We have to be “survivors” or “warriors” so we can be believed. Because we need to have done everything right at every step of the way in order to fit the ‘perfect victim’ narrative. We should be allowed to grieve, and cry, and hurt.īut we’re not allowed to. We should be allowed our moments of weakness. We aren’t strong by virtue of what happened to us alone. Not all of us identify as survivors or warriors. There’s this pervasive narrative that victims of abuse need to be perfect in order to be believed or empathized with. We can fall in love, discover our found families, and, yes, we can still have our righteous revenge. So instead, the fantasy for me was never that the trauma never happened, but that I, and people like me, could still win in the end. Why make the character traumatized in the first place? Can’t she just be free from it? Wouldn’t that be the fantasy?īut if I’m honest, I don’t think many traumatized people (myself included) can cleanly erase the trauma from our narratives. Many people have asked me why, if I’m writing a “fantasy” situation, that I would choose to still include the trauma at all. While this book is a revenge fantasy, it does still deal with the very real aftermath of the trauma, which happens off page. So, I wrote a book called The Luis Ortega Survival Club to realize that fantasy. I fantasized about revenge, because I was so sure I’d never get justice.

It can feel like no one cares about justice. And when you try to open up to someone about the abuse you’re experiencing only to be met with pleas to mind your own language instead of focusing on the problem at hand, it can feel like no one will ever be on your side. As a kid, the boys I told my teachers or parents I hated were my abusers. When traumatized kids and teens try to express their feelings, it should never be the role of an adult to invalidate those feelings. Now, before you get out your torches and pitch forks, let me explain. Reader, I’m here to tell you that that advice is a flaming hot pile of turd. That no one is inherently bad, and that forgiveness is the foundation of all human virtue.

That I should learn to love those who wronged me and always focus on the good in people. I was taught that love is always stronger than hate. But I was taught that it was still wrong to hate someone. That only a strong word like hate was good enough to describe the burning feeling in my gut. To which I would respond (in my head, because I didn’t have a death wish) that my feelings were strong. Growing up, I was taught never to say the word “hate.” It’s a “strong word,” they said.

Hate notes book