I think surviving is, you know, getting past the situation, moving forward, getting away from it. But I also think it's a healing process that you go through afterwards. That you can sort of talk about what happened. You can move your life forward and not let it hold you back.

My abuser was my child's father. And we have shared custody. So there's still many many years of having to communicate with him even though you know I would have preferred not to.

This was 20 years ago. Time has definitely changed how I talk about it. I can talk about it more comfortably with less emotion… whereas originally it was just all raw emotions.

I speak as someone who is a mother, a teacher, an advocate. 

And I speak as someone who believes in resources, and support, and transparency,  and sharing with each other so that we can support each other. .