Sexual Assault Victim To Surviver!?! How!?!

[Nighteyes]

When does the victim become the surviver?

I can't define myself as a surviver, I am told by therapists I am a " surviver" but how can that be when I still suffer? When my entire life is in shambles because of repercussions I suffer due to years upon years of abuse. Why am I the ones who's entire world is shaped by actions of others the victim the one who has to suffer long after they no longer can "hurt" me? Why is it I'm the one who can't sleep for fear of what might await me in my nightmares? Or what may enter my room in the dark? Why am I the one who is filled with pain, self hate, depression, anxiety, flashbacks, you name it I have it. Why am I stuck suffering over and over again. Why do I feel like I shouldn't exist, it was my fault, I'm to blame?

I don't understand!!!

I'm still a victim every day of my life, for what they did for all those years destroyed any possibility I'd ever be normal. I have nothing, I never did.

When does surviving start? Despite all i have tried to change, all I have attempted to accomplish, how I have tried to break the mold I still fail.

Why does my entire self worth evolve around the fractures I was jammed into and forced to live through? How am I suppose to pick myself up from something that has shaped my entire life? People judge me based on what they see, what they think they know, what they perceive based on their own experiences, but no one has experienced the depths of abuse and horrors I have. No one else has had to fight this battle for as long as I have, and no one else has been strong enough to even try to break past it. So how can you judge me? How can you assume I'm the way I am because i choose it? I am the way I am because of 16 years of being raped and abused by the people who where given a god given right to protect me from this, and choose instead to take part in it. How the hell does one heal from this? Why the hell am I stuck suffering, hurting myself and my relationships because of what they did? Why do they get to continue living guilt free and free at all when I don't? When I live in a prison built by fear, pain, and abuse.

Life is not fair, but it's down right crewel when you don't even get a chance...

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[Ted Moen]

Awwww Nighteyes ... Sometimes life is not just not fair, but is terribly unfair. A trauma a victim becomes a trauma survivor when they escape the traumatic environment alive ... When we escape .... Once we escape the hostile environment, our challenge shifts from doing what we have to do to survive our abusers to learning to live with our PTSD symptoms. We do have a chance to be productive and enjoy activities and relationships, but it's not easy. We have to learn a lot and manage our current behavior with all this stuff going on at the same time. A good therapist can help a lot.

You do have a chance. We heal one small step at a time, focusing on learning what we need to learn at that moment so intensely we hardly notice when we leave the victum behind and begin to develop into the person participating in relationships and activities and even enjoying our life.

Ted

 

[SydneyH]

On hard days (weeks), I try to find small, tiny pleasures to keep me going. The first sip of coffee. Driving silent in the car. Petting my cat. I don't know if that is surviving, but it is not giving up, either.

 

[Lucycat]

Yesterday I saw the first 2 lambs of the spring. That brought a wee smile to my face.:)

 

[Anna]

For me surviving and not being a victim anymore, came to light when I learned self respect and to love myself. Also to accept that what had been done to me was wrong, and I was not to blame.