I Was More at Risk Than I Knew:
The ███████ files, childhood vulnerability, and holding rage without becoming it

I’ve decided to remove his name here. The focus belongs on the children, the survivors, not the man.

Like much of the world, I am horrified by the ███████ files and all that is unraveling with them, nationally and globally. And what we are seeing is only the tip of the iceberg. I try not to look at images or videos or even listen to podcasters discuss what they are seeing, but it is hard to avoid if you have screens of any kind.

What has surprised me most is how much my feelings of vulnerability and fear have intensified.

Lying is done with words, and also with silence.

_Adrienne Rich, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978

As a child, preteen, and teenager who was exploited by my family, especially my narcissistic mother and father, and surrounded by brothers and extended family who looked the other way, I can now see far more clearly how many times I was put at risk and how often I was placed in the path of older men in sketchy circumstances where inappropriate comments, boundary violations, and predatory behavior were happening. I was groomed for years by a friend of my parents, sent on trips alone with him as a teenager, and eventually assaulted, only to have my parents choose him over me and ignore what happened, and dismiss my pain. Looking back, there are countless moments that feel like I was being set up to be used, abused, abducted, destroyed, or worse. I lived in close proximity to that kind of danger, even if the most extreme outcomes did not materialize. But even those realizations feel small compared to what is arising now.

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