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Other Victims Of The Same Perpetrators

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Hashi

MyPTSD Pro
I'm really struggling.

Part of the trauma when I was 20 was witnessing what had been done to the person before me. Without going into details, I either saw or was told about what had happened to him. I was kept in the same space, and there were very visible signs. Other signs at other times, too.

Talking about this in therapy, it's clear that I've internalised a lot of what he went through and find it hard to disentangle this from what I went through, especially since I was threatened with the same but experienced something different. (I'm female and he was male, I was unknown to them and he was known, I was there for different reasons.) I keep having dreams with that meaning too, that it's hard to separate his experience from my experience.

My therapist and I have been talking about ways to detach and let him go. She has suggested that I'm holding on to him, as the only person who really understands what the perpetrators were like, and the person who could most understand and believe what I experienced. Then there's also the fact that I'm the only witness to what he experienced, and I'm very aware of that.

When I watched the film of The Lovely Bones, I found it difficult but cathartic. In particular, the scene in heaven where the other victims of her perpetrator came to join her, and said their names and the dates. I want that scene for myself so badly, but don't believe I'll ever have it. To know who the others were as part of who I am... I can't even explain why this feels so important. Because I would have wanted to be a name and not the unidentified victim I so nearly was? Because I want someone else to really understand? Because I don't want to be alone, however bad the experience and however much I don't wish it on someone else, I still don't want to be the only one who had that experience with those people.

I don't know how usual/unusual it is to know anything about the other targets. I feel it's like a blessing and curse.

In the end, of course, it's all trauma. But there's something both validating and horrifying about knowing anything about the others. I'm not sure I want to let go of that. I don't think it's easy to let it go either. I don't know what to do with this.
 
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Hello. This is only my second post so I may be well out of line. I think I hear what you are saying. Is it survivor guilt you are feeling?

For me, there was another that he attacked after me. She died in the end. I didn't know her, I still don't know what he did to her. He didn't kill her, but I know he did bad things because he went to jail for what he did to her (something I failed to manage to arrange). She died because she couldn't live with it. I have some compassion for that.

Anyhow, I understand the confusion, the internalising. I feel guilty that I was first (maybe?) and didn't manage to prevent it happening again, I feel guilty that I survived and she did not. I don't know why that is. I feel like I should have done something to help her, although conceivably there wasn't anything I could do. She put him in prison and that gave me a new lease of life, so I owed her. But I know very little...about her. I wish I did. I understand that idea that she is the only one that I know of, who truly understands what I went through...but she is intangible to me. It sounds like your 'he' is quite tangible with actual signs and knowledge that you have.

I just thought when I read your post...is it bad to hold on to him? Is it detrimental to you to hold his memory and his experience and know that it was wrong and that he suffered and to know that because you know it? Personally, I think that you holding his suffering is an honour. He is not anonymous within you.

I feel sometimes that I would like to contact her parents or other loved ones. Tell them I know how she was. But then that would be all sorts of wrong. Would they like to know that someone else knows how their daughter suffered...and that I survived? No. They wouldn't. I would only hurt them I think.

I have no real words of resolution, just some empathy.

I'm yet to get to this in therapy...
 
Hashi, when I read your post, I felt strong emotions (desperation maybe, and a longing). I am sorry you are struggling with this. I have been, too.

My cousin is one (and by far not the only one) other survivor of some of my abusers. There are also some who have not survived. When I made my abuse public within my extended family and wider circle, my cousin "woke up" and started to walk down her own path of healing. We have walked some of the path together.

I don't know how usual/unusual it is to know anything about the other targets. I feel it's like a blessing and curse. In the end, of course, it's all trauma. But there's something both validating and horrifying about knowing anything about the others. I'm not sure I want to let go of that. I don't think it's easy to let it go either. I don't know what to do with this.

I find it a totally normal thing to want to know about "the others", even wanting to meet them in person, exchange. It is true for me, it is only them who can understand fully. As much as another person can possibly understand. I have felt very close to my cousin ever since we have decided to open up to each other and become allies in healing. That was some years ago now. She told me that she has felt the same way. It is, I'd even say, vital for both of us to have each other. I can also fill in gaps in her memories and she can fill in gaps in mine. We don't have to explain anything to one another, e.g. what my mother was like, what her father was like. We were there. We were abused by both, each of us. We know.

For me, it has been a blessing and a curse. Mostly a blessing, sometimes a curse. It is sometimes very difficult to be the older one (by five years) and to look at my cousin or hug her and not be able to go back in time and make it easier for her. Sometimes I feel the want to run away from her (not meet with her anymore) simply because I feel so helpless and desperate with her having gone through a lot of the same violence by the same perpetrators and not ever being able to change anything about it.

