In light of recent events, I can only say I am triggered.Not the kind that makes you angry, the kind of triggered that sets off every buried emotion, like a bomb within. Abuse scars linger so deep within me, scars no one sees. This week those scars are internally exposed and a raging river of torment is thrashing within my memories.

My niece is on a path that I never had the courage to take. Scary and uncertain, but a path to break the violence she has endured for seven years. Unfortunately, witnessing an incident she endured first hand reopened old wounds for me. The anxiety,the fear, the sheer feeling of panic. The hurt, the anger. I wanted so much to protect her from this and yet here she is fully engulfed by it.

Tonight something was said by someone I love very much, but that cut me so deeply. I was told I don’t know what it’s like to look over my shoulder all the time. I said I do because I lived it. Then came the words that cut through me with a razor sharp precision. Well you didn’t have a child to protect. But I did….and I failed. A baseball bat, swung with full on rage ended that child and I didn’t have the strength to save it or me. I live with that everyday.

Sometimes people say why did you stay, why didn’t you tell someone. Was it me, my fault? Did I choose to be abused? No I was frozen in fear, terrified for my own life. Yet those who haven’t lived it are so quick to say otherwise. This person had their own toxicities, but I don’t think I could ever make them understand how very different the circumstances were and how hurt those words made me feel. I did have one, but an act of vile selfishness removed that choice.

It wasn’t my fault…..

ABE 03/17/2026