Sometimes I think I cannot recover any more, or do any better, simply because I cannot lie to myself.

For me the biggest way I was able to keep moving past it was acknowledging that I was a child, the abuse was not my fault, and it's within my power to make sure it never happens again. Only when I was in my early 20's did I ponder whether the abuse had some meaning. But no, the only meaning it has is that my family sucks, my mom is a terrible parent and yep, shit happens.

I can't get too angry about things in the past that I can't change and honestly, there are a lot of really great things that have happened in my life since leaving home. Going to therapy taught me that I don't have to be defined by the abuse, now I am crafting my own story, not re-living one I was forced to suffer through. When you get angry about the past you're giving the power back to your abuser/s and they continue stealing your time and life from you. You have the power to tell them to fuck off by going on being awesome 100% in spite of them.

I do have some PTSD and struggle with validating my self worth and building my confidence, but overall it's not too bad. I actually know some people who weren't abused as kids and are way worse off than me emotionally, so you never know. Everyone's different.

But finding meaning in the prolonged fear and suffering of a helpless child sounds like fucking bullshit. Honestly it disgusts me to read that people would actually think that's a good thing (researchers, not someone grasping for coping mechanisms who doesn't know any better). Also, contrary to that one description, I actually have a really good memory of everything that's happened to me and have met some seriously difficult goals in my career that I know tons of other (non-abused) people have given up on. So I'd also say I'm actually pretty adaptable and resilient, contrary to that research.

/r/ACoNLAN Thread