After a day of shopping and going to dinner, me and my closest friend here had a pretty heart to heart conversation. I think she had been wanting to talk to me for a few days... The last few weeks of school have been pretty stressful and then we had had some strain in the previous couple weeks(see previous post). I was super scared i'd be repating old patterns but that wasn't the case. She just told me in so many words that She can't be my therapist and some days I am too needy emotionally on her somedays and its hard on our friendship. She suggested highly that I should get over my fear of going to therapy and go. I wasn't upset with what she said. It was the truth and it came not from anger, but compassion. It was a "hey I don't want our friendship to have to end but it might becasue I can't do everything for you. You need more than just me to grow and get better. I also have my own stuff too, and I am not in a place to be more than just your friend." We also talked about how she really needed someone last semester and no one was there for that. I realized that I wanted to be able to be there for her and right now I can't be. It is time to get my stuff together. But will I do it? I will if I want to keep this friend. She is worth it.

I've been putting of going to therapy for a while, like a year. I told myself I didn't need it but at sometime I need to go back. Then this week happened. Well all the stress and stuff wasn't really helping the matter. I've had issues come up and I questioned if I should go back. Well after some conflict over boundries with the person I am slowly considering to be my best friend, along with some crappy survior healing issues, I've decided I need to go back. The question is when? Is two or three sesions enough for now? In like four weeks going to be away for the summer... can I wait 3 months. I don't feel like I can..I feel like i put this off way to long. Should I go for a few sessions? Not sure what to do. Advice needed.

Ria  

Suffering from a brusied ego tonight. Found out that the project I spent almost a year contains about only 1/4 of the work in it. And on top of it me and best friend ended up flirting with the same guy and it ended up that he was so flirting with her not me. No big suprise, if its a competion between the two of us she wins hands down. Totally doesn't help myself estem nor did accidiently way overtipping our waiter, which I I am tired of being reminded of. It probally would suck as much if it wasn't for old estem issues pooping up. I fell ready to date... I feel like such a broken loser about the fact that I am going to be 26 this summer and I have NEVER been on a date. My last kiss was over 12 years ago with my abuser..so it really doesn't count. :( I am ready to move on and date, and find someone.... I just don't know...I feel alone right now.

Ria 

In many ways I am learning to love again. Its not that I don't love my foo, but in many ways I feel like I am obligated to love them. There are some days I don't want to. I've heard the whole you can love them with out loving what they do. It still is tied up with so much hurt and dissapointment and baggage. I use to have friends that I loved verry much...they are long gone now. That loss, I've been moving on for the most part but the pain comes back every once in a while. And now I have made some new friends who I realized I care deeply for and it scares that crap out of me. And its confussing and so navigating the emotional boundries. How can you love someone so much that your not sexually attracted to? What is this love thing? And then there is the whole want and desire to be in a healthy relationshp that is more than just friends and the loneliness of knowing that there aren't alot of options for that for you right now.

Hi all! I'm back. Its been way over a year since I have been on, in fact it has so long that I forgot my password and I'm back now. I need the suport of people who understand. The wounds are hurting as I say and its about four AM and I can sleep. I have had so many changing since last beening on here. I'm living on my own( got out of that fooi that was slowly killing me) and am a graduate student in the mid-west. I moved out here about 7 months ago. School is really high stress. I am in a funk this semester. Despite this enviroment being really supportive, I don't have alot of support out here for survior stuff. I have three friends(one I know from before) that I have disclosed my abuse to, niether are surviors. I just need to let some of this out again in asafe eniviroment. Hoping to go back to therpay soon, I have been putting it off and now i'm Sans car right now... I'm struggling with headaches again( i think it has to do with the stress. The enviroment I am in brings  alot of intense emotions and old issues. If my thoughts were clearer I'd write more....This healing process sure is long.

Its been two years today that I joined this site. Somedays I feel like I am making progress and others I don't. I am very thankful for this site, that it is here when I need it. Many new people have joined which is so great. The picture has really grown since I joined. Alot of my pain inside of me has left as well. Just knowing your not alone is sad but also really comforting. Here we don't have to be silent. Thank you David and everyone who has helped me in this healing process on here. May another two years bring continued healing for us all.

