How Would You Tell Someone You Love?

[Healing Reins]

I'm like really mad at her. I feel like she doesn't care about me at all. I know that irrational though, and she does care about me, but it's so frustrating. Like I had this thing happen, and I want to be open and be honest with her, but I feel like I can't! I know I can't be honest or open with her anymore. This is effecting the relationship in a negative way. She doesn't see it, nor does she understand it, but I do...and that's what is important. I don't even want to talk to her again, that's how mad I am with her.

Like If I was a youth group leader...(I'm such a white girl! I literally say like all the time!...it needs to stop.) So if I was a youth group leader I would want my mentees to feel accepted and to feel like they can talk to me. I wouldn't want them to feel closed off, and feel like they couldn't talk. This isn't fair...I feel like with other people she would just let them tell her. I feel like she holds really strict boundaries with me because of the choices I've made in the past..which I guess is fair, but at the same time I want to be treated like everyone else. She holds these standards for me that are impossible to reach for me, it's like she wants me to be perfect. But I will never be perfect. I mean everyone who knows me, knows that I am like the furthest thing from perfect.

Sorry I just needed to vent.

 

[ghotiff]

It is very painful when someone can't listen. I have found that it is often because of their own need to stay in denial, to stay blissfully unaware of how horrific the world can be.

I don't say that to be rude to her (or to dismiss your needs). I struggle with being a bit like this also. I am so easily trigger by other peoples stories of what happened that I can't listen to that part. But I hope however that I can be supportive if their emotions.

 

[Echo]

Yes, it is really hard. I find it feels like someone is judging me without actually being bothered to find out what has happened, how I feel or what my plans are for dealing with it. I think it is one of the hardest things about having been raped. I/you represent someone else's worst fears, and as @ghotiff says, many people don't want to face these things or put themselves to one side and empathise. They need to make me/you wrong in order to believe they are not like us, and thus that rape can never happen to them. Sometimes it is better to find someone who has experienced such things. Often they are the only ones who can really understand.

Maybe one day @Healing Reins you will have the chance to be a better group leader because of what you have gone through. Regardless of that, it is important, isn't it, to be able to speak your truth? And I don't think this woman is ever going to allow that. You're going to keep having to edit yourself around her, and that is always really hard work. It is not your fault, though. Maybe one day, she will look back and wish she behaved differently. The main thing is to find someone else to support you.

 

[Healing Reins]

I just want to tell someone. I don't care who it is anymore. I feel like I'm just going to end up blurting it out. And sadly, I'm okay with that. I want people to know what's going on. I'm tired of trying to do this alone. Like it's really f*cking hard to do this on my own. I know I probably could continue to handle this on my own, but I don't want to. I want to get help so in five years from now I can look back at this and be sad, but not be effected by PTSD. I'm scared my PTSD symptoms will get worse because of this. I want to stop them as soon as they come up, and I feel like that's not possible when no one knows.

 

[Echo]

What was Saving Grace like when you saw them? Could they offer you someone to talk to?

 

[ghotiff]

I just want to tell someone

You absolutely should tell someone...the trick is who. Therapists are the best as they are trained for this.

 

[Healing Reins]

Saving grace was great. I went in, talked with an advocate who wasn't a mandatory reporter. (She and I talked before about my past rape so she knows my story) So it was nice to reconnect with her, and tell her what was going on. I don't mind telling saving grace, but the lady I was talking to put it well. She said it's almost like I want to tell someone in the immediate trust circle. I want to tell someone who Is with me a lot, and knows about me. Someone like my youth group leader. She understands that I want to tell her, but she also understands that I am hesitant because if I tell my youth group leader my youth group leader might tell other people.

But talking to Saving grace went really well, If I don't end up blurting it out to my youth group leader, I just might go back to saving grace to talk with them, and to talk about what is bothering me, and frustrating me.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

I am very happy that you were able to tell someone. I also understand that you want to tell someone closer to you. It might actually be possible to get to know this woman, get closer to her and gain that trust I think you are looking for.