What a trauma survivor wants to know:
1). They are believed.
2). What happened was unjust.
3). They will be supported in ways they ask for.
What they do not want:
1). Unsolicited advice on how to think or feel about their experience or who hurt them.
Your voice shakes because it knows prior consequences where no matter how you said it, you weren’t heard. Respect that tremble when you get your words out. There’s memories there and every one of them matters. Damn, you’re brave.
When you entertain people that have traumatized others, you're entertaining their guilt, denial, cruelty, & refusal to be held accountable so the people they’ve tried to destroy are heard. You are protecting people who will eventually hurt you the way you've seen them hurt others
Receiving love isn’t easy when you’ve been rejected by people meant to protect you. While genuine love is pure and powerful, it is also scary to trust because it sits in the same place you have memories of ways you got hurt. Then and now…you were meant for sacred love.
You are not naive for trusting someone who hurt you. You are reflecting what is true in you and in that reflection you could not fathom hurting another person the way you were hurt. That is not naïveté. That is beauty in pure form.
I've seen a lot of shocking things tonight, but @RepJeffries pulling off that speech WITHOUT a script/teleprompter is next level impressive (especially at 1AM)