ha ha! you thought you got to choose

 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)