Bessel Van Der Kolk MD said in 2005 that trauma, due to child abuse and neglect was the single most important health challenge in the USA. I heartily agreed and was ready to take up my seat at my computer and do battle with my mighty words. After all I am a lifelong survivor of oppressive child abuse, and I honestly admit to being the bringer of oppression and trauma to my children, however unintended.

Then George Floyd was murdered. Protests abounded, and rightfully so, because no one listens when you say “pretty please” will you stop killing us. I cowered in my bed on the eighth floor in downtown Raleigh to the sounds of chanting and broken glass and squealing tires in the street below more ashamed than afraid. I was too busy with my own survival to do anything but give lip-service to other peoples tragedies.

I walked out of my building the next morning to a blanket of sadness that sat upon me like the cloak of a humid Florida summer. I didn’t walk far, just to the parking garage to take my friend to work. There were ashes from a fire, windows caved in, black tire marks in little circles where motorcycles roared and spun, and never-ending chalk drawings and messages, names to remember and names saying “I was here.”

I started my short walk numb. I’d had a lifetime of practice shutting down my emotions, hardening my heart against tidal waves of anguish and suffering. I’d once stormed out of an AA meeting because some whiny girl reached a soft spot triggering a slew of flashbacks. Hardening my heart was a survival tool I no longer use; it saved my physical life often, but my heart was always in ruins.

By the time I reached my car and began the ten blocks to my friends house my heart was open, and as I drove slowly up Wilmington Street with its smashed windows and people looking stricken I felt a change coming, a big change, hopefully for all people of color everywhere, but definitely a change inside of me.

Later the same day I began snapping pictures on my phone and reading messages on sidewalks; names were signed everywhere, and no matter the words, the message was the same; stop killing us. I suppose I would have expected a lot of cussing and meanness from an oppressed people shouting “no more” but love and kindness and hearts and flowers in pastel chalk lined the way, like walking through a garden.

I remained on the edge of tears for several days as I scoured the side-streets for more artwork and messages. I felt I knew these peoples pain, I cannot fathom the circumstance of living black in America, no, but every emotion rising up in me for them was an emotion I was long familiar with.

There is an epidemic of child abuse in this country. There is a very long list of epidemics that need attention. And I struggled with how to say it. I felt dwarfed by the sheer magnitude and power of the Black Lives Matter movement and at the same time grateful for their message, for their courage, and for their efforts to be kind in the face of systemic abuse and yes, murder. I also felt their pain as my pain, as the pain of all oppressed people and I felt some sort of guilt not being black and perhaps using their message and their pain to energize me.

My story is also a story of oppression and cruelty by people with the power to wound, the circumstance is different, and no where near the magnitude of the oppression of an entire race, but a simple truth is, sexually abused children in particularly have no voice. To be fair, sexually abused people in general have no voice of any real consequence. Many of us stay silent until it nearly kills us and then speak out and are shamed and shunned and silenced. Many abuse victims take their own lives because they find no peace ever again on this earth.

But no long sermons.

There are enough battles to go around and if we are able to relate through our emotions to other people in other battles then perhaps we become stronger together.