Sexual Abuse Healing

I have been in therapy again now for two years.  I had taken some time off due to moving, and trying to find a therapist I liked, and my son having autism/ADHD and helping him with all that entails.  So anyway I have been doing pretty good and my therapist thinks I am on the right track with my healing.  I remember a lot of what happened to me and the details.   

However, lately I have started asking myself a lot of why questions, you might know the ones, why me, why didn't my parents do anything, why did they do this, or not do that.  Why was I the one the abusers picked, what did I do to ask for this etc, etc.  I have started having bad dreams again about the abuses, so far I can handle them.  I know this isn't helping, and I don't really know what I would hope to gain from knowing why.  I know it won't change anything, so why do I have this strong desire to want to know why all of a sudden. 

I mean can knowing why really help in therapy, also one of my abuser's has been dead for several years now, so it's not like I would get any answers from that one and the other's who knows where they are at or what happened to them.  I guess I am just confused as to why I would even want to know why.  I have spent so many years trying to forget, if that makes sense.    

Gevie

Hi Gevie,

  I have never poster here before and I don't want to step out of line, I just wanted to say that I have been thinking too much lately about past experiences also.  I believe the reason this pops up at certain times is the relationship of stress.  Everytime I experience severe stress in my life, it brings back all of my stressful experiences from the past.

When times are good, I feel healed; when times get stressful, I feel haunted by the past.

I'm sorry you are feeling this way.

Gevie,

The questions you ask are normal for any of us who've experienced abuse.  Some questions have no answers, some things simply do not make sense.  For me one of the toughest questions was "why didn't my parents do anything?" Why didn't someone help me, protect me, save me.   I spent years loathing myself, thinking I was somehow flawed because my offender picked me as the subject of his abuse.

A little over a year ago I had a revelation that was monumental in my own healing.  I became aware, with absolute clarity, that the abuse was never about me.  It was about the sick, twisted mind of my abuser.  It was not about anything I did, it was not about the way I looked or acted, it was not about me at all.  It was about him fulfilling his own demented fantasies and desires.  I happened to be there, I was convenient for him and he preyed on me.  He groomed me and brainwashed me simply because he COULD given my own childish innocence. 

As for my parents and why they didn't help me or stop the abuse.  Again, it was not about me, it was about them.  They were too weak to do what was right.  For whatever reason, they were so deep in denial that they chose to look the other way.  That denial had nothing to do with me. 

I believe that this awareness was a turning point for me.  In knowing and understanding that abuse never was, nor ever will be about the one being abused, I have been able to release myself of all the questions that have no answers, as well as the self depracating thoughts and feelings.

I hope that in some small way this helps you.