In response to your responses, I want to first say: thank you. Thank you for having the courage to reach out. Whether that was to simply say that you were sorry I experienced abuse, inquire about something or those courageous souls who shared their own experiences of abuse with me, I feel lucky to experience your bravery and bare witness to your experience.

I got a lot of responses to my post. For about a week- my email, phone and all of my social media networks were filled with messages. If I am honest, I didn’t read any of them for at least a few days; it took more time than I’d like to admit to hit the ‘publish’ button once it was written.

One of the types of responses went along these lines: “I knew you back then, why didn’t you tell me?! BECAUSE my parents or my boyfriend would’ve prevented this from happening to you!!”. Let me first say this: I know that for many of you this was said from a place of care and compassion for me. Secondly, let me say that if you were a kid- like I was- while I know it’s hard to hear: there is nothing you could’ve done to prevent this from happening to me. There is nothing you could’ve done that would’ve changed this and that’s okay. And, while I knew all of this that as I read the messages… they felt dismissive, cold, and ultimately harmful. It took me a long time to figure out why the messages made me feel this way. I discovered that it was because it invalidated what I had done to survive, questioned the severity of what I went through, and implied that there was something more I could’ve done to stop the abuse [I could’ve told]. Let’s talk about that really quick: I did tell. I told people what happened to me. I told adults. The adults I told didn’t help me. Well maybe I just didn’t tell the right adults? Possibly. I also could’ve told well intentioned people who made the whole thing much much worse for me. I didn’t want to go to the police. I didn’t want to face him in court. I didn’t want him arrested. I wanted it to stop. Just stop. I appreciate that you have concern for what happened to me. I really do. When I say I did everything I could do to survive what was happening to me- I say this from a place of certainty. I wouldn’t change the choices I made: not. a. single. one. It brings me to tears as I write that because I do not think there has ever been a moment in my life where I have believed that more than I do right now. I made the best choices that I could with the information that I had. Telling people in crisis what they should’ve done is not helpful. Let me type that one more time: telling people in crisis what to do is NOT helpful. Rarely, if we are the support person for someone in crisis, do we ever really know exactly what happened, and the wants/needs of the person in crisis- especially without asking. Just think about what you do/did know about what happened? Was it just what you read from my blog post? You don’t know who it was- I never said in my post. You don’t know how much he weighed, what his job was, or what his connections looked like, the weapons he used against me or the power he had or didn’t have to carry those out. So how without knowing who did this or a complete account of anything that happened how can you even begin to tell me what I should have done or who could’ve saved me? As someone outside of the situation, and as painful as it is to hear and admit- there isn’t anything more you could’ve done. If you were a kid, like I was, you need to be reminded that you were a child. It was not your job to protect me, to defend me, or to carry this weight on your shoulders. I mean that. It was never your responsibility. It was never my responsibility. I shouldn’t have ever been in this situation- let’s talk about that. Let’s redirect this conversation to the one person who was in a direct position to prevent what happened to me. Then let’s talk about the adults I did tell and what they did or more accurately, didn’t do. Let’s talk about change and prevention. Let’s talk about where we go from here.

Another type of response I received was from the adults in my life who I didn’t tell about what happened. *Deeply sighs* This breaks my heart, but it is the God honest truth: I chose not to tell you. After the age of about 13 I consciously and deliberately avoided you and I spent as little time as I could alone with you. I knew I would tell you because I trusted you. I was afraid. I was afraid that if I told you that you’d tell me that there was one right way to handle this. I was afraid that I wouldn’t ever see my brothers again. I was convinced that if I told you it would make all the pain and hurt real because I would just fall apart. One hug was all it would take to crumble the façade that I had carefully created that everything was fine. I was convinced that when he hit me with the towel and the façade fell that I was just going to tell you everything. I don’t think I was ever more terrified in my whole life. I didn’t think I could handle it. It never occurred to me that what I continued to go through would be more painful because the shear thought of describing what he did to me brought me so much shame. The thought of telling you: someone I loved and trusted was the scariest thing I could possibly think of. Partially, because I had done this before- and the adult I told didn’t believe me. What if you didn’t either? I know that you know you would’ve believed me but I didn’t know that. Imagine what it was like when I found out that the way that most people would want to stop it is by me sitting in front of my whole family, a jury of strangers, and HIM and recounting every detail of what happened. Imagine what it was like when I learned most women go through this and in the end- nothing happens! There often isn’t any accountability. The system isn’t equipped to handle child abuse/sexual assault/ or domestic violence cases. It certainly doesn’t account for the trauma it can cause on victims in the pursuit of what it sees as justice. I knew this by, the latest, at 14. I think that people may see this ending in some sort of lesson about how it only takes one person to change a kids life- and while I genuinely believe that’s true, it’s not the point I intend to make here. Also, I think the way that that one person might change a kid’s life isn’t in the way we predict. In my opinion, that adult- rarely, saves them from the experience their dealing with, they’re not a rescuer or superhero who knows all the right things to do. Rather, as was the case for me, the adults in my life then and now showed me it was possible for life to be different. I could choose something else– because they did. They showed me that I could create a life filled with wonderful people. I continue to see this in my adult life and believe it is the key to my determination today- you let me know it was possible and as small as it seems- that’s all I needed. All I needed was the possibility for that to be true- and then I ran with it. I think what I am really trying to do is explain that at the end of the day all of these conversations are directed at the wrong thing.

We’ve talked about what I and you could’ve done differently. What would all of this look like if the person who chose to abuse me- didn’t. What would it look like if he never had the chance? How do we create that world? What if when I told- I was believed? What if I learned that there were many ways the abuse could stop and it didn’t have to look like the criminal justice system? What if I had more options? What if the person you think is experiencing abuse had more options? What could I do to help them gain access to those things? What if the world didn’t support abusive people (especially those in power)?

Let me close this lot of rambling with this: I don’t have the answers to these hard questions but I work every day to continue to try to figure it out- because I think the answer to the liberation of survivors lives somewhere in battling with these things. Welcome to the cause.