At first I was like, "Oh My God" where is she going with this? It wasn't two seconds after that thought that you got my interest and then after that I was wow'd (it's been happening a lot here lately) by the power of your story.
You are an incredible survivor. I say again, that was one really powerful story. Thank you for being so open and honest with so many of us. That post really showed what you've come from and showed where you are going. I'm still sitting here amazed by what I just read.
Beauty
Whilst telling my story is cathartic in itself, the real purpose in doing so is to try and help someone else come to live more comfortably with themselves.
It's not that I think my story is particularly harrowing, though subjectively it was hell to live through, or that I merit some special regard for having lived through it, but I know of no other way to reach out and touch other people who are troubled in some way without telling them that I too have been there, so I can understand what they are experiencing, and that I really do want to help them.
Sorry, that's an absolutely awful sentence, grammatically, but that's how it came out and I'm not going to change it.
The reason I have to convince others of my bona-fides to claim that I really care, as it were, is that both as a child, and as a man, I met lots of 'do-gooders' (for want of a better collective noun) who tried to tell me they 'knew what I was going through', or that 'they would understand my problems', but it always rang false to me. What could some smug, complacent, authoritarian figure know about my situation, particularly as they all readily believed that my parents were wonderful decent people; in other words, all the problems were of my making, which only reinforced my belief that I was 'bad' and seriously flawed.
Years later, I found out that my parents were such wonderful decent people that they let my uncle by marriage repeatedly rape his daughter, my beautiful younger cousin Margaret, from the age she could first walk up to the age of 16 when she was able to leave home. Margaret's mother, my aunt was the only member of the family who tried to stop it; for her pains she was repeatedly beaten senseless by this 'man', her husband, and she suffered repeated nervous-breakdowns as a result. Meanwhile, my parents branded Little Margaret a 'slut', my Aunt a neurotic, whilst making her huband welcome at family gatherings. Decent people, huh?
One good thing came out of all this. It taught me an abiding loathing for all forms of hypocrisy and deceit, and developed my lifelong quest to be truthful and honest with those I care about.
By telling you this, I hope you realise how I view you, and the others in this forum.
For the avoidance of doubt, let me say that another way: I care about you, OK!
I'm in danger of overstaying my welcome again.
Kind regards, and take care everybody,
Caroline.
"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." Shakespeare.
