Life After Trauma

[HUGGY]

If you go through life being an angry and vengeful person, you are only causing more harm to yourself.

I agree. If you do nothing to correct the balance of your right to be whole you will suffer your whole life. You will be angry every time you think of the injustice you have suffered and it will eat you up. Wishing the wrong had been addressed will only reinforce the pain. Wishing for vengeance is not wrong. That is only what you have been told by those that do not have your suffering. They tell you to just let it go when every cell of your being screams to do something about it.

 

[Dhara]

If you go through life being an angry and vengeful person, you are only causing more harm to yourself.

I agree. If you do nothing to correct the balance of your right to be whole you will suffer your whole life. You will be angry every time you think of the injustice you have suffered and it will eat you up. Wishing the wrong had been addressed will only reinforce the pain. Wishing for vengeance is not wrong. That is only what you have been told by those that do not have your suffering. They tell you to just let it go when every cell of your being screams to do something about it.

I appreciate everything you say about revenge or vengeance. IMO, it's a process and can be a stage in healing. Once you recognize that the vengeance hasn't brought peace you have to find another way.

 

[HUGGY]

I have offered a different take on the terrorism we here and in other parts of the world have experienced.

I fully understand the actions taken by some to destroy property and lives as the only recourse to right the extreme injustices we have

If you go through life being an angry and vengeful person, you are only causing more harm to yourself.

I agree. If you do nothing to correct the balance of your right to be whole you will suffer your whole life. You will be angry every time you think of the injustice you have suffered and it will eat you up. Wishing the wrong had been addressed will only reinforce the pain. Wishing for vengeance is not wrong. That is only what you have been told by those that do not have your suffering. They tell you to just let it go when every cell of your being screams to do something about it.

I appreciate everything you say about revenge or vengeance. IMO, it's a process and can be a stage in healing. Once you recognize that the vengeance hasn't brought peace you have to find another way.

The operative words are "have to". You will be obsessed with seeking a solution to removing the pain you have suffered as long as you live. Show me someone that has been victimized and not made whole and tells you that counseling made it better and I will show you someone that is compounding the suffering by lying to his/her self.

Our WHOLE justice system is built on making the bad guy pay. Millions of instances of people victimized and millions of police and courts are set up and attempt to extract justice for victims. My ideas on revenge and making victims whole are not new by any stretch.

 

[HUGGY]

I have offered a different take on the terrorism we here and in other parts of the world have experienced.

I fully understand the actions taken by some to destroy property and lives as the only recourse to right the extreme injustices we have visited on their lands and people.

What the hell do we expect?

 

[Dhara]

What about forgiveness? It's understandable that human beings engage in action/reaction but what about restorative justice?

 

[Dhara]

Pillars--

I appreciate your posts in this thread. Once a day, I'll read what you write but I won't be answering it specifically.

Dhara

 

[HUGGY]

What about forgiveness? It's understandable that human beings engage in action/reaction but what about restorative justice?

I do not believe in forgiveness as a rule. Forgiveness requires the recipient of that forgiveness appreciates it and will benefit from it. Otherwise it is wasted and only usually prolongs the misery and injustice that befalls others in the path of the evil actor. Almost always the most just solution is stopping the evil where it lays as immediately as possible. Sometimes the best served revenge is cold as they say. Unfortunately the justice dealt out by the state is blind and cannot tell the difference between victim and wrong doer.

 

[Dhara]

What about forgiveness? It's understandable that human beings engage in action/reaction but what about restorative justice?

I do not believe in forgiveness as a rule. Forgiveness requires the recipient of that forgiveness appreciates it and will benefit from it. Otherwise it is wasted and only usually prolongs the misery and injustice that befalls others in the path of the evil actor. Almost always the most just solution is stopping the evil where it lays as immediately as possible. Sometimes the best served revenge is cold as they say. Unfortunately the justice dealt out by the state is blind and cannot tell the difference between victim and wrong doer.

I'm talking about restorative justice, which is in my cases more healing to victims than cold hearted revenge.

 

[pillars]

Pillars--

I appreciate your posts in this thread. Once a day, I'll read what you write but I won't be answering it specifically.

Dhara

I didn't write it for you, so no worries.

 

[pillars]

Well, I do have my pet rabbit, but he found me! I went outside one night and when I flicked on my outdoor light, there he was, just sitting there looking at me. He's big, so at first, I was like "what the hell is that thing?" Then I got my son up out of bed, and we caught him, so now I have a pet rabbit. Lol.

Would you like another one? I have one I'd ship to you. She's really cute.

 

[HUGGY]

What about forgiveness? It's understandable that human beings engage in action/reaction but what about restorative justice?

