The Cost of Abuse

Words are insufficient to explain the cost of this exploitation on my life — and to my family, friends, subsequent therapy, etc. I try to write this over and over and I cannot find the words that convey my sorrow, grief, betrayal, anger, etc.

I lost my identity. My sense of who I am was shattered.

I lost all hope of recovering from childhood sexual abuse.

I lost any hope that safety exists anywhere on this earth.

I lost my connections to important people in my life — due to the extreme isolation.

I lost the few good feelings I had about my body.

I lost 99.9% of everything meaningful in life: trust, faith, value systems, 2 babies' lives, motherhood, family, friends, career, and a nearly successful attempt on my own life.

The abuse was a re-enactment of childhood abuse and it re-traumatized me to the core.

He took my dignity and self-respect.

He also took my ability to be physically close to and sexually intimate with my husband and my ability to go to Church without feeling sick to my stomach.

I can honestly say that although sex was a regular part of my experience, 90% of the damage came from the long term emotional and verbal abuse.

He has taken from me my trust in male doctors.

He took my innocence, my love, and almost my soul.

He has taken my peaceful nights of sleep — I still wake up with nightmares, and in tears.

He did not take my integrity, my fire, or my spirit — but if he would have been able to keep exploiting me, I'm sure he would have sucked every ounce of self respect out of my being. And called it love.

Flashbacks awake… Nightmares asleep… He took away my definition of who I am.

He ROBBED me of my courage, my trust in others, confidence in my own judgment and past healing by re-enacting the prior abuse.

Sex was the weapon or means used to abuse us emotionally and spiritually.

This abuse has cost me my friends and my family who just don't understand.

His abuse has cost me my freedom, my rights, my privileges, my trust in others and the mental health profession; and my freedom to be who I am.

It cost me valuable years of my life, when I felt incapacitated to enjoy life or to be a vital member of a family consisting of members who needed me.

It cost me the sense of being capable of protecting myself, of solving problems for myself.

It cost me my sense of who I was, of well-being, and hopes and dreams for the future.

The experience placed me outside cultural expectations, leaving me with feelings of profound confusion.

He stole away my faith that there is good in the world. I don't know who I can trust any more, now that I've learned that the people I am "supposed" to trust CANNOT be trusted.

I've lost my church, all of my friends, all of my support at a time when I needed them the most. I have to deal with this violation alone.

She stole from me my faith in the office of rabbi, and the failure of the movement's leadership, also rabbis, to respond in a just and healing way has destroyed my faith in my chosen religion and very nearly my faith in God.

I've lost my ability to do the work I loved.

I've lost the ability to take care of my house and yard.

I've lost all the waking hours from every day in my attempts to achieve justice and to heal; I've lost all the sleeping hours from every night to nightmares.

I've lost my energy and motivation for life.

I lose many many thousands of dollars every year in lost income and in healing expenses.

The very foundations of all I held dear and sacred were undermined. The very principles I had grounded my life on were ripped out from under me, hurling me into dark chaos.

I lost my church, my friends, my support network, my ability to trust, my faith, and my sense of who I was.

I was injured to the core, at every level of my being.