I guess if we understood the minds of the people that committed these unthinkable acts, we'd be just as f*cked up as they are/were.

I'm so sorry this happened to you.

One definition of mental illness includes being a danger to self and/or others. If we include all forms of abuse in the mentally ill statistics, it would be staggering how many mentally ill there are. Let us hope we can one day reverse this tend.

My mother had my father beat me weekly after I tearfully told her a pedophile had sexually assaulted me when I was 10 years old. He really put his heart into her project of his making me into a man with his constant beatings. But the person behind it was her. She considered a sexual abuse victim to be a pervert, and as such I needed to be purified by ordeal. My blood literally sprayed the walls of our home, but her blood lust was never satisfied. Nor was there an end to my father's willingness to spill my blood for her.

I didn't happen to lose my virginity with a female until college, but she waited up with my dad when I came home from innocent high school dates and "sicked" him on me like an attack dog. And just like an attack dog he behaved.

Parents can be crazy people, sorry to say. By the way, my father was a minister, too. And my mother the daughter of a minister, so that added another layer to the whole situation of purging me of (falsely) perceived sin.

Sorry that happened to you. You are not alone.

Muji

muji, did you ever see or read The Hunchback of NotreDame? One of the characters is a repressed minister/priest who tries to purge the 'lust' by punishing Esmeralda, as if it were her fault.

Sometimes abusers were themselves abused and are repeating what they were taught.

I'm not sure what you mean by the question, "what is this about?"

Regarding being triggered,, sometimes the trigger sends us to dissociate from our feelings into numbness. Being triggered is not always being upset and feeling stuff.

PS I couldn't click on the link cuz it might trigger me and I don't want to, but I did read what you said.

xa1nbowxR, good point about the story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame! I have come to believe that our stories aren't as marginal as we think. We and our odd stories are actually the stuff of mainstream world literature!

I contend that while The Iliad by Homer is the story of the Trojan War, its sequel The Odyssey by Homer is the story of PTSD--it took them 10 years and lots of craziness to come home from their war.

Thanks for pointing out the literary connection!

Good point on the foggy numbness as I read the article.

guess that was a trigger state to "get through it"

Thanks for the insight everyone.