Jasmine’s Reviews > What My Bones Know > Status Update

Poignant excerpt: “Judith Herman, the woman who coined the term complex PTSD, wrote: "The abused child must find a way to preserve hope and meaning. The alternative is utter despair, something no child can bear.

To preserve her faith in her parents, she must reject the first and most obvious conclusion that something is terribly wrong with them. She will go to any lengths to construct an explanation for her fate that absolves her parents of all blame and responsibility. The abuse is either walled off from conscious awareness and memory or minimized, rationalized, and excused, so that whatever did happen was not really abuse."[1]

Despite the fact that I know what happened to me that I've always known that what happened to me was awful—I keep applying a level of journalistic skepticism to my story as if it were a complete stranger's.

Over and over, I create excuses: Maybe EMDR is bunk, maybe the teachers are right, maybe some level of privilege erases abuse. But this narrative gives me a false sense of control. Ifit's all my fault, then I can
change it. I can fix it.”