When people learn about the abuse I endured, the response is often the same: "Well, the abuse made you stronger." I know this is meant as a compliment or an attempt to provide comfort, but it misses the mark entirely. The truth is, the abuse didn’t make me stronger; if anything, it tried to destroy me.
The abuse I went through gave me deep scars that will never fully heal. It left me with Complex PTSD, which means I deal with nightmares, flashbacks, and constant hypervigilance. I’ve had moments where I couldn’t trust anyone, where the world felt like an unsafe place to exist in. It made me isolate myself from the people who love me, retreating to a place where I felt like I could just disappear. I learned to see the world through a lens of survival, always bracing for the next betrayal or attack.
Abuse doesn’t strengthen you. It leaves you broken, disoriented, questioning your own reality. It’s the antithesis of strength it’s designed to strip you of your power and sense of self. Abuse made me doubt my worth, my choices, and my future.
What made me stronger was me. I chose to rise after the abuse. I chose to fight the battle of healing, to rebuild my sense of self, to reclaim my voice. It was a grueling process, full of setbacks and dark days, but the strength I found was forged in my own determination. Not in the abuse.
Saying that abuse makes people stronger dismisses the very real, very painful impact it leaves on survivors. It ignores the trauma that lingers long after the abuse ends the CPTSD, the sleepless nights, the flashbacks, the mistrust of even the most well-meaning people. It diminishes the incredible work it takes to heal from that trauma, to live with it every single day.
I didn’t come out stronger because of what was done to me. I came out stronger because I fought back, because I refused to let the abuse define me. I made the choice to keep going, to find meaning, to rebuild the parts of myself that were shattered. I made the choice to heal, not because the abuse gave me strength, but because I gave it to myself.
Abuse doesn’t gift you with resilience. It leaves you with scars. And it’s important that people recognize the difference. Yes, I’m stronger today but not because of what I went through. I’m stronger because I survived it and found a way to live again.
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