Conviction

by Denise Mina

I’m entitled to get upset and drunk without being raped and beaten by four men.

She should become the victim of someone else, somewhere else. At best she becomes a campaigner against whatever she was a victim of. Nothing can happen to her that doesn’t refer back to the attack. She has been branded. The event owns her. She can only ever exist in reference to it.

But that’s not true because the world is full of us. One in five. We are as perennial as love. We go about our business, raising kids, running countries, starting wars and solving crimes. We don’t tell our stories because, if we’ve survived, that can only mean that what happened wasn’t so very bad after all. It never means that we are fucking amazing. I am fucking amazing.