I do not believe in forgiveness as a rule. Forgiveness requires the recipient of that forgiveness appreciates it and will benefit from it. Otherwise it is wasted and only usually prolongs the misery and injustice that befalls others in the path of the evil actor. Almost always the most just solution is stopping the evil where it lays as immediately as possible. Sometimes the best served revenge is cold as they say. Unfortunately the justice dealt out by the state is blind and cannot tell the difference between victim and wrong doer.

I'm talking about restorative justice, which is in my cases more healing to victims than cold hearted revenge.

I don't believe revenge/justice is cold hearted. Let's say a woman has a pistol in her purse and a man assaults her sexually but doesn't know about the weapon. So as he is about to leave the scene of the crime she takes out the gun and puts one between his eyes. Is she being cold hearted? It is certainly revenge.

Payback is not so simple to diagram. Also difficult to assess is the damage from assault. The suffering a victim endures can be as viscous as lymphoid cancer destroying the person that once was dignified and whole to a paranoid mess mentally distrusting rejecting promising relationships for no sound reasons. In short your life can be ruined.

Do you think those terrorists that flew the planes into the towers could have been "council-ed" away from their missions.

Sure there are degrees of damage from any wrong that occurs. I for one have accepted an absolute rejection of any wrong at the hands of evil people. Call me overly proud.. one could say I over react. Maybe when I was brought up I had too many people tell me I was special and need not put up with any evil actions from bad people. Threatening someone's life over theft may seem extreme. Rape is just theft in a more personal way. Where you draw the line is your call. No one has the right to tell you that your pain is imaginary or over blown.

If a woman is sexually assaulted and stabbed then left for dead but survives and the perp is caught and tried in some states he can be executed. If the woman shoots and kills the perp in the act she isn't even charged with a crime in some situations. If she takes it upon herself to kill the guy years after the assault she will be charged with murder if found out. I find the dynamics of revenge interesting as it plays out here in the USA.

Anyway good luck healing from whatever caused your trauma.

 

[Dhara]

Huggy

I appreciate your post. It brings up the whole idea of how do we have hope while responding to human evil.

Self defense is different than revenge.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

What we're doing in Recovery is healing the wounds of culture and generations.

What do you mean by healing the wounds of "culture?" Not sure I understand that.

OK, it means that your culture ethnically influenced your experience and that of your family for generations. Me,? I'm Irish Catholic child of alcoholic and mentally ill parents. How the RCC affected my families dysfunction is generation after generation. My grandparents were alcoholic, my parents were alcoholic and MI, the RCC and in particular how it affected the Irish complicates how you recover.

If you're German descent, Scandi, Italian, Native American the way your people were treated and thought of themselves affects a family for generations.

In my family, my mother's mother was in the Magdalene Laundries, my mother was sent to America and fostered by a family. She abandoned care of my sister and me to foster care. She had a third child and that child had two children before she was 18 and had them adopted out. Three generations of mother abandoning their children.

That's tough. My father was an alcoholic but he was always "in control" and not abusive at all.

My father wasn't my abuser. My aunt was. But she responded to the chaos in her life (my grandparents alcoholism) by being a sadistic, cruel critical voice. She dreamed up methods of torment that still shock me.

For me, it was my mother and as you say, its sometimes hard for me to believe what she did to me. Cigarette burns, beatings and being tied up with electrical cord and so much more. I was not meant to survive childhood.

Scientific America published an article that said childhood trauma can shorten life by 20 years.

One thing for sure, childhood abuse is the gift that keeps giving.

Not all of my scars show.

 

[Dhara]

What we're doing in Recovery is healing the wounds of culture and generations.

What do you mean by healing the wounds of "culture?" Not sure I understand that.

OK, it means that your culture ethnically influenced your experience and that of your family for generations. Me,? I'm Irish Catholic child of alcoholic and mentally ill parents. How the RCC affected my families dysfunction is generation after generation. My grandparents were alcoholic, my parents were alcoholic and MI, the RCC and in particular how it affected the Irish complicates how you recover.

If you're German descent, Scandi, Italian, Native American the way your people were treated and thought of themselves affects a family for generations.

In my family, my mother's mother was in the Magdalene Laundries, my mother was sent to America and fostered by a family. She abandoned care of my sister and me to foster care. She had a third child and that child had two children before she was 18 and had them adopted out. Three generations of mother abandoning their children.

That's tough. My father was an alcoholic but he was always "in control" and not abusive at all.

My father wasn't my abuser. My aunt was. But she responded to the chaos in her life (my grandparents alcoholism) by being a sadistic, cruel critical voice. She dreamed up methods of torment that still shock me.

For me, it was my mother and as you say, its sometimes hard for me to believe what she did to me. Cigarette burns, beatings and being tied up with electrical cord and so much more. I was not meant to survive childhood.

Scientific America published an article that said childhood trauma can shorten life by 20 years.

One thing for sure, childhood abuse is the gift that keeps giving.

Not all of my scars show.

