tw: abuse

look. saying “but they didn’t TELL me they were being abused!” is victim-blaming. full stop. i was abused my *entire life* & bc my abuser didn’t leave bruises i didn’t realize something was wrong until i was 15. i wasn’t able to even *call* it abuse until i was 21.

for survivors, quite often, there is a very painful reality of not realizing until years—sometimes decades—later that what they went through was abuse, if they ever realize it. abusers don’t come with a “bad person” warning light. i wish they did. but that’s just. not reality

abusers come disguised as a friend, a lover, a family member. they surround themselves with people they can use as a shield. i am still recovering from things that happened when i was a kid. i am still, at 25, having moments of “holy shit. i thought that was NORMAL?”

other people have said this better than me but i’m just—very tired. survivors usually can’t tell you when we’re in it bc we’re living a false reality designed to make us pass every tiny, terrible thing off as normal and good.

my journey of understanding i was a victim didn’t happen overnight. it happened over years—in hundreds of tiny moments that threatened that reality. it happened when i made a joke about what my parent would say or do to me, and instead of laughing, my friends went pale.

it happened from reading books and realizing the villain had a lot in common w my parent. from spending time around friends w healthy parent-child relationships and feeling like a total alien. it happened when i watched tangled, and mother gothel reminded me exactly of my mom.

it wasn’t until college that i dared to say it out loud and by then it was too late. i spent years surrounded by teachers & coaches & adults. never once did i say “hey, help me, this isn’t right.” & it’s not bc i was scared or anything.

i didn’t know. i just didn’t fucking know.

& like—i wish i could have. i wish i could go back in time & take twelve-year-old me’s hands & say “this isn’t right, & you have to tell someone, and you have to tell them now.”

but i can’t & i was a kid & i was scared. i’m still scared. but with this shit, it can take years.

& even then—i WAS telling ppl, in my own quiet way. in my jokes. in the clothes i wore. in my desperation to not go home. in the teachers & coaches i clung to bc i wanted to be safe.

they didn’t know, & i don’t blame them. but my inability to articulate my abuse wasn’t my fault

it took years and years of pain and confusion and conversations and therapy and literally writing entire books to process before i could say the words out loud. & i talk about it now, & i write about it now, in hope i can, at the very least, be a warning bell for someone else.

i made it out & i’m okay & i am loved. some don’t get to say the same. some are still in it—and don’t know it.

if you see yourself in this thread, i love you, & i’m sorry.

& if you didn’t know—it’s okay. neither did i.

we know now. we know & we’re here, in spite of it all.