This thread is both sad and hopeful. I've always wondered how I fit into the trauma experience - how many are like me and how am I doing in spite of my experiences? I pray for healing for myself and those who have posted here - and most of all, that we will not perpetrate trauma on others.

Between 1 and 4 years of age I was regularly sodomized and suffocated, resuscitated and sodomized again while being forced to look at images of raped, mutilated and murdered women while being told this would be done to my mother if I told.

During that time I watched a house burn down with my cousin inside. Her mother was a star-child/sex slave of the local coven and had been forced to offer her child as a sacrifice.

A neighbor accidentally drove over the head of one of his twins who fell off the hood of his car. I saw the body from a distant and his sobbing form and watched my mother pass out and land in the dirt next to me.

I was raped at 9 by what I believed to be my own father - it was pitch black that night. I still don't know for sure who it was.

There have been other events, but those are the earliest and most effecting. My parents have never acknowledged what I went through, although they do know and confirm it. They just don't want anyone else to know. Some friends and family know - but also prefer to pretend it didn't happen. I am frequently told that I am "amazing" and "so strong" and "such a pillar. . ." While inside I feel like fractured glass.

It is only by the mercy and healing of God that I live a surprisingly stable life. There are plenty of days when I desperately wish for death, but he has consistently saved me from it and helped me untangle the mess in my mind.

Things that have helped me are: Gardening. Music. Prayer. Love.