Cw: sexual assault.

I May Destroy You is BRILLIANT. In so many ways, particularly discussions around consent, what constitutes sexual assault & who rape can happen to.

I was assaulted by my ex & when I confronted him his biggest concern was "please don't use that word".

Like the problem was semantic rather than sexual assault.

I blamed myself for YEARS and, it wasn't until I was in a safe relationship I'm now in & was encouraged & supported by my amazing partner, that I really grasped the gravity of what had happened.

Sexual assault can live w/you in so many ways like flashbacks, difficulties having sex, pain, psychological trauma, etc. I think my fibromyalgia has, in part, stemmed from this incident.

I never reported it. I didn't/don't trust the frameworks in place to "get justice".

Reading about abolition has challenged me mentally in so many ways. Particularly because the oft-asked q is "what about sexual predators/rapists/killers?"

As unsatisfactory as it is, we have to look at wider contexts. Why do people perpetuate violence? Not how we punish them.

I'm not apologising for violence or those that commit it, by any stretch, rather thinking how my thinking has expanded from reading Angela Davies, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, @ autotheoryqueen & others.

Justice is a word with many meanings that is reflexive and situation-dependent.

We carry trauma and violence within our bodies and how we relate to each other.

I'm lucky to be in a loving relationship, afford therapy, and be out of that situation. I have to live with what happened, but I did not commit the act of violence and I can compartmentalise it.

My ex was brimming with toxic masculinity, he felt so umcortable in his skin growing up, bought into the gym it better lifestyle, listened to j*e r*g*n etc. & didn't know how to relate to himself or women. He couldn't deal with his own mental health or mine.

Living with trauma takes WORK! It is TIRING! It is CONSTANT!

So is undoing all of the ways that ours bodies our coded, how we relate to each other, and live with one another.

Wishing to see the person who hurt you be hurt is a difficult thing to sit with & reconfigure.

All of this is to say, my DMs are open for people who have experienced assault (I don't used the word victim/survivor); read abolitionist lit, read Black feminist texts; take care of yourself; find your people; and, most importantly, IT WASN'T YOUR FAULT.