fawnstraumablog:

…It never stops, does it? They don’t believe women, they don’t believe us. Even the ones brave enough to come forward that have clear memories of every single second of the events…they still aren’t lucky enough for the justice system to give them justice. Cosby’s guilty? He gets 3–10 years. Turner is guilty? He gets probation. We wait years to report? We’re lying for publicity. We report almost right away? We were either drunk, or dressed or acting in a way that they can deem as “the cause” of being violated.

They told a child this when they reported. They laughed at the child the second time they reported. And now they defend the man by saying that due to the child developing C-PTSD and DID, it’s all in that child’s head. They lack a fundamental understanding of those disorders and yet look at an adult broken down to the state of a child, and tell them, “we will have to have a continuance” after an 8-hour long day in court. What proof more do you need other than hours of testimony, and the perpetrator admitting that they are a sociopath? Why not look down at the child and tell them the truth? That the abuser won’t be found guilty because the jury believes their smiles and crocodile tears more than they believe the tears and trembling of a victim’s voice as they recount, in vivid detail, their assault?

And then. And then! They have the gall to ask us why so many of us don’t report. Could it be that because even when we do, we still aren’t taken seriously and are just as easily dismissed as if we’d never reported at all? Or is it because from the moment certain people get wind of it, they waste no time in telling us that our assaults and our traumas don’t matter as much as the reputation of the abusers we are accusing?

Maybe we’re tired. Of fighting, of defending our actions when we were the ones assaulted not the other way around. Of being told we just regret the interaction and would rather ruin a man’s life than accept responsibility. Accept responsibility for our own assaults? We’re tired of it. Of being ridiculed and forced to relive the worst times of our lives… and then very likely still hearing that our abusers are found not guilty because the jury is undecided just because those people can put on a fake smile and use crocodile tears at a moment’s notice.

We don’t report because even when we do, we are just traumatized a second time over again. We live in a world that doesn’t want to do anything about it. And we live in a world that wants to sweep us under the rug so it can pretend something isn’t a problem.