Thank you for writing one of the most honest pieces on this subject that I've ever read. I'm so sorry for the abuse you suffered, and witnessed. To a lesser degree, it seems we're all blamed for who life makes of us. Not everyone has a good or safe childhood. That's the reality. And I'm a little sick of the "chin up and carry on" narrative. We need to love and support people, period, and try to give them what they need. We will never really know what anyone has been through.

I'm also acutely aware that abuse of girls and women doesn't only affect those who directly suffer. It means that many, if not most, of us grown up in a world that we KNOW is unsafe. So how do we deal with that? How do we have open hearts and allow for possibility, when we also must guard those hearts, and our bodies, because life has hurt so many of our sisters? ALL of my closest friends have been molested as children. Not some, not 1 in 4. All. We need societal change, however it must come about.