Survivor Speaks Truth

Tag: Perception

  • Finding Peace When Others Don’t Know the Full Story

    One of the hardest but most freeing lessons in healing is learning to be at peace even when other people don’t know the full story of what you endured. Not everyone will understand your choices. Not everyone will hear your side of the story. And some people will come to their own conclusions based on assumptions, fragments, or secondhand information.

    That reality can feel deeply unfair.

    There is a natural desire to be understood—to explain, correct the narrative, or clarify. Especially when you’ve been hurt, misrepresented, or unfairly judged, silence can feel like agreement. But over time, many come to realize that telling their story to the wrong audience often brings more harm than healing. Not everyone is capable of holding the truth with care.

    Peace doesn’t come from convincing others. It comes from knowing what is true.

    There is a quiet strength in no longer needing external validation to confirm your reality. When you have done the hard work of facing what you endured, naming it honestly, and choosing healing, other people’s conclusions lose their power. Their opinions may still sting, but they no longer define you.

    It’s important to understand that people often form conclusions to protect their own comfort. Sitting with someone else’s injustice, pain, or trauma can be unsettling. Simple narratives feel safer than complex truths. When others misunderstand you, it is not always a failure of your communication—it is often a limitation of their capacity.

    Choosing peace does not mean pretending the misunderstanding doesn’t hurt. It means refusing to live in a constant state of defense. It means releasing the exhausting need to explain yourself to people who have already decided what they believe. Peace comes when you accept that not everyone is entitled to your story.

    There is also wisdom in discernment—knowing who deserves access to your truth. Some people listen to understand, and others listen to judge. Protecting your peace means sharing your story only in spaces where it will be honoured, not dissected.

    Being at peace in the face of misunderstanding is not weakness. It is a sign of deep healing. It means you trust yourself. You trust your lived experience. And you trust that truth does not require universal agreement to remain true.

    You can move forward with integrity even when others misunderstand you. You can heal without being believed by everyone. And you can live fully without correcting every false narrative.

    Peace comes when you stop carrying the burden of being understood by those who were never meant to walk with you.

  • It Could Happen to Anyone: The Truth About Abuse and Who It Affects

    She’s educated, faithful, independent, kind, strong, and successful. She posts pictures of her children and quotes from her morning devotions. She helps her friends, shows up for her community, and seems to have it all together.

    And she’s being abused.

    We have to talk about this.

    There’s a persistent myth—spoken or unspoken—that women who end up in abusive relationships are somehow different. That they’re needy, uneducated, unintelligent, and weak. That they didn’t see the red flags. That they should’ve known better. That they came from dysfunction and chose the same thing again. That they’re the type of woman who attracts drama.

    But those assumptions are not only wrong—they’re dangerous.

    Abuse doesn’t target a personality type. It’s not reserved for the broken or the insecure. I’ve seen abuse happen to some of the strongest, most capable, most spiritually grounded women I know. Women who lead ministries. Women who mentor others. Women who are deeply self-aware and incredibly accomplished. Women who were told growing up that they’d be safe if they prayed enough, were kind enough, and followed all the proper steps.

    And yet it still happened.

    It happened to them, and it happened to me.

    Abuse doesn’t knock on your door wearing a warning label. It often shows up dressed as love. It looks like charm, generosity, and promises that feel too good to be true, because they are. It builds slowly. Subtly. It starts with little compromises, small apologies, moments you explain away. Until suddenly, you’re second-guessing everything. You’re isolated, confused, exhausted, and wondering how someone who once made you feel special now makes you feel so small.

    By the time most women realize they’re in something dangerous, they’re already deep in it—emotionally, financially, sometimes legally. They’re trauma-bonded. They’re terrified. They’re hopeful it will change. They’re trying to keep their children safe. And most of all, they’re trying to survive while being judged for not leaving fast enough.

    I’ve heard it all.”She must not have much self-esteem.”She probably came from abuse herself.”I’d never let someone treat me that way.”She must’ve seen the signs and chose to stay anyway.”

    But here’s the truth: abuse doesn’t just happen to “those women.” It happens to women who once believed it never would. Women who thought they were too bright, stable, strong, and successful. Women like you.

