You Are The Second Abuser

UNITED STATES
Pop Chassid

One of the “advantages” of being a writer who writes about his traumatic experiences with mental illness is that many people open up to me about the pains they’ve gone through.

I am simply amazed at how many people have gone through horrific trauma in their lives. I cannot tell you how many people I’ve met who have been raped, abused, manipulated by moral crooks, gone through moments of mental instability (to say the least), or been through other traumatic moments. It’s come to make me realize just how much is hidden underneath the existence we’ve come to think as “normal.”

I actually find their opening up to be amazing, not a negative thing. Any trauma can be addressed. Any pain can become a source of growth, even if the scar always remains, even if every time we touch it we wince. And opening up is a sign of that growth.

But there is something else I’ve seen, something that has caused me enormous pain among that beauty.

The world still has not become a safe place for them to be open.

I often imagine to myself a world where my friends felt comfortable enough to share their pain with the world (if they so wished): a world that would understand, or try to understand. A world that would embrace them. Care for them.

What a beautiful world that would be.

That’s not the world we live in.

We live in a world where 68% of rape victims don’t accuse their abusers. Why? Many reasons, but a big one is the very real feeling that the world will shame them if they come forward.

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