i could name you all,
you know?
i could write your names out right now
for the whole world to see
to shame
i could do it
you know?
so why don’t i?
why do i sit here carrying the shame of you,
and you
and you
and you?
you, who knew i’d said no, twice, and continued.
you, who knew what i’d seen, and that i should’ve gone to the police.
you, who gaslit me for years, taught me i was crazy, losing my mind.
you, who emotionally blackmailed me into thinking it was my fault for your wrong doings.
so why don’t i?
why don’t i make a list?
a black list.
of names.
to warn other women.
so maybe they don’t have to go through what i went through.
and the fact that i don’t?
does that make me complicit?
does it make me a coward?
or have i learnt that nobody will believe me either way?
because –
no, not him, he wouldn’t do that.
no, you’re lying.
no, you’re exaggerating.
no, that’s not what i heard.
i don’t make a list, because it puts me back in the firing line.
and it’ll be me that’s scrutinised.
well, what were you wearing?
were you drunk?
weren’t you just playing hard to get?
are you sure you saw what you did, because that’s pretty dark?
nobody would do that.
you’re lying.
but the list still exists.
in my head.
i know who you are.
and
in my head
you don’t get away with it
not anymore.
stormsinteacups 
Storms I think this is your most important post thus far.
You ask why should you carry their shame? Why indeed, Storms, why indeed.
This question shows the success of your healing work, because the very fact of its asking demonstrates conclusively how your mind set has shifted dramatically in your favour.
To ask such a question is to show your departure from the powerlessness as revealed in your previous posts such as ‘Splendid Suspension’, about the sense of overwhelming contamination, nearly three years ago now, and ‘Hospital Flowers’ and ‘A shit scrabble hand of mental health diagnoses.’
Remember the Thomas Szasz quote ‘In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.’
The fact that your anger is now pointed at those who treated you so badly, rather than inwardly against yourself as manifest by psychiatric ‘diagnoses’ shows how you have successfully walked away from their definition of you as the crazy one. The fact that you are now very angry about how badly you were treated shows conclusively that you have rejected their destructive toxic definition of you, in favour of your own truth. Qua Szasz, you are now self-defining, doing and being Storms on your own terms rather than theirs.
You never were crazy or mentally ill; you were only labelled as such because you were ovewhelmed by prolonged and severe trauma with no other way out.
In terms of healing, you have gone further than many others manage in a whole lifetime.
You have resigned as scapegoat. Mission accomplished!
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