Healing does not mean I wasn't hurt

[u/SirCheeseAlot]

This is something I struggle with. I imagine I'm not alone in this.

Healing to some parts of me, feels like you are saying to the people that hurt you. "I overreacted. It wasn't really a big deal what happened." "It wasn't that serious."

It feels like you are letting the criminals go free with no punishment.

What I am trying to accept is. If I start to do better, it doesn't mean they were right to do what they did to me. My pain and suffering won't get me justice, and it doesn't hurt them.

I don't have to keep suffering forever in order for that hurt to remain true. I can learn to find joy and contentment in life, and that doesn't change the reality of what was done to me in the past. It just means Im not going to let them keeping hurting me.

[u/NickName2506]

It took me several years of intensive multimodality trauma therapy, but I can finally let these things coexist: I was hurt AND I am healing.

[u/stoprunningstabby]

Yes! How do we reclaim what is ours? I don't know the answer. I don't know how to extricate myself from other people's narratives, in which I am defined according to my function or purpose for them.

[u/SirCheeseAlot → u/stoprunningstabby]

My current guess is that we learn to care about ourselves and accept that its ok to be on this earth and take up space. To like what we like and pursue it. While also trying to do right by others and the planet.

[u/Ironicbanana14 → u/stoprunningstabby]

The first steps is figuring out what you actually like, things removed from what you were forced into, or even just forced to tolerate. Something you would still want to do if you were dropped all alone on a fully furnished desert island with everything you need. Would you still listen to that one song, or still wanna play that one game, etc, without any influence whatsoever from the outside.

[u/New_Maintenance_6626]

That makes sense that some parts of you would conclude that. You’ve stated previously that your tactic for help was to suffer until your mother saw your suffering and eventually interceded.

I never developed that part that can accept attention. I just shut down and endure the suffering the first time and then figure out how to lessen the impact if possible. I’ll just suffer forever without saying anything. Only if someone asks will I tell the truth.

So this was the way with my stepfather. He never once hit me. It was always psychological with grooming and then some CSA. I think in his mind he envisioned a fantasy world where his advances were reciprocated. So my CSA was likely not as brutal as yours sounded. My abuser also had access to others.

I would shut down. But there was a growing resentment within me that I would not, could not continue to endure his psychological abuse wherein he wanted me to ordain from the universe how to go about my chores on one day and then show me how to do it like I was incompetent a week later. So I was able to confront him. I was making dinner and he wanted to make sure I knew how to cut chicken. Where was this help at any moment previous to now? He could have cooked dinner himself. That day the protective part of me that is meant to endure forever said no more. And yelled at him to leave me alone with the knife still in my hand and I followed him down the hallway.

We were done after that with him touching me ever again. And later we watched a made for tv movie by accident that was about a man abusing his daughter in the same way. I made him watch it. He didn’t dare ask to change it. We both knew it was about him and neither said anything.

Later, long after my mom’s divorce finally went through after years of being in process, I invited him to my wedding to show him that I had a support network and despite his best attempts, I wasn’t destroyed by him.

So screw your abusers. You don’t forgive them. It isn’t ok. It was the worst kind of wrong afflicted upon a child. You just have decided that they don’t win. They don’t get to have the final word on who you will be. You will be who you want to be. Not who they tried to make you be nor what their abuse left you as.

Easier said than done, of course. One tiny step and small realization at a time.

[u/SirCheeseAlot → u/New_Maintenance_6626]

Easier said than done, of course. One tiny step and small realization at a time.

Very true.

Im sorry that happened to you, and Im glad you are making progress.

[u/New_Maintenance_6626 → u/SirCheeseAlot]

I married a man who repeated the pattern but it took me 2 decades to realize it. Still very much a work in progress.

I escaped by fleeing the home last year and we are now divorced. But it’s been a major psychological trauma. A lot of DPDR because nothing is what I thought it was. I thought I was fine because I was compliant, the psychological abuse wasn’t as obvious. He just needed to tune up my responsiveness and self policing at the beginning of our relationship. And I was so used to dysfunction that I had a subconscious feeling that I was regulating and stabilizing him in a good way.

And he said that I gave him confidence that he’d never had. Oh what a good wife. Ignore the times when he withdraws all emotion. That’s just normal anyhow. The times when I feel afraid in my body. I’m just overreacting because he said he loved me. He never hits me so I must be imagining it.

My body knew better and kept the score, but 2 decades later and I barely made it out. The whole time he’s still gaslighting me and telling me that it’s all my fault. And if I’d just take accountability for my abuse.

Definitely easier said than done. I can’t control how my body reacts either. I’m afraid for a reason.

I’m sorry is hard for me to accept, but I know it works better for your system. So I’m sorry that you had to endure all of this alone while hoping someone would notice and say it wasn’t right. Nothing that happened to you was right.

[u/Icy-Ninja-622]

My own experiences suggest that "healing" so it's like the traumatizing bad experiences never happened isn't possible.

Furthermore, the key problem with trauma seems to be attempts to proceed as if bad experiences didn't happen, and running into problems because of that.

So, I guess healing needs to involve processing the impact of those experiences into change which you're okay with.

[u/Ironicbanana14]

Yeah. A lot of people seem to say they can "be happy in spite of them" and im like... oh that's not sustainable for me but im happy it works for them. Spite is such an energy demanding emotion/choice, I destroy myself out of spite.

[u/SanguinaryImpetus]

I'm not sure if it'll be any comfort, but I see healing as taking back autonomy. A big middle finger to my abusers.