Child abuse is a spreading stain; a gradually disfiguring ugliness. For survivors, it feels existentially threatening to acknowledge, yet impossible to think around. Impossible to be at home in your body, without at once admitting the body’s total vulnerability. Most people don’t know this about me, that I went through this. It is the dread I dare not speak. When I force myself to, I’m astonished at how near the surface the emotions are, horrified by my feelings of guilt, and appalled by my silence even now – why? Because it reflects my silence then?
