trauma

The first time I remember learning what a safeword was, I was sitting in my college dorm, devouring blogs about kink and BDSM. It all seemed so foreign to me, a teenager who couldn’t imagine real people doing any of the taboo things these blogs talked about.

So much has been written about domestic abuse in the media, mainly from the standpoint of the abused or the abuser. The bystanders — the children, the families that can do little but wait — are often left out.

I found myself getting angrier and more upset as I walked around. I clenched my fists. I held back tears.

Letting go and forgiving is difficult, but necessary to build security and heal old wounds that weigh down your soul.

It's easy and painless to poke our noses into the minutiae of other parents' decisions, but it in no way tackles the real epidemic of child abuse.

We don’t understand rape. We don’t understand consent. And we’re not—even a little bit—here for victims.

We can't change every aspect of the world, but we can change how we move through it.

Now, what can we do to leverage this research into action?