Patricia I love what you have to say about being responsible for your reaction to the pain. That’s really the bottom line and obviously that is the liberating stance that makes being a victim impossible.

Karl Staib – Your Work Happiness Matterss last blog post..We All Want to Go Where Everyone Knows Our Name

I certainly would like to see my pain put to good use. In some ways it has. Oddly it frees me bit by bit, in very tiny hard-to-see increments. My experience has been a lot of big events where everything crumbles and kind of in non-stop fashion. Also due to early and ongoing abusive dynamics.

I have found myself doing a variety of things with the pieces in the aftermath. Sweeping them under a rug, trying desparately to put them back together, abandoning all attempts, looking for substitution, trying to prove to them they didn’t ‘get me’, allowing it to devastate me, trying to make sense of it all, find the reason why, alot it any purpose other than what it seemed to be. I can’t say with certainty, that even though none of those things sound all that positive, they weren’t exactly what I was meant to be doing.

Like all of us, I have some core things I know have always been with me. One of them is fairness, another, a need to know. Maybe all the many experiences in their various form fulfilling that need to know and the ability to mete out and discern fairness in all things.

Patricia, this is a good discussion. Got here from your recent post.

Robert A. Henrus last blog post..How failures can make you smile

One thing that has helped me in dealing with abuse in my childhood is A Course In Miracles.

I came to realize -

The abuser does things not against us but because they feel it will make them feel better. Somehow.

An extreme example is -

Jeffrey Dahlmer killed all those boys (and ate them) because as some deep level, he thought it would make him feel better.

This is hard to swallow but a different viewpoint.

Patricia’s blog is a public service. Nobody talks about incest. And the worst part is that the child involved feels as though he or she caused it – provoked it – was not good enough. Otherwise, why would this have happened? Especially if it was abuse from an important person in our lives.

They go over and over in their minds – did I encourage this in some way? Did I act in a way that made my father – uncle – brother – whoever – feel I welcomed that kind of attention?

Or they think – is this supposed to happen? They look for clues from their friends to see if it is happening to them.

I don’t buy the idea that pain makes you a better person. Not abuse at least. I think it contributes to our continual choice of abusers over and over – because that is the model we have had.

I have chosen abusers my whole life. I think because if I could just make one of them love me, I would be redeemed.

What I am responsible for is my reaction to the abuse. I can’t change the past or the fact that the abuse happened to me. What I can change is my stance as a victim. Today I refuse to be a victim. Some people are never strong enough or courageous enough to come out of the victim mode. They often aren’t even aware that they have choices. Al-Anon taught me that I had choices. Being a victim or not being a victim is just one of those choices.

Blaming myself for the incest kept me stuck in the abuse. I wrote an article to discuss my thoughts on that topic which you will find at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/01/blame-keeps-you-stuck-incest-may-be.html .

There is nothing that can make me angry quicker than hearing someone say, “Well, she deserved what she got. She asked for it. She dressed too sexy for her own good. A man can’t be responsible for what he does when she’s looking for it.” That is bull. Even a prostitute has the right to say no. A child may say yes because she doesn’t know that there are any other choices. Incest is never the child’s fault. How a person dresses or acts does not mean that they are asking to be abused. That is a lie that the abuser tells themselves to make their actions ok in their mind. There is nothing in the world that makes abuse ok on any level.

I believe that we all have the choice to be empowered or dis-empowered by our experiences. I choose empowerment. I agree with your distinction.

Patricia – Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworkers last blog post..Facing My Fears And How That Changed My Life