Ria

Tonight was a night to revist old feelings. Second aniversary a crappy time. ALways seems to be one. Nov 5 aniversary of the night my two dearset 'freinds' told me they wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I tried not to think of them, tonight i did. Somethings happened tonight that parelled things I felt around them.

Things that still affect me. I wish they wouldn't. Hope that someday they won't.

I hate getting forgoten/feel like I been forgoten.

I hate waiting alone for someone whos running more than 15 minutes late

I still get triggered a little by not knowing whats going on.

I hate being a pain in the ass but I don't like living this way. I didn't want to be abused and I certainly hate the long process of living with it. Sometime I want a label on me that says Trauma Survior: Stronger than a bear but please handle with care. 

Why do i feel this way. I ended up driving 30 min to a meeting only to sit in the dark alone in my car for about 20 minutes wondering what was going on and trying not to panic cause i'm starting to get triggered. 5 min after it was supose to start I texted a person. By 15 minutes after it starts I start making calls. First two voice mails finally on the third I get someone and am told no, we rescuduled it. I said thanks hung up went home. Eventually got a text back from person 1 30 min after I sent mine. I was cordial, dispite beening pissed and triggered.  I was never told. No emails, no texts, no calls, oops. 

The two supossed friends use to do that to me all the time. Be late, blow me off, not answer phone. Mostly cause they were busy. - tonight brougth that up again. Old feeling of resentment topped off by triggers and dissapointment. No wonder I feel like shit.  

I'll be gentle with my meeting partners, or a least try to. Hopefully by the next meeting I won't be so confussed.

Ria

Been a while since I've written. Been reading sometime but not writing. I'm feeling like I need to go to therapy again for a little bit. I cope well, I'm functional. Just need someone to help me handle the stresses of life that bring back the feelings from abuse. Mostly guilt stuff invoving my foo and some emotional boundry stuff. I had dinner the other night with some friends who don't know about the abuse. We started talking about really immature people our age and older. One of My Friends said "Hey Ria , You are really mature". My reply, "Thanks alot of it is, because I''ve lived through hell." Her reply " I thought you had."  We went on talking about the really crappy year I had had before I met them.  And went on about some stuff. Conversation really stuck with me though.  I can heal the wounds from my abuse but the scars will always be with me. The will fade unti I can almost not even see them but they will still be there. They will be my battle scars. Reminds me of the phoniex tat I think of getting on and of.  Rising from the ashes reborn.

Ria

My birthdays coming up in about three weeks and I feel really sad about it. Lots of rejection surrounding memories of that day. Friends who forgot, family that does not care. Reminders of the years that have gone by. For me my birthday is the aniversary of my abuse. I have no real memory of the day it started or anything like that. It lasted for so long, I just blocked out that enitre year of my life. Memories still pop up but I forgot that year of my life. That year almost 13 years ago. My birthday is the reminder. I try to be happy to think that I am two years on my healing journey now. That I'm healing. But some days its harder. Just thinking that something from half my life ago still affects me so deeply really bums me out.  So much more... but don't feel like writing it all down.

Ria

My little cosin D is a survior like the rest of us. She was molested by her cosin C, not mine, on her otherside. She told me this a year ago. It happened when she was five. Today at our grandparents' aniversary party, our other cosin K brought her boyfriend with her, C. Thats right this C is the same C from before. My cosin's boyfriend C besides doing crap to my family like helping D's brother rob a liqcor store(this ones on D's brother but C encouraged him to do shit like this all the time), and then trying to get my cosin C arrested by telling the cops he was him, He molested my baby cosin D. And then the bastard has to date my cosin K. Not everyone knows that K's boyfriend C is a child molester. I do and I want to just scream at K why did you bring him here. He molested your cosin. He's a bastard and I don't have to like him. My baby cosin D shouldn't have to see her abuser. No one should if they don't want to. I can't stand looking at this guy, just knowing he touched D, knowing what he is. Besides a being just plain trouble hes a fricking pedophile. 

