from know my name by chanel miller
"you belong here, she said. and anger is allowed to be embodied. rage for the perpetrator, bystanders, society, was a healthy and normal response. some direct anger inward toward themselves, feeling that this is the only safe way to be angry. this could result in negative self-talk, blaming ourselves for the trauma, struggling to reconcile prior beliefs about justice, systems of meaning." (306)
"no matter how formidable or self-assured i might become, i will always be a tadpole. i believe that's what being a victim is, living with that little finicky, darting thing inside you. most people say development is linear, but for survivors it is cyclic. people grow up, victims grow around; we strengthen that place of hurt, become older and fuller, but the vulnerable core is never gone. more than becoming a frog, i believe surviving means learning to live forever with this trembling tadpole." (307)
"writing is the way i process the world. when i was given the opportunity to write this book, whatever god is up there said, you got your dream. i said, actually i was hoping for a lighter topic, and god was like ha ha! you thought you got to choose. this was the topic i was given. if something else had happened to me, i would have written about that too. when i get worked up over what happened, i tell myself, you are a pair of eyes. i'm a civilian who's been randomly selected to receive an all-access pass to the court system. feelings will include invasion, shame, isolation, cruelty. my job is to observe, feel, document, report. what am i learning and seeing that other people can't see? what doorways does my suffering lead to? people sometimes say, i can't imagine. how do i make them imagine? i write to show how victims are treated at this moment in time, to record the temperature of our culture. this is a marker, and i hope that in twenty years this grueling aftermath of victimhood will feel foreign." (315)
