I have read a lot of stories here and a lot of comments. I was hoping that from doing that, I'd get an idea of what to say in my own post. It hasn't worked. So, I've decided to get the hardest step done, regardless of what it costs. So, here goes...

When I was a kid, I went through a lot of stuff. The worst happened over the course of a year and there were seven of them that did it, among others. I had been used to touches and the subtle looks from my earliest memory. But during that year, I saw at least two of them every day. They forced me as well as a lot of other stuff. Now, I know that what I'm about to say will probably not make sense to anyone here, so please don't come after me for saying it. I can't figure out for the life of me why I'm having so much trouble with those events now. It wasn't 'rape' back then. That was a term that I actually learned as an adolescent. Back then, it wasn't 'torture' either. Again, learned that term later in life. But, I would sit in my room, my cell as that little kid, and I would wonder how other girls dealt with that sort of thing, because every girl went through it, right? Every girl had to deal with it somehow because this was life, right? I mean, it's a man's world, right? Although that didn't make sense because one of the seven was in fact, a woman.

When I grew up, I made a mistake. This mistake, looking back on it was monumental, although back then I didn't even recognize it. I got a bit older, and I never did the 'friend' thing. I found that more often than not, I had absolutely nothing in common with other girls of the same age. This fact came crashing home one day when I told a girl that I did consider a friend, that I couldn't understand why my body was behaving the way it was. I couldn't understand why I stayed hot all of the time, nor could I understand why everyone else stayed cold. She asked me why I had asked, and I told her that I had been kept in a cell, with no heat, over that winter. It was normal, although I didn't understand. That was a mistake, and I never told anyone ever again. I tried to go to a therapist once, and went for a few sessions, enough to get to know her. We got past the rape part, and she was fine. We got to the cell part, and she began to lose her grip. We got to the 'ownership' part and how it seemed normal to me, and that I felt lost in a world that doesn't do that sort of thing on a large scale and she slipped away. The next thing that she told me was that she was "not qualified" to deal with me.

So, I want to ask... Why should this be an issue for me? Why are the nightmares, the flashbacks and the fear still here? Was my experiences truly not normal even though they feel that way, being all that I've literally ever known? Now, with that, I want to make one thing clear... I'm not saying that rape, torture, or any experiences that people write about here is trivial or normal. The language in this post is my language, and only mine. This is MY understanding of my own experiences, which apparently isn't working because I'm here writing on this forum. I AM NOT talking about any other experiences that anyone else has gone through. And, logically, I know as an adult that these things are not a normal part of a life, but on one hand, it feels like life to me... On the other hand, that leaves me in a hard spot because that explanation doesn't make sense with what I'm experiencing as an adult. However, that lends to the other possibility that what I've gone through is not merely facts of life. And that leads me into another hard spot because how can i go forward with no one "qualified" to even talk to me about it.

And that's my problem with therapists... If they're not "qualified" they don't talk. But what happened to the origin of therapy, giving someone the tools to help someone else as a provider, but at the end of it, being a human being, or even being another woman.. What happened to the old fashioned, "just be there" for someone else that really has no one that can understand how she thinks, how she feels, and her fears.

At any rate, I shall end this for now. I hope that I have not triggered or harmed anyone, and further, I hope that I have not utterly confused everyone in this forum.