It’s okay, I’m used to it.
This is something that always hits hard.
I’m used to being hurt. I’m used to being neglected, I’m used to being something for others to hurt.
And when people hear about this they say it’s awful, or they’re sorry, or shocked. And I start because there world is a world where those things don’t happen, aren’t the norm, and I’m the aberration because of my life, my strange life, and they apologize and they want to to fix me, they want to say I don’t have to be like this.
It’s okay, I’m used to it.
Or I talk about my life, people talk about their lives all the time, but I’m not the dominant story, not the dominant narration. They hear how deep this cuts, how hard the abuse runs, how someone who seems normal on the surface could have knowledge of something like this, and they tell me they can’t cope, can’t deal with hearing such things, and it means my life and story are too dark for this world, and sorry but they just can’t listen, do you understand?
It’s okay, I’m used to it.
The culture says that everyone is like this, that whole people who aren’t scarred are the norm, that survivors are the rarities, something to be pitied, looked up to, reviled, be sympathetic towards. But always Other, because acknowledging us as mainstream would be mean abuse and rape are mainstream. And no one wants to do that.
It’s not okay, but I’m used to it.
