Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope

by Amanda Nguyen

“The worst thing that happened to us doesn’t have to define this place. You can take it back. You get to decide what this place, and these people, will mean,”

Your rage is like so many women’s: calm on the outside, a hurricane within.”

The worst thing that happened to me wasn’t being raped. It was being betrayed by America’s criminal justice system.

I later learn that what I am experiencing is called the lack of trauma-informed service.

Pawns become queens when pushed to the edge of the board. We can become powerful when we’re pushed far enough and have had enough.

Grief is worth going through. Each stage is painful but has a lesson to teach us. Denial provides us hope. Anger gives us fuel. Bargaining teaches us value. Sadness grants us our humanity. And Acceptance … acceptance of grief reveals to us that we are made of love. At the end of all this, at the end of the tunnel, is healing.”