers go into classrooms. That will definately get you plenty of speakeing engagements and then its just a matter of how fast those teachers and students tell others about you and then you will have more speaking engagements then you could ever imagine.

Crisis centers will also know of any other things like task forces and so on that you can work on and speak at.

Have warning - Is sounds amazing and is amazing but the being in the public eye comes with a price - once your name and phone number is out there for others to contact you for speaking engagements not only will you get the ones that want you to speak at their class group and so on but you will also get the nuts and abusers who don't want you to talk because your story, advice and so on will be reaching the victims and the victims will tell and the abusers will get caught. invest in an answering machine or voicemail with your telephone company that way you don't have to answer the calls and can call back those wanting you to speak for their class or group and you can just delete the A...'s.

Also if your abuser was a relative expect trouble. when I went public I was threatened with being killed. threatened with arrest for slander and libel, threatened with involluntary commitment to a state facilty, and this is just the tip of the iceburg. And not only from your own abusers. I helped a teen get out of her abusive home. I was grocery shopping and her abuser started in yelling and throwing things at me right there in the store. I helped an adult woman get away from her abusive husband, one day I found my dog was sick, Took him to the vet - he had been poisoned, I ended up having the vet put him down.

Making the decision to go public is not something to do on a whim because it sounds cool. It sounds cool and is cool and you will be helping more people then you can imagine but you also have to deal with abusers head on. So please take time to totally think it through.

wow, myself, your post is overwhelming on so many levels, I think I will need some time to think about all of this.
I will respond more later or maybe i will pm you.
I have started to tell certain family members about my childhood and why I don't want to come to the reunion if there is a chance my mother could be there. Well my mother got wind of what i have been saying and she threatend to "show me what real child abuse it" .
I would like to put my anger to use like you have, but I guess I have to think about everything you have said like the risks in doing so . I am sure there is even more that you haven't said.
I will write you later okay..

Sure thing pm me any time.

[almostangela]

MYSELF has described it so elequently, but if I might add, as I have moved on, when I look back to what happened, it is like it is a movie and when I remind myself that that was me, it doesn't seem possible. As I've gone through the process of forgiving myself (and my abuser), some of the episodes are hard to recall. As a person moves on, like Myself has demonstrated, your soul begins to heal as it creates new and wonderful memories to focus on.