I think the same way and feel like to at times,havent found a way to over come it yet

kate it is hard to see any advantages when you are in the midst of it. I barely made it out alive at that time for me. The higher being by any name is not responsible for individuals free will. Unfortunately there are a lot of them out there or so it seems when we seem surrounded by them. You have free will too. You can choose to learn what you can , build your resilience and your radar.
When I studied them rather than reacted to them I found it helped me to define what I liked about myself more, and define what I wouldn't want around me. Trust has to be earned in many ways. The more you know about you the better you will choose who you want to give the chance. Small steps.
. This isn't done in one day or on one persons word. If you need to use us as sounding board, then do. We only want the best for you.
Even still, you ill need to do this at your pace. It took me a long time to learn to trust anyone, because I didn't trust my own instincts. Though now I am better at defining them.
Hugs and support.

Scott and Jewels thanks. Sending hugs. I have been reading tonight. Trying to find peace I again was trying to avoid the religious... I believe this site is about healing and faith in any religion.

Jeane hard look, and I had no one. No soul. I was beaten, raped and terrified for 38 years. Please refrain from throwing God in anyone’s face. I have Atheist, Christian, Muslim friends. My pain is without religion...trauma real trauma

Oh, wait I understand. My life after 38 years of abuse is bad because I am inherently had?

For Kate..., I’m sorry, so so sorry. It took me years to get past that kind of experience, where people used religion as a crutch for a broken system & where the last thing I ever wanted was for another person to bring God, Gods, spirituality into any comment on my abuse, rapes, etc. I was followed by letters from my mother’s religion for years telling every new church we moved to I was ‘tainted’ after my abuse & exposing their minister for a child molestor. I’ve been told God let me be abused for “not praying right” by a relative. I remember all the anger I felt every time someone said “God will help you through this,” because there are days I still feel like burning every church to the ground. It doesn’t matter though which God is there or if there is many or none.
Pain is pain and it is not measurable and it does not follow the laws of time. Trauma is trauma. Some people are lucky they could retain faith and not lose it when their world is shattered by abuse. And some of us are even luckier to see beyond the external for the strength, to face our demons and our saviors on our own terms and not as defined by any faith, culture or society. If there are Gods or a God or nothing, it’s what “it” does for you, not what you do for “it” that brings peace, that provides comfort. Be true to yourself. You can’t give to something else what you can’t give to yourself and what you do not possess.

Since I was a child I believed that if god(s) created me this way and god(s) created my abuser the other way and god(s) could see the future, then it had better accept me for the consequences of it’s issues for making me like this and take responsibility for its mistakes in creating someone who abuses children. I wasn’t the one who could see the future and chose to create beings this way knowing in advance the harm they’d do. If there’s something divine in the universe that’s as omnipotent and omnipresent it saw all this coming, then it owes all of us a serious apology and a lot of explaintions. It lost the right to require me to ask forgiveness for my sins when it became a hypocrite by not requiring the same standard of itself. But if there is something, which I hope at times, I think it’s more human than we are and just every bit as flawed & broken as the rest of us.

Continue to stand up for yourself, I’ll stand with you and when you need a person to lean on, or when you’re too tired to keep going there are plenty of us to carry you until you have recovered to stand on your own again.

You’re not bad & you do not have to accept anyone’s beliefs or opinions other than your own. Not mine, not friends, not stranger, not enemies. Though people mean well and are eager to share the faith and peace their religion brings them, sometimes it does the exact opposite.

Support & hugs & a bit of fire burning beside you to remind those who offend or hurt you know it’s not okay to do that to anyone, ever regardless of intentions.

Thanks, good to know I am not alone!

I didn't read all the comments cuz I am headed to bed shortly, so apologies if I go repeating what others have said. I think most everybody feels that way sometimes. For me it took YEARS to figure out the whole I won't feel this way forever, it might be a moment or months, but it will stop. You just have to fight through it. As for why, well, since you took away Job, I will go with Dean Koontz Odd Thomas, Stormy says life is a boot camp of sorts, so I'm winging it here but maybe this is your boot camp and surviving is what you have to do.
Honestly, though I found my purpose in helping others, (even though I don't post on here as much as I should) I work for a Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Shelter/Crisis Line. I volunteered for years before I got on. I had my own shit to deal with and still do. Nowadays I just have the coping skills I need to push my way through. I don't know if any of this helps because I still vividly remember the days of hearing how strong and brave I am and the whole survivor thing, and thinking it was utter and complete bullshit and I all I wanted to do for years was to die. If that is where you are right now, reach out and keep reaching out like this because one day you won't feel like this and look for the little things in life right now. Take care of you!!! Gentle Cyber hugs sunshine!

Glad you mentioned Job, because his story's one I've used for myself as far as contending with God about the question you ask: why could this happen to me when I was a good person--a good kid, actually, who didn't misbehave did well in school?

I with you and I don't buy that reading you mention about faith, either. I'm more interested in how a book like that with the question it poses about doubt could remain uncensored when three religions use it as their scripture (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). The question "God, why?" must be too universal for them to take it out. I must not be all that alone after all.

Author Rabbi Harold Kushner had a son die of a grotesque illness he struggled with from birth, so he wrote about the Book of Job from a point of view I can handle in his best seller years ago, "When Bad Things Happen To Good People."

https://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Happen-Good-People/dp/1400034728

He got in hot water with the things he said about God in that book. But for me even though I practice Christianity and not Judaism, what Kushner wrote came from a sincere place of real suffering that whether I agreed or not. Therefore, I was just glad he got over his fear of saying it out loud and dared put it in writing for others like me to share so I could live with Job's questions even if the easy answer others see there doesn't work for me. What Kushner said about God instead made sense for a Higher Power in real recovery work for me.

I'm glad you got over your fear to post what you were thinking and said it any way. That's what we're here for and I, for one, feel less alone when any one of us does every time. Thank you, and much support back to you, Kate.

Thanks Muji! When I was in college I minored in philosophy/history/ religion and really enjoyed learning about different ways of viewing life and the world. Maybe I look into the book you mentioned and dive into a bit more reading.