I’ve tried so hard to keep what he did at a distance from me. Not wanting to identify as that, be identified as that or actually be that. But really, that has only worked externally.

I am that. I am mostly made up of that. There is little room for much else. By letting it out, others will see what I am, and that is all they will see. They will confirm what I fear – that I am nothing, contaminated, unlikable. And that will spread by association.

For people who have power or those I have regard for the mirroring has a bigger impact, it carries more meaning. What I am and what I have done by externalising it is so horrible and I feel so responsible for passing it on.

I cannot explain what it is or what it is like to see him in my mind. It is so obvious and there and yet another language that I cannot translate. I want to say it and I can see it but there is a deficit in me that prevents it coming out.

If someone else knows it makes it available for examination and I am on trial. To be found guilty of course. Guilty for  existing, as if that somehow made it happen. And yet I have need to extract or copy the events out, to ask was it ok? And will you still like me. I dislike that I need to be made ok.

And yes, there is the typical they wont believe me, which even if at some level you do, you wont actually believe it. not the detail, or the feeling, or the event.