Sensitive Topic - Abuse

Hi,

I wonder how many of you on here have been through forms of abuse.

How have you got through it?

Have you forgiven the person/people involved?

Do you think that degree of the abuse matters to the victim?


This by the way is me, broaching a subject that I have never really spoken about, in the sense of including myself as one of these victims. In my mind the physical side of it was kind of minor, especially compared to what I know others had to go through. But the years of fear that it could become more, the years of emotional put downs and being controlled, and the years of hating have definitely had an effect on me.

I wish I could wave a wand and rid myself of the last of the power the still hold over my emotionall/mental well being.

yes we have

Yes I have been on the wrong end of sexual, emotional and psychological abuse.

How have you got through it?

It is only something I started to face and talk about last year, up till then I buried my head in the sand. I believed the line, "no one will believe you" as my abuser was a respected member of the community. I have to make a decision soon on wither or not to get sexual abuse counselling through ACC or leave sleepign dogs lie.

Have you forgiven the person/people involved?

Easy to answer, NO. He has done a lot of damage and sadly still has a strong hold over me. every time a letter arrives and I recongise his handwritting my heart sinks.

Do you think that degree of the abuse matters to the victim?

Any level of abuse affects the victim and underminds them regardless of the degree.

Hey,

Just a follow up from my earlier post.

My psychologist is reccommending I have sexual abuse counselling.

I am very reluctant as I have to face what happened and the hurt and damage it has done.

She thinks it will help me gain some of my power back and heal some of the emotional and psychological scars.

I am on this road myself having just got in touch with the abuse and trauma team in west auckland.

I am so scared about re visiting this as it was something that happened when I was very young. I have tried to talk about these things before and cant actually get myself to say the words. I remember alot of what happened but I'm not to sure what is mixed up with the way I look at things now as an adult compared to what I would have thought as a child.

Also who is to say that unearthing all these things are going to make things better. I have had this stuff with me for so long who knows who I will become if they are not with me.

Scary times

Hi..
I've experienced sexual, physical, emotional and mental abuse as a child onwards.. I'm having ACC counselling - and would recommend it.. you can ask for a list of ACC registered counsellors in your area.. and when making an appointment, or at your first meeting - it's a good idea to 'interview' the counsellor.. ask questions like
What is your field of training?
What experience do you have with dealing with (type of) abuse?
Do you have supervision regularly? - a counsellor usually has a more senior person as a supervisor, so they have someone to talk to about anything that's concerning them, what could be helpful for their client, as well as to be someone to be there for them if they're finding anything difficult or triggering, etc.. when they're counselling a client.
What are the costs, if any? - some counsellors charge a fee over and above what ACC pays them.
What is your preferred way of providing counselling for a client?
What training do you have in that field?
How would you guide a counselling session?
etc..

Also.. this is something that I sometimes forget.. it's so easy when a person has had any kind of abuse, to think that 'I caused it", "It's my fault", etc.. however this is known to be true:

"A perpetrator of any kind of abuse has a vested interest in making his/her victim feel responsible for what he/she is doing, as they can them absolve themselves of any responsibility for their own behaviour."

This is why victim's/survivors often feel like they are bad/ they caused the abuse/ they did something bad/ they were too pretty/ they were provocative/did something that 'made' the perpetrator have no choice but to abuse.. etc.etc..

All absolutely not true... the perpetrator is completely and solely responsible for their actions.. and their behaviour.. and the responsibility and the shame is the perpetrators responsibility and shame..

We owe it to ourselves - the most important person in our own lives - to leave that shame and responsibility with the person/people who made deliberate choices to behave in the way they did... and not to think it is ours..

Did they experience the same as a child? Is that where they learnt their behaviour? Maybe.. however that didn't cause them to act that way either.. there are masses of people who experienced child abuse, and who didn't go on to be a perpetrator.. and I'm proud to say I'm one of them.. I didn't abuse my own Children.

Earlier this year, my adult Son was home.. what I'd experienced as a child came up and he and my Daughter were asking questions about it.. it was an emotional time.. shielding them from hearing almost all of what happened, and I was in tears for much of the time, as were they both. When I'd finished talking, my Son looked at me through his tears, and said "Y'know something Mum? You stopped it happening, you didn't let it happen to us, you stopped it.. you can be real proud of yourself for that Mum.." - a hugely emotional time.. and thank goodness they are safe..

Awesome stuff as usual, Books. And not just in this Thread, but in everything you post, both here and on TM. My heart goes out to you, my friend and to anyone of us who requires counselling as a result of abuse.

Here's a bit of wisdom I learnt during my counselling sessions, during most of which, I sobbed my eyes out. No matter how much we may have been brainwashed, let me make one thing very clear to everyone who may read this.

We did not deserve to be abused and hurt. It is not our fault that it happened. We were powerless to deal with it in any way other than how we did at the time and ever since.

Counselling will be hard. Very, very hard. Im my experience, I cried for me, the adult me and the little boy who stopped being a kid far sooner than he should otherwise have done. And, there is only one person you need to forgive. You.

Not the person or people who abused you. Fuckem. Let them rot in hell.

For me, that included people like my mother, whose funeral I did not attend, tho I did see her a month or so before she died of cancer (I needed to know it wasn't more bullshit) and the two brave men who got me in public toilets in Napier in 1973 and amongst other things, raped me. Don't waste your breath trying to forgive them. They do not deserve forgiveness and forgiving them will not undo the hurt and damage that they caused.

Concentrate your energies on you, on understanding that although you can't change what happened to you, you can take back some of 'their' power over you. Hopefully, as you journey thru counselling you will be able to (most of the time) change the view you have of yourself. You will go from seeing yourself as being a victim, to becoming a survivor.

Surviving means you start to take back and hold the power again. Stay a victim, and those bastards keep winning. Don't let that happen cos we need to survive as the person in control of us.

Your counseller(if its one on the ACC-list) will during your first appointment, give you forms to be completed and sent to the ACC-Sensitive Claims Unit to get things started. Just filling in those forms can be emotially draining, so keep a good supply of tissues on hand.

There will be times when counselling is just too hard, when you don't want to do any more, cos you have no energy left. Thats when you find out just how badly you want to change from being a victim for life, to being a survivor for life.

Counselling won't make things miraculously better. You are going to have to work harder on and for yourself, than maybe you have ever done.

And do you know what? You'll do it, you'll see it through, for one very simple reason. Because you are worth it!

In my experience the ACC- Sensitive Claims Unit people are pretty damn good. The ACC website had a nationswide list of registered counsellers with whom it works - its a bit like the lolly picknmix at the supermarket, there are so many. Anyway, here's the list -
http://www.acc.co.nz/claims/useful-information/treatment-provider-details/registered-counsellors/index.htm

Good luck, God Bless and let me know when you're about to start counselling, people. I will invest in shares in a tissue- making factory, since I missed out on Lotto on Saturday night.

.

Hang in there Folly! I personally think forgiveness is overated. I think its necessary to be able to feel anger and pain and accept that those feelings are valid and its okay to NOT forgive the person who hurt you.

Forgiving yourself for not being able or even wanting to forgive them (when everyone says you should forgive) is a good place to start!

Monsta

Oh and I have done some shitty things to people over the years........I dont expect any of them to forgive me. I hope they can find some peace within themselves over my actions and if forgiveness works then great but I certainly think there are some actions that dont need to be forgiven EVER!

just found out that girl i talk online to shes living in australia but from nz only been in australia few months anyway just found out now that she went thru very similar if not same type of abuse that we did.

why its so freaky is cuz what we went thru is much more than u read about so its like omg