SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Victims of abuse who have persevered should tell their stories
Mar 31, 2017, 6:14 PM
A Seattle sex worker says the city's approach to prostitution and other sex work is misguided. Mistress Matisse says she doesn't need help, and would like to have protection of the law. (AP)
(AP)
If you are a survivor of abuse, and you’ve made it through, I think you should tell your story. I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but you have to tell your story. You are called to broadcast them because there are people who need to hear them.
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Kids who are being abused are incredibly resilient and are able to believe in a future; they are gifted in the sense that they can continue to have hope.
Is this a survival instinct? Or the soul?
If you’ve been through abuse, you owe it to the world to tell the tale of survival. Because something happens to the kids that are currently being abused — they become 16 or 17 years old; they are kids who stop getting treated like children. And they can easily head on the path toward drugs or sex work.
The abused adapt to this and say “this is my station;” a sort of settling mechanism. I know plenty of people who made the decision to survive by settling because the pain is predictable.
So, if you’ve risen through abuse, by talking about it, you are addressing the 13 year old who hears a woman or man now being treated as a person.
That is the gap that the abused child needs to jump. It’s the gap from childhood to becoming an adult, but not settling into that station of being a victim. You escape that victimization.
If you’ve been through it, you owe it to the world to communicate that you’ve been through it and have persevered.
As always, please listen to the full audio clip for complete context.