I know what you mean about not all your scars show. You're a hero.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Forgiveness and/or revenge.

I can't do either. Never have been able to do either.

But, I came close - when my mother was dying, my sister in law dialed the phone for her talk to me. She said she was sorry that she had abused me and had been "bad" mother to me.

I knew she was dying and, for whatever reason, let her off the hook. That was my chance for revenge. I could have sent her to her grave with my curses on her but I just couldn't do it. I said 'she hadn't really been so bad'. She died that night. I didn't go to her funeral, never even considered it and don't regret that decision.

For me, its some kind of acceptance that she did the best she was capable of. I had 4 sibs - none were abused in even the slightest degree. Only me.

I have remained the family scapegoat and have been blamed for just about anything and everything negative that has happened to family. I haven't had much contact with family for 30 years.

I sometimes wish I could understand the family dynamic. I have tried therapy twice. Both times were just horrendous. Seems to me, you have to get to a point in your life that you choose to be whole, in spite of or because of or -

 

[Luddly Neddite]

My heart goes out to children who are abused, as well as to adults who were abused as children.

We don't value children. Most cultures do not value children. Most say they do but the proof is in the doing and children have always suffered at the hands of adults, related and not.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

What do you mean by healing the wounds of "culture?" Not sure I understand that.

OK, it means that your culture ethnically influenced your experience and that of your family for generations. Me,? I'm Irish Catholic child of alcoholic and mentally ill parents. How the RCC affected my families dysfunction is generation after generation. My grandparents were alcoholic, my parents were alcoholic and MI, the RCC and in particular how it affected the Irish complicates how you recover.

If you're German descent, Scandi, Italian, Native American the way your people were treated and thought of themselves affects a family for generations.

In my family, my mother's mother was in the Magdalene Laundries, my mother was sent to America and fostered by a family. She abandoned care of my sister and me to foster care. She had a third child and that child had two children before she was 18 and had them adopted out. Three generations of mother abandoning their children.

That's tough. My father was an alcoholic but he was always "in control" and not abusive at all.

My father wasn't my abuser. My aunt was. But she responded to the chaos in her life (my grandparents alcoholism) by being a sadistic, cruel critical voice. She dreamed up methods of torment that still shock me.

For me, it was my mother and as you say, its sometimes hard for me to believe what she did to me. Cigarette burns, beatings and being tied up with electrical cord and so much more. I was not meant to survive childhood.

Scientific America published an article that said childhood trauma can shorten life by 20 years.

One thing for sure, childhood abuse is the gift that keeps giving.

Not all of my scars show.

I know what you mean about not all your scars show. You're a hero.

A hero?

No.

I'm just another survivor.

 

[Dhara]

OK, it means that your culture ethnically influenced your experience and that of your family for generations. Me,? I'm Irish Catholic child of alcoholic and mentally ill parents. How the RCC affected my families dysfunction is generation after generation. My grandparents were alcoholic, my parents were alcoholic and MI, the RCC and in particular how it affected the Irish complicates how you recover.

If you're German descent, Scandi, Italian, Native American the way your people were treated and thought of themselves affects a family for generations.

In my family, my mother's mother was in the Magdalene Laundries, my mother was sent to America and fostered by a family. She abandoned care of my sister and me to foster care. She had a third child and that child had two children before she was 18 and had them adopted out. Three generations of mother abandoning their children.

That's tough. My father was an alcoholic but he was always "in control" and not abusive at all.

My father wasn't my abuser. My aunt was. But she responded to the chaos in her life (my grandparents alcoholism) by being a sadistic, cruel critical voice. She dreamed up methods of torment that still shock me.

For me, it was my mother and as you say, its sometimes hard for me to believe what she did to me. Cigarette burns, beatings and being tied up with electrical cord and so much more. I was not meant to survive childhood.

Scientific America published an article that said childhood trauma can shorten life by 20 years.

One thing for sure, childhood abuse is the gift that keeps giving.

Not all of my scars show.

I know what you mean about not all your scars show. You're a hero.

A hero?

No.

I'm just another survivor.

Surviving is heroic in and of itself. Becoming a person that can benefit others because of what you learned is miraculous.

 

[shadow355]

About June of 1992. I was involved in a car wreck. I dodged a deer , went into a "yaw" skid and over a hill . I hit a tree, dead center with my vehicle at a speed of about 40 mph .

I had no seat belt on , and I went through the windshield of my Chevy S-10. I was supposed to catch a boat , I worked on the tugboats on the Ohio River.

I managed to get out of my truck where I made it about 40 feet up a bank, unable to see due to a face full of blood .

I layed down on the shoulder of the road .....dizzy, disoriented, my face and neck were numb.

Passerbys stopped and called an ambulance for me.

I spent about four days in the hospital.

???Two years ago..... Three years ago, ??? a small piece of glass worked its way out of the scar on my head.

Shadow 355