God this upsets me. I know people make there own choices and people suposidly can change but as reformed as D's abuser suposidly ever gets does NOT change the fact that he molested a 5 year old girl. And this gives me every right to kick him out of my house if he ever shows up. I should report his ass for what he did, but I am hoping to get D to report it for herself and get healing from it.  It pisses me off and brings up all my own pain as well. I wonder if its the same way with all surviors, Does seeing a abuser of someone else bring up your pain as well? Do you get that creepy felling, do you feel the anger rise up in you? or is it just me?

Ria

Hey Friends,

I just wanted to give everyone an update about how things have been going with me. I haven't posted much in a while and have only been reading a little. Life right now for me has been going kind of crappy. Instead of headaches I have been dealing with stomach problems, the only thing that was helping was not eating, which I have now decided that eating and having stomach cramps was way better than not eating at all. I have also been really anxious and emotional. I call it anious or a_hole. I feel like my flght our fight just won't turn off. Called the insurance company and got a name of a T whose on my plan so hopefuly she works out. Mostly life has been tons of stress problems. seem to be stressed out over everything. Its the pits beening a survior but I'm hanging on, this rough road will be over someday and I can be healed and happy. Thank God for the all the Support I have now, so much better than when I first came here There is always hope. I'll hang inthere and I hope everyone else is too. WE ALL CAN BEAt THIS!

RIa  

Today I got high because I felt like getting high. Afterwards I felt like shit because I told myself I would never do that. That I would never get high to mask all the pain I am in. Thought it would make the anixaty better. It didn't, made me feel worse. Then I lied to people I care about about it. I feel like shit. I regret this so much. Today was a shitty day, pardon the language. It sucked. I regret so much having to hide my struggles from people I care about. I feel worse for giving in to the urge to use. I been fighting wanted to use to take my pain away for a year. Today I gave in. I feel like a failure. :( Being a survior sucks.

Ria   

I am so numb today. Last night I was so hard. I already felt so numb from all this stress and all these feelings and  thenI learned that someelse I know is also a survior and  really couldn't react I had no clue. It felt like its just more wieght on my sholders. Today I am still numb. Numb. Being a survior is so hard as it is and then I fell like such a bitch for not really caring that someone else was too. I could not handle it. I'm sober and I am safe but I feel so numb and tired. Don't really want to speak to anyone I just want to write. Being a survior sucks. I am glad we aren't alone in this that we have each other.

Ria

Tonight, I went and saw this speaker with a group of my friends and we ended up being late after driving 45 minutes to get there and we didn't get to sit all together we split up in to pairs. I ended up getting a seat in the front row in this small auditorium, awesome right. No not really. I sat there for like half the speach thinking to my self everyone in the room is stairing at me. I can feel them all looking at me judging me cause I am not dressed nice and my hair is messy. I was totally just picking my self apart, a common struggle for me and the I got fed up with myself and was like, I am going to focus on the speaker and not on being freaked out about everyone watching me. and it worked. It took like fifteenminutes but it worked. I am so happy with myself  I  just had to share my little victory with all of you.

Ria

Hey all,

I know its been forever since I posted a message of my own but this topic has come up for me a lot lately, in the news and other places. Lately I have been struggling with reporting my abuse and with that come all the baggage about other people and the fears about being believed. Which I feel ties in with false accusations. I know that us survivors know a lot about what false accusations do for us in our journeys.

Although, false accusations are rare they are what gets the press. Sexual abuse really isn't talked about really at all in my world publicly unless its on Law and Order SVU. But every once and a while a case comes along that finally gets people talking (Kobe Bryant, MJ, that one Rugby team, etc.), and almost always those that really stick are about people falsely accused of Rape, abuse, etc. I mean their are others that are false but the false ones really hurt the survivors out there.

False Accusations cause Survivors harm but we are once again swept under the rug. Yes the accused was wrong but you know every false accusation hurts every single survivor on earth, every time. Because of FA's survivors are forced to worry about being believed (when they shouldn't because it happened). They have to deal with a legal system that benefits the perpetrator not the victim. They have to worry about their character being anayised because some other person lied about it. Survivors shouldn’t have to deal with this but FA's make this worse for us. A person abused by some one of the faintest ounces of celebrity has to worry about their horror being talked about by the entire populous. NONE of this should have to happen to us.

