Has anyone ever used their authority to keep your recovery stunted?

Thanks for the revision. I now understand the question.

I think what you ask is a danger to everyone in that all of us have an area that only we are in charge of. It's very easy to use that "In Charge" thing against ourselves to give us a false sense of well being. For example, we may use it to act out in some way saying to ourselves "I'll do what I want with my life. It's my life after all."

Marinan,

If you mean the perp using their authority continually over the victim, probably so. I can only attribute this to being under the perp's roof for a long period of time. If one still has their hand on the hot iron, it will continue to be burned. Recovery (healing) cannot occur. In the case of living at home and looking back, I knew that I would not heal until I was away from the source of injury.

Andy

Marinan,

I think any T you ask about that would say it's a pretty complicated question. The first question would be this: Has the other person deliberately aimed to hinder your recovery? That would be something I think only a perpetrator would do, and the appropriate response would be to break off any and all connections you have with this person, or at last make sure their power and authority over you is broken.

But quite often it's a good deal more difficult, since sometimes another person will hinder us, but not by any intent. A partner may not want the survivor to speak out about what happened to him, for fear of embarrassment. A relative may not want to see an abusing relative exposed for fear of blowing up the family. In this case I think the way forward is to communicate with the other person and let them know why it's important to you to act as you are doing. If they continue to oppose you, then you have to decide which is more important - keeping their good will or pursuing your recovery plans.

There are also cases, however, where the non-survivor we are having difficulty with really does have a point. For example, a partner may feel that s/he's not seeing the honest effort s/he needs to be seeing us make in areas like helping with the kids, dealing with family affairs, and so on.

So the problem usually isn't so simple as "you're stunting my recovery". I think the key is communication. It may not lead anywhere is the other person really does think that you should just "get over it", but talking about the problem is always a good idea before you consider any break with someone over the issue.

Much love,
Larry