Navigating Solutions and Darkness

In those days, there was less of me, and more of everyone else. I was a shadow, a sliver, an unimportant cameo in movies starring everyone else. I was the disembodied narrator, recording, remembering, unspoken commentary lining the walls of my skull.

I told you once, not so long ago, to warn me before you started to run.

Upon my oath, I am not a violent man. - Sergeant Jackrum, The Monstrous Regiment

In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.”. -  Judith Lewis Herman,  Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

Hot takes are easy. Hardliner stances are easy. Nuance takes time to settle in. Sometimes it takes years. And maybe that's okay, as long as we aren't externalizing the feelings we have into hateful actions against other people. 

Every time I discuss mental health with her, the struggle seems to start from chapter one.

Not a real person

To know that someone has suffered should be enough to move us to take action. The only solution is for people to start treating empathy as an essential part of our makeup, rather than an optional and quirky personality trait.