Veterans

experience a pernicious PTSD. Some survivors don't recognize this until they're adults, or until the menacing memories come flooding out of the dark mental cauldron in which they were ensconced--with the lid screwed entirely too tightly in a futile attempt to sustain sanity.

My abuser is still alive, father to two of my nieces and a nephew. He is old and frail, and still insists that I "seduced" him. One of my best therapists advised me to find a picture of me from an age when I KNEW he had been abusing me (the abuse started before, but I just can't remember exactly when...), so I found a picture of me at twelve. I was a pudgy, nondescript child--not a seductive bone in my body. Yet, because it's easier, many of our family still believe his disgusting lies, and I am an outcast, a stranger in a strange land in my own family of origin.

I am grateful for my family of choice. They help me honor my innocence and silence the chattering that comes when the PTSD is bad.