    The only thing all survivors have in common is that someone chose to abuse them. That’s it.

    It’s not about weakness—it’s about manipulation. It’s not about intelligence—it’s about how well abusers hide who they are until they’ve gained control. It’s not about poor choices—how deeply someone can be gaslit, isolated, and broken down over time.

    If we keep clinging to these stereotypes about who ends up in abusive relationships, we’re harming ourselves. We’re making it harder for victims to come forward. We’re reinforcing shame. We’re keeping people silent.

    The truth is, anyone can find themselves in an abusive relationship. And no one—no one—deserves it.

    When we stop judging and start listening, when we stop asking, “Why didn’t she leave?” and start asking, “What made her feel she couldn’t?”—we begin to shift the narrative.

    We create space for healing, offer dignity, and create a safer world for survivors to step into when they finally say, “I need help.”

    I write this not just as an advocate, but as a survivor. I believed I was too grounded, faith-filled, and discerning for something like this to happen to me. But it did. And the most healing truth I discovered was this: it wasn’t my fault.

    And if it happened to you, it wasn’t your fault either.

    Let’s stop believing the myths. Let’s start believing the people who lived them.

  • “They Would Never Do That” — What That Really Means

    “They would never do that.”

    It’s a phrase we hear often—spoken with confidence, certainty, and sometimes even indignation. It’s usually uttered by someone defending someone they know or believe they can vouch for. But here’s the truth that often goes unspoken:

    “They would never do that” usually means, “They’ve never done it to me.”

    And that’s a huge difference.

    We all interpret people through the lens of our own experiences with them. If someone has only ever been kind to you, it’s natural to assume they are kind. If they’ve never lied to you, you believe they are honest. If they’ve never harmed you, you might conclude they are safe. But what if they only treat you that way because there’s nothing for them to gain by mistreating you?

    What if their cruelty is reserved for those closest to them—the ones they feel they can control, manipulate, or silence?

    People are not always consistent across relationships. Abusers don’t abuse everyone. Manipulators aren’t always obvious. Some of the most harmful people are also the most charming, polite, generous, and helpful—when it serves them.

    So when someone says, “They would never do that,” they’re not stating the truth. They’re making a statement about their personal experience. And while personal experience matters, it is not the whole picture.

    It’s easy to dismiss a victim’s account when it doesn’t align with what we’ve seen. But just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. Just because they smile at you doesn’t mean they don’t scream at someone else behind closed doors. Just because they seem godly in church doesn’t mean they aren’t a nightmare at home.

    Abusers wear masks. And sometimes, those masks are so convincing that even the most discerning people can be fooled.

    The real danger in saying “they would never do that” is that it shuts down conversation. It invalidates the lived experience of someone who did witness it. Someone who was on the receiving end. It implies that your experience with the person outweighs theirs—as if proximity to goodness cancels out proximity to pain.

    But both realities can coexist. A person can be kind to some and cruel to others. They can be generous with friends and controlling with family. They can charm a crowd and terrorize their partner.

    If someone is brave enough to speak up and say, “They did this to me,” the response should not be, “They would never.” The response should be, “Tell me what happened.” It should be one of curiosity, not condemnation—compassion, not dismissal.

    The truth is, many victims stay silent for years because they’ve heard that exact phrase echo in the background: They would never. And in their minds, that means no one would believe them. So they suffer quietly. They shrink. They question themselves. They internalize shame that never belonged to them.

    So let’s change the narrative.

    Instead of insisting on what someone would or wouldn’t do, let’s acknowledge what we don’t know. Let’s recognize that people show different sides to different people. Let’s create a world where someone can share their story without fear of being met with disbelief.

    Because when we say, “They would never,” we’re really saying, “I choose not to believe you.”

    And that choice has consequences.

    You don’t have to have seen it for it to be true. You don’t have to understand it for it to matter. You have to listen—with humility, empathy, and the awareness that sometimes, what we think we know is only part of the story.

    Let’s stop silencing survivors with our certainty. Let’s start believing that just because they never did it to you doesn’t mean they didn’t do it to someone.