One in Four

by Lucinda Berry

Who knew it was that easy to kill another person while still keeping them alive? It’s the worst death.

How many people are walking around in the world with their lights turned off? The switch inside them faded to black? People just like her. Still wearing huge smiles on their faces. Filling rooms with their infectious laughs and bubbly personalities. Still pretty. Still sparkling. Still saying all the same lines. But gone.

Addicts stop when they’re ready and not a moment sooner. It doesn’t matter how much you love them. Or equally hate them. Punish them. Reward them. Yell at them. Coddle them. There’s nothing you can do to keep an addicted person from using.

one in four girls experience a form of sexual assault by the time they’re twenty-four.

That’s the thing about trauma. You never get to go back to who you were before it happened. It doesn’t matter how badly you might want to or how hard you try. That person is gone. Along with that life. It’s a marker that forever changes you. And if it doesn’t? Well, then it wasn’t real trauma. Because real trauma? You’re altered forever. Anything else is just a hard time.