Because. We were strong, but we weren't in a position to use that strength, at that moment, but if you weren't strong already, we wouldn't have made it to the point where we could say we were stronger now. You can't build muscles that aren't there at all, or something.
Sometimes I hate the "strength" thing, itself, though, because it seems like it's a pressure in itself. You're supposed to be stronger after it happened, you're supposed to be better, like that means you won.
Maybe it's just me (and I'm expecting to be checking into psychiatric hospital for depression and anxiety issues in the next few days, so, you know, full disclosure: my mental health isn't great right now), but sometimes I feel like there's this attitude that if you're not Stronger, if you feel like you were wounded by something like that, if you feel weakened, because there's a fear still there that wasn't there before... then, somehow, you're failing. You're inadequate. You should be better than that, you should be stronger.
We weren't weak. Or maybe some of us were. Some of us aren't stronger for it - some of us are as strong as we were before, some of us are weakened because we're wounded in a way we weren't.
And none of those make any of it our fault, and pretty much everyone is doing the best they can, and nobody else gets to decide what the standards are for how people "should" deal with sexual assault - either at the time or afterwards.
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Because. We were strong, but we weren't in a position to use that strength, at that moment, but if you weren't strong already, we wouldn't have made it to the point where we could say we were stronger now. You can't build muscles that aren't there at all, or something.
Sometimes I hate the "strength" thing, itself, though, because it seems like it's a pressure in itself. You're supposed to be stronger after it happened, you're supposed to be better, like that means you won.
Maybe it's just me (and I'm expecting to be checking into psychiatric hospital for depression and anxiety issues in the next few days, so, you know, full disclosure: my mental health isn't great right now), but sometimes I feel like there's this attitude that if you're not Stronger, if you feel like you were wounded by something like that, if you feel weakened, because there's a fear still there that wasn't there before... then, somehow, you're failing. You're inadequate. You should be better than that, you should be stronger.
We weren't weak. Or maybe some of us were. Some of us aren't stronger for it - some of us are as strong as we were before, some of us are weakened because we're wounded in a way we weren't.
And none of those make any of it our fault, and pretty much everyone is doing the best they can, and nobody else gets to decide what the standards are for how people "should" deal with sexual assault - either at the time or afterwards.