I don’t know about you but sometimes it seems to me that people tend to view abuse survivors as being victims still.  It’s as if they hear only one part of our story, focus on it, and see us as these human beings that are too weak, too shattered, and too broken to ever make it in life when in fact, we have all ready made it by breaking free from a past that once held us prisoner in our own lives.  Yet, society wants to view survivors and depict them in such a way where people feel sorry for us and pity us instead of hearing the message of hope we bring with us and seeing the courageous, strong, brave, and beautiful people we are and being happy for us that we actually left our dangerous situations and are now living an abuse free life.

I…