By: Alexandria Roswick
Hello, there. It’s been a while since I last wrote you.
Writing about trauma can bring us to dark and scary mental spaces. Breaks are necessary, and I still need more time, but I felt compelled to come back for a moment. There’s something that’s been eating away at my heart, haunting me, over and over again, as I consume media detailing one tragedy after the other, day after day.
Old patriarchal habits refuse to die hard.
I’ve sat back for years “post #MeToo” and observed something treacherous within the survivor community discourse. We’re still choosing to defend abusers. We’re still doubting accusers out loud. And we’re hurling insults at those who see things differently instead of seeking to understand.
We’re spreading more abuse.
We survivors never intend to victim-blame. Of course, not. Never. However, the impact of a behavior is always far more important than the intention. What is it that the road to hell is paved with, again?
I don’t know about you all, but I didn’t respond politely to my abuse. Sure, there were moments when I froze and fawned as monsters built fictional realities around me like unbreakable castles. In those confusing moments, my rage was buried and contained deep down — brewing something wicked.
Then, in other moments, I drudged up the darkest hatred from the bottom of my soul and reacted with vengeance. I bared my teeth and snarled like a hideous barbarian. I was intentionally the exact opposite of what society wanted me to be — or who they’d previously created.
Sometimes, I would laugh hysterically at my traumatic circumstances.
Sometimes, I broke down into wretched sobs in the most festive settings.
Sometimes, the thought of getting out of bed or taking a shower made me want to die.
Sometimes, I would feel such intense eruptive passions I had no choice but to shout them from the rooftops, but the only words that came out were completely incomprehensible. Sometimes, I suffered tremendous brain fog, wouldn’t know up from down, forgot entire eras of my own history, and (very often) contradicted myself.
And sometimes I felt nothing at all.
Behaving in these ways got me through the sharpest pains of my life, but I can imagine that if an iPhone had captured or conveniently clipped the scene, you’d think me the monster — just like my abuser would want you to.
I was — and still am — imperfect.
But I also was — and still am — a victim. And I didn’t deserve what happened to me. My perpetrators deserve to be held accountable regardless of how unlikeable I may be. Regardless of how cringeworthy and unsympathetic you think I behaved, I deserved better, and that is an undeniable fact that nobody can twist.
Although all survivors’ stories have similarities, they are never the same. I’m here to politely remind you not to make a judgment too heavily based on your personal experience. Fight the urge to picture a perfect victim, or a victim like yourself, or any picture of anyone specific, because there is no single example.
There are only millions of uniquely tragic examples. It’s never simple.
The most painfully horrific yet crucial lesson I’ve had to learn about abuse in my years of working in the field is that when it comes to these cases, absolutely nothing is outside of the realm of possibility.
I say this with love:
You don’t, and will never, know what happened behind closed doors. We, survivors, need to stop assuming that our experiential expertise qualifies us to make a definitive ruling about anyone’s situation.
If you ever feel conflicted about an accuser’s testimony, whether it is because you saw media coverage or heard from a friend, unless you are an expert on domestic/sexual violence, please keep it to yourself.
If you don’t you will always run the risk of victim blaming and adding fuel to our explosive rape culture.
Never forget that our focus should be to create safe and welcoming spaces for victims to come forward. Without this perspective, how else do you suppose we prevent abuse within our communities? Before posting something on the internet please, think about how it will serve your community.
We are nothing without one another. This is a team effort. There is no room for judgment here. There is not a single person that you are above.
Go forward with discernment, commit to unlearning implicit biases, or get left behind as we progress.
For what it’s worth, we need you. Yes, you, reader. Dear survivor, I hope you decide to stand with us as we march on and fight back against these oppressive systems that continue to perpetuate the abuse of innocents. We owe it to our younger brothers, sisters, and non-binary community members.