October is Domestic Abuse Awareness month, so just a little food for thought. I am not angry, bitter or unforgiving toward anyone, God has simply made me strong in His power, has healed me and will continue to strengthen and heal me.

When people tell you that your abuser “never says anything bad about you” but that you “don’t have much good to say about them”, tell them this, because this is what good psychologists and counselors say about that:“Well, the abuser wasn’t abused or traumatized by anyone, in anyway, nor left with C-PTSD or emotionally abused to the point of breaking, so why would they have anything bad to say about the people who were their victims? Their victims didn’t do anything to them.” Then contemplate that perhaps you are just being manipulated and perhaps the abuser has plenty bad to say, they just don’t say it to you because they want to look good to you and keep you as their flying monkey.

Also contemplate the difference between human sins and failings and abuse. They are not the same. Abusers desire to make the failings of their victims equal to their abuse of them, but there is no comparison. Burning the toast, spending too much money, being weary, making a bad choice, being depressed, not wanting to be intimate with your abuser or just being angry at being abused, are not abuse, nor do those things cause trauma in someone.

The fracturing that happens to abuse survivors is mostly due to physiological changes in their brains, due to the abuse. It is not just emotional or spiritual. The brain itself changes when someone is being abused, especially in long-term abuse. Survivors of trauma need to talk about it in order to heal. Just be sure you are talking to one or two people you are safe with and don’t allow your brain to spew information to others who are only there to judge you.

People who have deep trauma may do things they would not ordinarily do, that even they don’t understand. That is because the brain is injured cognitively as well, when someone is deeply traumatized. They are living in a blinding fog, meant to actually protect the brain from further injury. So don’t be shocked when a trauma survivor does things you would not expect from them. Instead of getting into a religious and spiritually abusive mode, maybe try reaching out to them and love them like Christ commands us to. They will heal over time, much better if they are loved through it.

I had to have neuro-psychology testing done last year for the illness I now bear, in order to get a cognitive baseline to watch for advancing disease. They take a basic, but not in depth, history of your life. After I gave my history, the doctor said to me, “You know why you are physically sick and having brain issues, right?” I began explaining the illness and he stopped me and said, “It’s because you have had so much trauma in your life. We now know that deep trauma causes things in the immune system and brain to change physiologically, and that is why you have become so ill”.