I want to be believed but I am so sacred I won't because I can't remember the name of my abuser because it happened over 11 years ago and frankly I wanted to forget it all but I didn't. And I want my day in court because I was wronged and I want the whole world to know who he is. But I wonder if they will believe me. FA's make it harder for me to report it because once again it brings back the fear and I want to just keep silent.

Ria

Last night I remembered something new and it shook me up real bad. It wasn't any detals of about my abuse or my abuser but of afterwards. I've always thought that I knew nothing of my abuse for the first five years after but last night I remembered a memory from when I was forteen. I spoke about it, not in detail or about being abused or anything but I mentioned a specific moment of my abuse invovling a kiss. At forteen I remembered this kiss and then blocked it out until a couple years ago. It shook me up because it changes my perspective. I thought one way and now its just another detail. And as I heal there will be more and more and more.  

I am really proud of how far I have come, I have along ways to go, but I am starting to make real progress. It not easy, thats why being a survior can suck so much. It takes so much longer than the abuse ever took. A hundred times over thats what it will take to heal. But tonight I want to agknowlege how far I have come. I still have issues and some days it is hard. I still cry, I still have days where I feel awful but I have made big steps on my journey. I wish that some of the people I cared about before and left 'cause they weren't supporters and they couldn't handle it, could see me now. I'm different, I am me and I am better. I have come very far. I am grateful for my supporters who have helped me and my family of fellow surviors who helped me see I am not alone. Tonight is a night for celebration. I can get back to the healing process tomarrow. Tonight I'll celebrate me.

Ria

I feel like I am hiding who I really am. I am such a strong person. If people really knew what I have been dealing with, since I stoped denying what happened, the last couple of years and how much I go through, they would see how strong I am. I keep so well composed its like you can't even tell that I'm sad most of the time and that I am in counsuling and that I cant sleep at night and I have nightmares that make me sick and that I struggle so hard to be 'normal' and socialible. And that I am not prefect and that I am not a rock and that I get angry and sad and tired of having to deal with this all.

No all they see is this wierd quite chick who is kind of anti-social. I hide my struggles from my classmates, my new friends. my old friends who got tired of it and left, my teachers and my family. I am strong and spirtual and smart and thats who I am.  I am this way because I've lived through hell and trama after trama and loss after loss. I am still here. I struggle but I am a SURVIOR and I am healing. I keep at it hoping some day whats going on will be less raw. That He won't have power over me anymore. I hear people talk about trama and how hard it is and I want to scream "Do you really know" "Do you know what trama is., what loss is." "Does it haunt you" "Do you live with what happened to you everyday" Its not that I don't want to lessen what someone been through but I question it if they can use that word so loosly cause for me Trama is so much and so indescribale. Its encompassing and its a theif in the night that impacts, victimizes and steals from people and leaves them to pick up the pieces.    

I've been having the feeling that I was taking numerous steps back in my healing process. some days its gets so hard and I feel like I have taken steps back from where I was a few months ago. Then I realised that with being a survior you have to heal yourself from every direction and every asspect in your life because abuse tarnishes every asspect of your life. It leaves nothing clean and untouched. So these past few months I am healing another aspect of me. From every angle the view is new. I'm not failing at this, I am healing.  

I was sexually abused at the age of 11 or 12 for a period of 6 to 9 months.

It was in a public place just out of sight of adults that could have saved me. 

My perpetrator was a boy just 3 years(I think) older than myself. He made it into a game that excelated everytime we met(on an almost weekly basis).  

Sometimes there was the sweet reprive of not seeing him or no abuse. I got away from the sitiation eventually and I never saw him again.

I lived for 5 years in complete denial. Then for two in not telling anyone else. Then I told a few special people, whom I can count on my hands. They are all gone. The effects of my abuse lingered throughout pushed friends away, etc. Then I had a tramatic experience again of a differnt kind, tryed to push it away like I did my abuse. It didn't work. Four months latter, I finally, got into therapy. The first two months of therapy were tough and I was struggling outside of it, and push more people away. I'm still in therapy and feel like I'm healing. I'm a survior. and this new year is a fresh start for me. At the end of 2008 I found some good places for support. I'm ready to be survior, it  is who I am. This is my year.

Ria