The Darkest Shade of Gray

i am looking into your eyes, i am holding your hand. i absolutely promise.

Thank you, and I'm so sorry.

One of the primary reasons I speak openly about this in public is how crazy my abuser and his enabler/protector made me feel. He made a choice to be cruel to me, only. He didn't treat my siblings, my cousins, or any of the kids in the neighborhood the way he treated me.

I do not know why he made the choice to be cruel to me. I don't know why he chose to humiliate and hurt me at every opportunity. He clearly needed a scapegoat as part of his narcissism, and I guess it was going to be me.

I know that it was never me, or anything I did. I know that I did my best to solve the puzzle so he would love me, and I know now (I didn't then) that there was no solution. There was nothing I could do, because it had nothing to do with *me*. He doesn't know me. He never knew me. He never wanted to know me. And there was nothing I could do about it.

And that's the thing I want to talk about, to share, to reaffirm for my fellow survivors: it was never us. It was always them. There's nothing we could have done differently, nothing we could have done to change the way our abusers treated us, because it was never about us. I know how hard it is to wrap your head around that. I know how much it hurts to accept that. I know how angry it can make us feel, to have a bully where we needed a parent. I know how horrible it feels when the other parent protects, enables, and defends the bully. I know how worthless it makes you feel. I know how it wrecks your self-esteem, and how negatively it affects all of your relationships, unless and until you get lots of professional help to heal the wounds.

I still hurt. I hurt all the time. I still doubt myself, even though I know my memories are real. I was gaslighted so consistently and so successfully, I will remember something that I know happened to me, and then struggle with the voice in my head (a voice that sounds an awful lot like my mother) that repeats the gaslighting: I'm being dramatic. I'm too sensitive. I'm too angry. And on and on and on.

I talk about this because I have built a very successful career and life for myself, in spite of everything, and I want to be the person I needed when this all started. I needed someone to say "I believe you. I see you. I recognize you, and you are not alone or irrational. You don't have to suffer. You deserve to live a full and happy life."

There were a few people I respect and admire who spoke openly about their experience, and shared their journey. They made it possible for me to begin and continue my own journey. They were there for me, as total strangers, in ways my parents chose to never be there for me.

If I can be that person for you, and anyone else who is in the kind of pain I know all too well, I am here.