Sarah Hayes wrote a lovely post on brokenness, in which she insisted that hers is her own to define and understand. It fits so well with the current struggle. (Or a piece of it, really. The piece of it I can think through without seeing the color rage.) I strongly encourage you to be open and honest about things that you have been through and are dealing with — if you feel able. It can be hard and scary, so nobody has a right to tell you when and how to do that. If you are comfortable and able, it can be a very empowering thing. It can help you heal and grow by letting you reclaim ownership of a part of your life that made you feel helpless.
It’s one of my goals for the year, in fact. Be more open and honest. (It’s a great goal because it’s a hard one to fail outright. It’s so abstract that it’s easy to earn those self-congratulatory completion gold stars.) Last year I felt trapped in this weird circular loop of loneliness and silence. I felt isolated and alone because I kept things to myself, but I kept things to myself because I felt isolated and alone. It’s hard to say which came first, but it was clear which would be easiest to address.
At no point, though, does the sharing of these stories allow anyone to become the arbiter of someone else’s brokenness. It is good and productive to share your story. It is neither good nor productive to use your story as a means of discrediting fellow sufferers. It is not good to say that your traumatic experience is the singularity of traumatic experiences and entitles you to define the legitimacy of other victims.
This recent episode was the most personal but certainly not the first time I’ve gone through this argument. I’ve now encountered two versions of a very specific and unsettling variant on this: people who have experienced trauma are unable to reconcile their trauma with the idea that someone they have good feelings for could also be tied to similar acts of aggression.
In truth, I do not know that hurt. I don’t pretend to know that hurt, but not knowing that hurt makes my loved one no less raped. It makes me no less heartsick for her.
I wish that I had useful things to offer. I tend to fall short because in their reluctance to accept this possibility they have turned to a peculiar rhetorical tactic that I cannot allow to stand; they turn their stories, their openness, into a kind of authoritative voice on the stories of others. They use their experiences as the benchmark by which they declare someone else’s — a story they are not part of — false. They say that their pain entitles them to call someone else a liar.
It’s a maddening tactic. I feel for them but also find myself outraged that someone would leverage their pain to silence someone else’s.
I never want to discourage anyone from speaking openly about so horrifying an experience. That shit’s hard, and speaking out is incredibly brave. Still, it’s unacceptable for someone to use their own real, traumatic story as a means to discredit and discount the validity of other real traumatic stories. In trying to universalize their experience to trivialize others they are, in effect, restricting and shutting out other victims. Insisting that, “I was abused and I like this person so this person can’t be an abuser,” perpetuates the same horrific, silencing cycle. Your wound, however deep, doesn’t give you the right to define someone else’s wounds.
I believe in the power of open, honest expression of our pain as a mechanism to build empathy and to make us all feel a little less alone. Last year, even as I wasn’t able to comfortably discuss certain issues, posts like Allie Brosh’s heart-wrenching story of depression touched me deeply. It can be spirit-building to know that someone else feels the lonely, isolating feelings that you feel. That’s a wonderful gift to give to others.
Opening up can also help you identify and give voice to your own hurt. It can also help you see just how not-alone you truly are. That’s a wonderful gift to give to yourself. Everyone wins. It is from that place that I deeply advocate speaking out, even though I don’t always possess the courage to do it.
Wear that pain like a badge of honor so that everyone can know and appreciate how far you’ve come. That’s gorgeous and powerful. Anyone who has ever reached suicidal rock bottom and yet chosen to stay has done all of us a favor. We all win by getting to keep you here in this world, by not suffering the loss of you. Even on your most melancholic day, you are better to the world in it than out of it.
That’s about acknowledging your strength, and letting others acknowledge it too, so that you can be reminded on the days when you don’t feel so strong. You are building something wonderful and contributing beauty and support to the world. That’s a net good.
Using your story as a yardstick for others, however, is about cutting down, not building up. The second you use your story to say, “I know pain and because you don’t know my pain, you must not know real pain,” you are doing harm.
Tell your story in whatever ways you need to in order rebuild yourself and keep yourself strong. Please do this. On behalf of everyone who has ever known you, do this. Just don’t let that extend into a kind of pain pissing contest in which you seek to make the feelings of others any less real or legitimate. Similarly: don’t let anyone else do that to you.
There is a distinction, too, between a personal story which hurts others by outing those who have wronged you and a personal story which is used to hurt others by invalidating their pain. Depending on your circumstances, the former may be necessary. If you have been deeply wronged, addressing those who have hurt you may well be a necessary part of the healing, sharing process. The part where you open up and call your abuser for what they are can often be the hardest part, but still a necessary one.
Using your pain to invalidate the pain of others is in no way necessary to your healing process, to fostering dialogue, or to any other net good sharing your pain could bring into the world.
Your experience as a victim doesn’t give you the authority to turn around and tell another victim that she probably emotionally abused her rapist. That’s some victim blaming bullshit and the fact that you yourself are a victim doesn’t excuse you from that behavior.
When you turn your suffering into an excuse to minimize the suffering of others, you are harming the conversation. You are making it that much harder for someone else to heal. As someone who has suffered, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to restrict someone else’s opportunity for healing?
They may not know your pain but you do not know theirs. You do not know mine. And no, I will not let you tell me that your suffering makes someone else’s a lie. If you want to sit down and talk about healing, about ways to help someone else heal, I’m right here. I’m all ears. Let’s talk.
The conversation ends the second you discount the ways she has been hurt. Period.