...

I don't even know what to title this one which seems rather dramatic but is the truth. I, along with countless other abuse survivors, are scared. What can we say? What can we do? Are we next? And the abuse which, finally, dissipated, and from which you have finally healed to speak up and speak out has now started back up again.

An abuser will find any form to keep torturing you. And it's scary just how many people can't see that. How people can look at that act and that performance and think anything other than they are abusing their victim all over again.

I have been physically assaulted in a room full of people. I have been strangled while someone watched on. I have been physically assaulted alone. Verbally assaulted while people watched. I have been forced to stand and watch someone else be assaulted. And if I were recorded in those alone abuse moments I would come across as an abuser too. Because when you have no power and you're scared they're going to kill you, you lash out in horrific ways that are not you. And, no matter what people say, that is not on you. That's on your abuser.

I have always had this dreaded fear of being legally reprimanded for what I say and how I choose to continue to heal from the abuse I have suffered at the hands of men. Can I name them? Can I say that this one is a doctor and he's treating people and that's not okay? And now... well, now, abusers have got what they always wanted.

Our silence.