Dear Janine:

I have no doubt you have been and are abused. Children who are abused don’t believe it, not as children and not as adults. As children we believe everything the parent says, so when your mother says she did things out of love, you believe her, only deep inside you don’t feel loved, you feel she took you to doctors not out of love for you but to show herself as a victim. You live in cognitive conflict: knowing and not believing what you know- this is the torture of being abused by parents.

And the word Abuse, sounds like it would fit the stories you read about, starving children in the basement, hit with belts, broken bones… and you look at yourself, why you have all those clothes and toys and fancy food, how can YOU be abused?

I knew right from the beginning of your thread that you were abused because the injuries of the abuse you suffer are evident. I can see your injuries. It is like I see you bleeding, so I don’t have to have a video of you being stabbed. The bleeding is proof. In other words, the results of the abuse done to you are evident.

I was abused too, severely and it took me more than five years after my first serious therapy and three years of having no contact with my mother, to believe that indeed I was abused.

Bed time for me, almost. Please write more. I will come back to your thread tomorrow morning my time (W.USA) and re-read your post above and any you might write next and write to you more then.

Good night, take care…

anita