This could be a comic, but I have decided I don't feel like drawing it.
Case was doing some research. Our past abuse, if you know where to look, is shockingly public, although buried in the sands of time. She was researching our old testimonies, and the archives attached to them, and we discovered some things.
First, that era of our past is becoming more and more identifiable as ours, even with the blackouts and gaping holes our mind formed on purpose. We can see our reflections in our past interests and in how we wrote. Case has mentioned this before.
Second, and this is the most shocking to me, is that the past, which once haunted us like a looming specter, threatening to repeat itself in a time loop, is now... Shockingly, bafflingly hilarious.
We experienced chronic harassment in some of our crucial, most formative years. We had several perpetrators, but one who was more determined than the rest, who especially damaged us because she would be very on again-off again with us. And we were able to find the archives we saved of her words...
And I have never seen a grown adult so mad at a child before. I cannot fathom going up to someone and saying "you have no idea what the fuck actual trauma is Imao you sheltered privileged white bitch get the fuck out". (She is also white.) You have to be a special level of Mad Online to say this to someone. It's straight out of a cyberbullying made-for-TV special.
Nowadays, that would earn a laugh, a block, and a roast between us and our friends.
Now, it's scary for a child to have gone through all of that. No child should have to endure this, nor have to develop the tools for handling this at the chronic scale it was at. But as an adult in my 30's, that, and so many other things from this period, are so... Nothingburger to us.
And as the nothingburger cooks, we find ourselves integrating and changing at a pace that was slow subconsciously but fast consciously. For the most part, it's myself, Case, and Jonah fronting, with blips of others. There are less containers because we can handle what's inside the boxes. It's... Definitely an odd feeling. We've had very good therapy, but for the most part, this has been an entirely DIY process.
I pray you all reach a point where your trauma doesn't sting as much as it did when it happened.
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