Re: Is it right to disclose?

"One thing I have learned, survivors/victims, whatever term is most agreeable to you is that things can be fine. After years of therapy, working through all the issues, and feeling fine, things can trigger, bringing about old wounds and feelings. I only hope that will never happen to you or anyone you know. But the ordeal she experienced, was a trigger for me. I have talked w/ support providers, getting myself back in order. Am I perfect, I only wish. Will I have other triggers in the future, I pray not, but I may. Other therapists say that this is not uncommon. So I feel inclined to believe them. A person can go years, decades, doing wonderful, then something can be a trigger. So hopefully you are cured, whatever that is, but I discovered I'm not. But I"m also not a wreck, nor helpless. Maybe that is why my clients feel a closeness and safeness with me. They see a strength that is willing to continue the work and fight."

Yes I've run into triggers, but rarely run into them any more.  At one time I believed that I would have to live with my terror, but on a less intense level.  I've found that not to be the case.  You really can heal all the emotions around the incident(s) - and like you, I'm far from perfect but I'd much rather be where I'm at now then say even 5 years ago.

"As for the forgiveness issue. That one that is a personal choice. I would never impose that choice on anyone."

I couldn't agree more in the case of working with someone when they are the client.  I wouldn't even bring the topic up.  However, for the counselor I believe it is extremely important.  Apathy is like death.  The two are equal and if you are apathetic about your abuse you are stuck and have stopped healing.  I know a man who was abused on about the same level I was and he visited a psychiatrist for over 5 years to get through the issues around it.  He was (probably still is) a fantastic guy, but he hates his father and mother with a passion.  He wasn't stuck, he had feelings.  If he's comfortable with that, that's his choice.  (After he grew up, his father was murdered and no one ever caught the murderer.  My friend figures that his dad had abused a neighbor boy and that someone got even, and my friend was tickled to death over it.)  Yet what I learned after first recognizing the intense hate I had for the individual that caused my PTSD and clearing a lot of that out of me, was the immense love that was underneath it.  You don't have hate without love.  It took forgiveness and releasing a lot of hate to get to the love, but that alone was worth the process, and I think that's what people who don't wish to or don't consider forgiveness are missing.  I don't even think they are aware that love is available beneath all the crud and now one is telling them.  That's what I love about Edith Eger.  She was filled with love.  Getting to the immense love that's within each of us is a process, and it's available to all of us, abused or not.

"How would a victim feel if their counselor was a victim. Would the trust / bond be there and help in the treatment or would it pose problems. Nothing more. So, do I want to hear from a bunch of people who have just read the books and had classes or do I want to hear from the people who lived through it. My thoughts, at this time, are the people who lived through this ordeal, what worked for them, what didnt work for them. I hope this helps clarify."

I understand, though I'm still not in agreement, but at least you know what you were looking for. 

I counseled for several months and yet I don't feel that the counselor (considered one of the best in the area) did that much for me, other than to point out things that I never considered abuse were in fact abuse, and rather intense.  What I used the weekly counseling sessions for was to gain information and insight and then take it home to my daily meditations.  It was my meditations - kundalini meditations, that got me through the first year and what has continued to assist in my healing process.  I never believed what I was told when I first learned meditation - a few years before the PTSD, that I had all my own answers within myself.  But after almost 30 years of practicing meditation I'm now a firm believer of that truth.