Ask Amy: Trauma survivor wants to confront bully
I would appreciate your words of wisdom.
-- Survivor
Dear Survivor: You were victimized by unspeakable abuse during childhood. Your survival is a triumph.
"Letting sleeping dogs lie" is not the answer for you, because, for you, the dogs never sleep. These memories still pace and stalk and threaten to pounce.
You need to deal with your rage. Vengeance doesn't quiet rage ... it stokes it. You deserve (and would be well-served by) professional help with a trauma specialist to continue to recover from years of childhood abuse.
Children who bully and violate other children are often re-enacting and expressing their own rage. Unless she is a genuinely deranged psychopath (a true rarity), I suggest that the monster who bullied you in school was most likely also a wounded, desperate, degraded child whose twisted instinct was to target the only person she saw who was perhaps more wounded and vulnerable than she.
You are still too close to this, and too triggered, to feel compassion for her.
It might seem like cliché, but you truly need to tend to, love, and honor both sides of yourself: the terrified and victimized child, and the fierce and angry survivor.
Becoming a warrior does not mean that you victimize other people, but that you stand up for yourself (and others) bravely and with honesty and integrity.
When you are ready, you could contact this woman to speak your own truth without threatening her, but you're not there yet.
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