May I just say clearly: You don't have to let go of it, Hashi. If you need to hold on now and for some time and maybe even forever, then do that. I strongly believe that you (like me) will feel and/or realize on another level when you will be ready to let go. If you forced yourself to, I think, that could be detrimental to you. Your post suggests to me that you are not ready to let go and I think it's important to find out if that is the case. If it is, maybe you can tell your therapist that?

In a favorite movie of mine ("Boys On The Side"), one of the main characters says to her friend and love that if you have no place to go to, you should stay exactly where you are. So, not rush into making a decision about something you don't need to make a decision about for the time being. What I'm trying to say is that for me it has been an important part in healing to hold on -- to whatever -- until I was ready to let go.

Take care.
 
I too felt intense mixed emotions as I read your post Hashi, and others have given wiser advice and feedback than I could right now.

I was raped 3 years ago by a man who, I know, had raped and otherwise abused and assaulted many others. He spoke in detail to me about this on many occasions prior to attacking me. Prior to my attack, I had begun making secret attempts to identify and track down the earlier victims. At the time, this gave me direction, drive and determination to bring him to justice.

And then he attacked me, and very very often since then, I have wondered about the others, who and where they are, if they're ok, and what he did to them. I've also wondered about if there have been others since me, and suspect that there is every chance there have been.

There is both blessing and curse in knowing who they are, and in not knowing who they are but only that they exist, such as in my case. I certainly wasn't forced to confront direct evidence of their attacks though and can scarcely imagine how much more real and ever-present the feelings of connection would be.

I just wanted to acknowledge your experience and the very real added trauma value that this carries all on its own.

Maddog
 
I've probably met more fellow victims of my abuser than I'm even aware of, but just the dozen or so names I do have weigh on me all the time. Those other victims, both the ones I know about and the ones I don't, are the reason I worked up the courage to report my story to the police. Unfortunately very little came of it, but I did it for them more than I did it for me.

The feel that there are others out there who know, understand and believe exactly what you went through, and that you represent that for others - I know that feeling well. I used to feel like I owed them something. What helped me detach myself from that feeling of debt was doing my part to try to take legal action against our abuser, and then letting myself accept that I had done my part. It wasn't easy, and it took years, but eventually it worked.
 
Thank you, I'm not ready to reply but I so appreciate your responses.

@euca, you are right on the mark - as are the others - and I'm grateful to you for your post. What you and others have said resonates with me. Going to take a bit more time but really grateful for what everyone has said.
 
I relate to you as well. I was abducted by a diagnosed sociopath. While I may not have been kept in a jail cell, I stayed as his hostage for two years because of threats he made about what he would do to me and my family if I left. The violence he put me through and what he did to others was all the evidence I needed to convince myself to do as he told.

For a long time after he went to prison, I found myself in some ways wanting to talk to him, because he was the only one who saw what I went through. It was horrible to feel this way about the very person who turned me into a shell, a body with no identity. I badly wanted to talk with someone who understood. I did write him two or three letters and addressed what happened, asking for an apology I guess and asking him to explain to me what his experience was. After receiving replies to those letters I knew I had to cut out any idea of getting something from continuing that relationSHIT.

So I thought about a woman who had disappeared with him when the two of them were seventeen. They too were gone for several years and eventually he ended up in jail for a short period of time. I met him after his release. I wish I could talk to her because I bet that she experienced the same things I did. She is extremely protective of location. Her own mother doesn't even know her phone number and they are in contact only if the daughter calls or visits. So I think that to contact her would be damaging to her. If she is so protective of her physical self, it is not my place to violate that (even though I think I could find her if I tried).

After his second stint in prison (which occurred after taking me to Mexico), he hooked up with a third girl. They didn't flee or do anything that suggested to me she was a victim. I've seen her internet profiles, where she identifies herself as his girlfriend. She has pictures of extravagant vacations they have taken together.

At first I was so...confused. However, knowing how sociopathic he was, I have no belief or reason to believe that he changed and became a family man. The research I've read suggests that sociopaths cannot be treated. The only "help" for them is aging... When a sociopath reaches his forties, his or her sociopathy seems to lessen and weaken. Thus, I think that perhaps the sociopath who changed me forever did not change himself. Rather, he just educated himself on how to minimize the length of his next prison stint. I think he decided it was better for him to remain in the jurisdiction of his parole, not take a woman across state/international borders, and take up playing the role of a boyfriend in a legitimate relationship.

He is again in prison and will be for a long time now, as this is his third offense. However, I haven't contacted this last girl. I have seen her at a community event once, and I steered very clear. If I ever spot her around town again, I will do the same thing. What I know about her made her seem too sympathetic to him for my comfort. I hope she gets help and I hope she finds that what I assume was done to her was wrong. I hope this for her but won't have anything to do with her.

I do think about the first girl all the time, though. If I ever ran into her, I would let her know who I was and then leave any additional conversation up to her.
 
I don't have anything else to offer Hashi but am sending you much support and am sorry you find yourself dealing with something such as this.
 
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