It's all significant

[Dee]

I feel like lately I have seen a lot comparisons going on in the forum.  Minimizing is certainly an issue with CPTSD, but I feel that it is more.  I have read I was only bullied, only emotional abuse.....and it isn't as bad as what other people here have been through.  I have wondered if I should of shared my story at all, and contemplated if I can and should try to remove it.  I shared it not for comparisons, but because I lived a life of secrets.   Writing my story was a empowering.  It isn't something I can share verbally, but I'm tired of the weight of a secret.  I gave the secret a little less power here.

Here is the thing, it is less about what happened to you (which is important) but how you feel about it.  Any abuse is a snapshot in time, the real struggle is living the rest of our lives with it.  Did it profoundly effect you?  If you are posting here it did.  Every person here is just as important as the next and there story just as significant.

[sanmagic7]

totally agree with you, dee.  it all counts.  who is to say that one abuse is worse than another?  each of us have different levels of sensibilities, feelings, and emotions.  if it impacts one's mind and being, that's all that's important to know.

the comparison thing may be coming from the 'that's not so bad', 'look at what so-and-so went through and count your blessings' school of thought.  so many of us have been taught to look at others as an example or measure of where we're at, how we are, our sense of worth (look at the body image thing!) and on and on.

i hope people can come to understand that each of us is as valid as the next, which means that each of our experiences is as valid as someone else's.   thanks for bringing this up, dee.  i'm still not perfect at staying out of the comparison game, but it's gotten a lot better from what it had been.

[meursault]

I'm kind of worried that maybe I've made people here feel that, because the stuff I'm currently going through about my Dad might SOUND particularly "Bad".  It's not any more serious than the struggles of other people here, and I'm sorry if I've ever given that impression.

I hope people haven't taken it that way, and if they have, I'm really sorry.

Any abuse is a snapshot in time, the real struggle is living the rest of our lives with it.

You're completely right Dee!  And this is a place where I think we all know the struggle, and are around people who understand what we're going through.

Meursault

[Dee]

Meursault, no, I don't think you have anything to be sorry about.  See, I felt the same way and that was why I posted.  I didn't want you to personalize the post.  I just read another post this morning saying it wasn't as bad as other's here and I felt a need to say something.

[Three Roses]

Thanks, Dee! I had been seeing the same thing - thank you for speaking up. We're all here to support one another the best we can.

I guess it's like sanmagic says, we're all kind of taught to do this. But we are each feeling the effects of the * we've gone through, and no matter what that was it has affected us profoundly. We have a right to talk about it.

Thanks again for mentioning this.

[radical]

I'm glad you posted this, Dee.

Pete Walker makes the point over and over, that cPTSD is mostly about being psychologically abandoned as a child.  I believe it wasn't as much about what happened as what didn't happen, about having no-one to turn to, about no-one responding to, and helping me through the things that frightened me and hurt me most, about not having a reliable protector. 

[sanmagic7]

i hear you radical, on what wasn't said and done that had caused the most harm to me at times.