I visited my sister again yesterday.. and most of the time I was there she was spaced out.. not really here but in a world of her own.. we were hardly able to talk at all because she didn't seem to even know I was there..

This is another of the problems caused by Abuse.. so many survivors space out, myself included where you are basically in a kind of dream and unaware of what is happening around you. I guess this is because as we were living through the Abuse we would do anything to take our minds elsewhere rather that accept what was happening.

'Spacing Out A survivor dissociates; she is unable to concentrate; she is not grounded in the present. She may not be able to feel emotion.'
Survivors often get into this habit of not feeling much. They may describe themselves as, 'spaced out', 'numb', 'unreal', 'not connected', 'not all there.' This 'spacing out' can take a number of forms:
Being 'in your head.' This means that you split your emotions off. It's like they don't exist. You're able to talk about things but the emotions that go with the thoughts don't seem to register.
Not being aware of your body. This can almost feel like you don't have a body. You may ignore your physical needs and hot register pain or when it's time to eat, drink, sleep....
Seeming in a different world. Your mind may drift off into a world of daydreams, or you may get the sensation that you're actually watching yourself from outside your body.

Spacing is a very common problem for most survivors, it can be very scarey as well when you lose time, I have been in that situation where I spaced out and when 'I came back' over an hour had passed by! It can happen at anytime, without warning for a Survivor, but is most common as we try to deal with the events that happened to us...

As we begin to accept what we went through, the feelings and thoughts that come with that can be so overpowering that we space out, like we did when it happened initially, we switch off from the pain, we try to block it out again... but the only way to truely deal with it... is to accept the pain and the events no matter how painful and try to work through them.. This is what I am trying to do now in Therapy, work through the feelings and pain and learn to accept that I can't change what has happened but I can learn to live with it.. The pain and memories will always be there for me no matter how much work I do on myself, but I hope in time that the pain at least will ease and I will be able to talk about things without getting myself into an emotional wreck!

My sister yesterday was reliving her past in her head, she was crying in fact distraught at some points as her mind reminded her of her pain.. you see she was raped by that man from the age of 8yrs... imagine the pain that she must have felt as a child so young being raped by a grown man? It must have been horrendous for her to cope with.. But somehow she did... she coped not that well, but she got through it all alive and would often run away from home for days on end.. of course none of us knew why back then, we just knew that she wasn't happy.. but none of us where in that house, there was very little laughter when we were young, especially if he was there! I can remember one time when she ran away, she was brought back by the police after about three days, she had been living and sleeping rough in a town about 10 miles away.. she has told me since that she told the police that day exactly what had been happening at home, that he had been raping her! they didn't listen!! intead of investigating her claims they just brought her home to go through it all again! Now she blaims the police for me having to have experienced it, if they had listened to her instead of him! he would not have been there to rape me as I got older..

I have of course told her that it is not her fault what I endured, he was to blame and no one else but deep down she does still blame herself, she said to me once that she should have been more forthright and made them beleive her! how? I'm not sure.... if the police were going to ignore her over him what chance did she have? None! Over the years we tried telling teachers, police in fact anyone who would listen to us when we had the courage, but no one reacted no one took notice, hence why he got away with it for so long.... We all grew up with bruises and cuts from where he had beat us, yet still they did nothing.. It unfortunately is still the same today! Last year I had a friend of my sons come to me, he told me that his step father was beating him regulary, I called the police and the responce I got! 'he's a fireman and wouldn't do such a thing!' What the hell! just because he was a fireman they didn't beleive him capable of Abuse? His own daughter told me it was true, she told the police it was true but still they sent the child back!

We somehow have to make the people in power realise that an Abuser can be anyone! a fireman, a doctor, an office manager, a labourer, a gardener even a judge or police officer! They do NOT wear a badge saying 'I'm an Abuser' nor do they stand out from the crowd.. they are just people like you and me! But with a twist of evil inside them that makes them beleive that they can treat people this way and get away with it!.