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I came to Fort late in life, and have found everyone to be so very kind and understanding. Time and again I find myself reading someone else's experience and finding it relates to things I have been through or thought was only me being crazy.

eagle22

I think the most profound thing about being here is the eagerness I have gathered to work through my issues, finding ways to do this and sharing sometimes, idea's.

Nancy

Fort is a place where I can be comfortable admitting when things are really bothering me. I don't need my 'ok' mask here. Even when I've said things that didn't make sense to others, no one has ever made me feel 'wrong' or 'damaged', just asked for clarification.

WeepingWillow

It is great that this information is here I have been searching a long time to find any help for male victims I suffered greatly as a child and now I know where I can find help so thank you.

Afraid

Very very helpful. Many thanks

Mary

both of my parents have treated me as their spouse since i was born. it has caused so many problems for me. i tend to have a hard time finding a line between uninvolved and overly intense when it comes to relationships. im glad this site is here, it helps to know there is a name for this.

whitney

I came to the Fort with no experience of on-line communities...and more than a little trepidation. I was surprised how quickly I felt at home...felt that I belonged.

Jane

This site has been immensely helpful to me, not to mention validating.

Ben

This site has been so helpful to me. I can't express how thankful I am to have support from everybody on this site. Words don't seem to do this site justice.

Angela

It's nice to see courageous, brave people making it and sharing ideas with others. It just feels so cool that people from all over the world can come here and join together and help each other. It's a hard road but I'm no longer alone. Thank you for this place.

Mottie

This site helped me to understand myself better

jackie

The other day was the first in 7 years that I SI and I was feeling very ashamed about it. I posted a thread wanting to talk about how I was feeling and some of you welcomed me with no bias to I was and why I am an SI. Thank you for your support and open arms.

MickeyGirl98

(July 19th 2014) Tasha said:

A year ago today, I was in crisis. I thought that I was going to have to go inpatient, as the only way to help me through the tremendous struggles I was having with my ED and how it was affecting my health. I was actually looking for some kind of hotline or a facility when I found a list of resources on an ED website. All it had was the admin email for Fort, but I figured if there was an admin for this place, then there was a site too. I took a chance and typed fortrefuge.com into my browser, and read some of the pages. The more I read, the more I realized that I might have found what I was looking for. I didn't join right away, thought about it for a few days, and then, since I just wasn't finding any other resource that I thought might help me, I joined.

I was thinking I needed to go inpatient because I couldn't seem to find the amount of support that I knew I needed--even though I have a great T and had been seeing her for over a year--and thought that inpatient might be the only way to help myself. I've discovered over this past year, though, that peer support can be extremely helpful, in addition to professional help. Finding Fort, I found a place where I didn't have to hide. I don't have to hide my DID, I don't have to hide my abuse history, I don't have to hide the ugly aftermath of my abuse, I don't have to hide my various diagnoses, I don't have to hide who I am. Surprisingly, I found that ppl accepted me and liked me. For the first few months, I was kinda surprised at that, just because it was so far out of the realm of my experience up til then.

I think that I've learned a lot over the past year, being on Fort. I think that it's helping me heal from abuse and its aftermath in a lot of ways--even ways I wasn't even aware that I needed to heal. I feel like I've got this huge mountain still to climb, but it's nice to have support of my peers while I try to climb it. It's been really helpful to have discussions with ppl, ppl who understand how hard abuse aftermath is. It's been really fun to talk with ppl about what has and hasn't worked for them, to share ideas with each other. The support I've found here has been really invaluable to me. My T keeps saying how valuable support groups are in the healing process, and I really agree with her. I think I'd be in quite a different place emotionally had I not run across Fort.

Sometimes I wonder if I've made progress as far as healing, because what I'm working on now is some of the hardest trauma work I've ever done, but it's also the first real trauma work I've been able to do. Sometimes I wish that I'd been able to keep seeing the T I had just after I got out of the abuse. She was amazing, but she was working on helping me learn coping skills just so I could function and get through college and all the other things I had on my plate at the time. Sadly, I still miss her. I kinda wish I could somehow let her know how I'm doing now. From then until now I know there's been progress. I wonder if that's how I need to think of it--seeing how far I've come since I got out of the abuse, instead of trying to see progress at closer intervals.

The progress I've had in the past year just seems miniscule compared to what I feel I need to/should have accomplished. I guess maybe you can't rush it, though. I definitely know the pitfalls of overprocessing. Thinking about it, I think I actually am making progress though, progress I can see. A year ago, I wasn't experiencing my feelings like I am now, and even if that's the only thing I've managed to progress in, then that's enough. Expressing myself is important, and I have a feeling it's gonna be important as I go through more trauma work in T.

Guess I'm just trying to say that I'm really glad that a year ago I was at such a place that I looked for support, and stumbled in a round about way into Fort.