Pondering what “get it” means because so many people it seems don’t “get it” and with the sexual scandal at Penn State generating opinions that have been reported in the news like, I swear I read this, that hiding this is better than bringing it up because bringing it up just hurts/worries/embarrasses current Penn State students and their parents…    

WHAT???  Are you stupid?

Then it really hit me…People don’t get it.  So I am going to try in my small way to help some people GET IT.

As a victim myself I can speak to my experience.  And as someone who has worked extensively with other victims of abuse there are certain experiences that are universal.

Sin is alive and well in all of us too, but the sin of one, (an abuser), effects countless others.  Because I was so affected by the trauma of my own abuse every person I came in contact with afterwards was affected too.

When interacting with others it was not me genuinely interacting but was me pretending…pretending what I thought was normal, genuine and socially acceptable.  Abuse victims will understand what it is that I’m talking about.

Those who have been abused have a mine field to traverse everyday for the rest of our lives. There are so many triggers that can set us off, (it’s not just me, I asked my psychiatrist). Trauma recovery is multilayered, like an onion, and we will spend a good part of our lives constantly peeling away the layers. Each layer exposes a new and different level of woundedness. And that new level must be dealt with and healed. That is one of the reasons I prefer the term “victim” to the term “survivor”

We have fear, pain, regret, mistrust, anger, (which has been a part of all of the layers), mistrust, mistrust, mistrust… It is so hard to live a life with mistrust as your default personality trait. But that is what abuse does.

The victims of  abuse are trying to move on in their lives and are getting little help in receding from the darkness from the very people who should be providing us with light because they don’t get it.

So let me restate this for the record; We have fear, pain, regret, mistrust, anger, mistrust, mistrust, mistrust…