Sorry about all the separate posts, but I'm responding as I'm reading the thread....

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So...Edelweiss, see, I told my mom, but I'm not sure if in the end it made things better or worse for me. I used to tell this story at slumber parties sometimes because I was trying to process it all. Oh, and after that, I always wore shorts under my dress.

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My word... and out in the open! I wish you had smacked it a good one, DJ!!!!!

Yeah. Except I was a little kid and it was right in my face. I thought it was fake.

Gims, I agree, it is difficult to live in the here and now . . . ghost lurk in the cobwebs of my mind.

Such a trauma is like a barbed wire fence, you can see through it, yet getting through it is another thing altogether.

My abusers (uncles, ex-husband, prior supervisor) live as if nothing happened and got promoted and have more money than they need. It's debilitating for the victim or 'survivor'.

As a survivor of a verbally and physically abusive relationship, I completely agree with the original sentiment of this thread. I finally left my ex-husband after he physically assaulted our (then) 6 year old daughter and me. If I knew what I know now, I would have left far sooner for the verbal and emotional abuse. As far as long term results; the verbal and emotional abuses were far more damaging to my children and me than the physical.
It is important to be really understanding with a friend who has been in this situation. I, for example, had a really hard time asking for help after I left because every time I asked my ex for help, I ended up getting hurt (either physically, or emotionally with a tirade about my inadequacies as a human being). My Father and Mother, in particular, commented frequently about my inability to just simply say when I needed help. I was so conditioned to NOT ask for help, because I didn’t want to pay the consequences.

Breathing Again, welcome to BWS. I'm glad you found us. And I'm glad you are out of that situation. Many people can't see the scars of emotional abuse and therefore can't understand the long-term ramifications and mangled thinking processes that an emotionally abused child/person goes through. I'm currently undergoing intensive therapy to heal the damage wrought by years of verbal/emotional abuse when I was a young child. While physical abuse leaves scars, verbal and emotional abuse leave invisible and insidious wounds that don't show up on any x-ray, but do leak out all over the place in social interactions and interpretation processes.

I'm glad you're able to ask for help. And this is a great (and usually safe) place to come and rest your soul and find people who DO understand and care.

Well, I have been remiss. I have been missing. I dropped out for a while, not realizing that there was important work being done at BWS. Mustang, that's so true about trauma being like a barbed wire fence. DJ, what a scarey situation for you. It's understandable that you would think it was a fake, because who would do such a thing for real? Gims, I am concerned about what you are thinking in terms of not talking about things. I'm sorry, but I guess I don't understand. Breathing Again, I'm sorry for what you and your daughter experienced. 6 years old! I think what you are describing is called "learned helplessness." We lose our power to abusers. Abusers let us think that we are nothing without them, or nothing period. We are conditioned to not ask for help. You know, I never quite understood the phrase: "They did the best they could with what they had and knew at the time." In some ways I think that is true of my mother. But I can't understand that in terms of my father and step father. I mean, the best they could do was beat, berate, and belittle? For my own good? Because they LOVED me? Eagle, I have read your book and your posts for years, and not until your post above did I understand that you suffered from verbal/emotional abuse. I think you did not explore this in your book. As far as an abuser being dead-to-you, I guess that can be so, even if he is still living, but I swear the ghost of him lingers forever. Even if he is really dead. And, dead or alive, it is the most irksome irony that they go on, here or hereafter, as if nothing ever happened. And, it did not just happen. It was no accident. Talk about "interpretation process." Tonight my husband is being especially devoted: serving me wine, making me pizza, replacing batteries, fixing umbrella, and telling me he knows how unhappy he'd be without me. And I ask him, "Why are you being so nice to me?" After 20 years of marriage, I have to ask? Those of you who are recovering from the ramifications of abuse, tell me, please, do you ever, ever let your guard down? L, PL xxoo missed you all

EW, I love love love this image. It looks like there is a signature "Lynn" on the left side of the picture. That is one haunting image. I could stare at it forever.

Lynn, you are missed!