Comments for My Foster Daughter

Click here to add your own comments

Jan 07, 2015
 Alan:
by: Darlene Barriere - Webmaster

What a blessing you and your wife were for those two young women (and others) after they suffered so horribly at the hands of two adults that were clearly sick and twisted. You both provided support, encouragement and way more than the basic needs, basic needs that go so much deeper for abused children than they do for children who do not experience adversity.

It's been my experience that more often than not, when victims have difficulty sharing stories into adulthood, they still carry shame that is not theirs to carry. They often still blame themselves for the abuse, or at the very least, for not stopping the abuse earlier or at all. They apply adult values to what they did or didn't do as a child, forgetting that they really were small vulnerable children that were quite powerless. It can help to have one's story published by another, but catharsis happens when they can share their own story. Baby steps. It can take as long to give permission to someone else to write one's story as it can to decide to tell it themselves. It's all based on layers of healing. So again, bless you and your wife for all you've done and continue to do to help make life better for those now adult women and their children. I send you all love, light and healing energy. Thank you for sharing your daughter's story with my visitors and me.

From Victim to Victory, a memoir
Darlene Barriere
Webmaster: www.child-abuse-effects.com
author. speaker. survivor. coach
From Victim to Victory, a memoir
Jan 08, 2015
 why aftereffects are the way they are
by: nobody at all

we read, and see on tv, over and over, that someone committed suicide, say, 10 years after being raped; or that someone who was abused as a child ends up with major depression, anxiety disorder, etc. sometimes it seems like there's a "step" missing in there somewhere. why suicide at age 30, over abuse at age 2? why inability to hold down a job at age 30, maybe 20 years after being abused in early childhood? for me, I've often wondered why I don't simply feel precisely and directly how I felt about my abusive mother, in adulthood, rather than just suffer endlessly from "anxiety" and "depression"? I mean, there's a gap there, as far as cause leading to effect. I just want 2 point out 2 anybody else who notices this "gap", that this is from the mind's, and soul's, need to kind of convolute the early pain until the memories of abuse might be deeply buried, or, the true, direct, INTENSITY of these early reactions 2 abuse might have been distorted because of the extremeness of the trauma, leading to diffused "symptoms" with "names" like anxiety and bi-polar, etc. yes, the victim does have these diseases, but they STEM FROM having BEEN FORCED 2 distort the direct, exact experience of their abuse. in order for their bodies and brains 2 save their lives. so this is why, imo, a teenage girl might develop bulimia, say, when her early trauma maybe had nothing 2 do w/food, vomiting, etc. we find ourselves (some of us, anyway) miles away from simply having problems and symptoms that directly reflect our traumas. we just feel awful, maybe not even ashamed, say, after being sexually assaulted, and all we might know is that we feel lousy, and crave alcohol, say, 2 ease the awful feeling. I personally have this a lot - I'm "anxious" because I was absolutely hounded all day long as a toddler by an extremely TERRORIZING mother. now, in adulthood, I "just" feel a creepy, free-floating "anxiety" all the time. I'm not, for example, freaked out by witnessing a couple argue loudly in public, even though my parents fought constantly during my whole childhood, which DID freak me out horribly THEN. so, why do the sights and sounds of married couples arguing viciously not simply send me into a panic NOWADAYS? instead, I feel nothing much about this, but I DO feel miserable, hard-to-describe anxiety all the time. so, a survivor's symptoms later on, or even very soon after a trauma, can seem like they have little 2 do w/the original trauma.

I just wanted 2 clarify this in case anybody who reads about aftereffects thinks, as I used 2, "where did the survivor get THAT symptom from the trauma they endured? one seems to have nothing 2 do w/the other!"

I realize my comment is general, although it does apply to this particular post somewhat. I've been wanting to make this Comment 4 a long time, and chose right now 2 do it, so please forgive me if it seems "off-topic". I don't know where else to post it.

thanks to everyone, and the happiest new year ever to all of u!

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Child Abuse Commentary.

Return to My Foster Daughter

Disclaimer: To the best of my knowledge the child abuse
stories on this site are true. While I cannot guarantee
this, I do try to balance the need for the submitter to be
heard and validated with the needs of my visitors.



E-book: Victim To Victory

From Victim to Victory
a memoir

How I got over the devastating effects of child abuse and moved on with my life

Read more...

Most Recent

RSS

  1. Converging Stolen Lives

    Jan 30, 18 01:13 PM

    There was a time and space I didn’t think about you, or your abuse. Where when I looked back at my life, I only saw normal things, a normal childhood.

    Read More

  2. A letter to one of the 13 Turpin children

    Jan 29, 18 11:33 AM

    A heartfelt letter by a former classmate that speaks to bullying and regrets. You'll find it on my Facebook group. I hope you'll join and get in on the discussion.

    Read More

  3. Dissociated From Abuse

    Jan 29, 18 11:00 AM

    I was sexually abused by my father from age 6 to 13, which stopped when I started talking about it during the day. The teenage brother of my best friend

    Read More

E-book: Victim To Victory

From Victim to Victory
a memoir

How I got over the devastating effects of child abuse and moved on with my life

Read more...