a reminder that yes survivors coming forward are strong, when they shouldn’t have to be.

and yes we can be soft in the midst of having to be strong (an effective state I learned about from black womxn/femme activists)

but you do not have to be both.

if you are still backed into that corner, you don’t have to be graceful and poised. the time you spend speaking up does not have to be palatable. if you are furious beyond composure you still deserve to be heard and believed and fought for.

if you are doing everything you can to be soft & avoid attention so you can process survival in private, ok. you don’t have to speak up now. guard your healing, prioritize it. I’m trying to teach myself that it is not MY silence that enables my abuser.

my abuser got away with what he did bc of a culture that blamed me for his grooming and eventual attack. the friends who turned their backs on me were acting in accordance with societal expectation & I was cast as a homewrecker; what strength do I have against that?

I will literally never name him. I will never seek out that community of student body. I think about the girl he was grooming while he was abusing me every time I go to that mental bookmark to process. what strength did she have against his growing impunity within our sphere?

I have accepted that guilt as my own for far longer than was my fair share. I have tried to be soft about it so that others who need to be sharp can be, because I wish I had been sharper for her sake. I fucking KNEW her. I knew all of his victims.

this thread is escaping me so my point is this:

we’re not all “strong” bc we learned some great lesson about ourselves through abuse. we were not gifted virtues by angels. we were ripped apart from ourselves, and the only options left were to be strong or to be quiet.