Kashley -

Thank you so much for your post (and your blog, hurray!).

I'm having what I call a "new understanding" - I'm grasping the idea of exposure, the idea that I am going to have to keep experiencing the trigger AND the UNexpected result so that I can slowly retrain my brain. On the one hand, that's terrible work. On the other hand, it's already working and I'm grateful for the plasticity of the mind.

I'm also grateful for your help.

Thanks, Kashley.

AG - Yes, it's so helpful to think of my kids, to think of what I want for them, for what kind of spouses I want them to be, how I would want them to advocate for themselves in any relationship, etc.

I should say that my other new understanding is a blinking idea that seems to fade in and out - the idea that this is me. An acceptance, of sorts. I think that I've been stuck in a "I don't like this, I don't want to be this way, this sucks for me and everyone around me, ack!" sort of place. And while I can feel a sort of anger around the edges of that, and I think that anger is going to be important to process (in a "I'm mad you did this to me" and not a "I hate myself for being this way"), this new blinking idea says, for seconds at a time, that I am who I am (my T's words). If I could picture someone else, who had been through similar things, I would be able to hold simultaneously the ideas that 1) they would absolutely by impacted, imprinted, by what happened and 2) their immutable, undeniable worth. And so, that must be me.

What did I think? That horrible things could happen without any sort of imprint? And what did I think - that an imprint, a change in myself because of what I have been through, was bad? Made me bad? The imprint is me - I am me. I am who I am. The imprint has given me gifts and challenges. But there isn't any bad there. I have an imprint. This is how it is.

(Ugh. On re-read, I hate this, but I'll let it stand.)

But this knowing, this acceptance (though blinking) is directly related to these forums and to the blogs I read.

My T has been saying it - "You are who you are. There doesn't need to be judgement there." But it took seeing that you guys are who you are, and feeling admiration, not shame, that helps me to know it for me.

Thanks guys!