If you were to ask someone to describe how silence feels rather than what it is, I’m certain it wouldn’t take you long to find someone who were to use the word painful; that to exist solely with one’s thoughts is so torturous that it would be better to not exist at all. It is the failure of us all to pretend that there are people who don’t ask this question of themselves at least once in their life, or that to ask it of yourself is to be avoided at all costs.

This seemingly wilful ignorance of pretending difficult moments or questions don’t exist is harmful, and partly why despite any fear, we must face both of these things in difficult conversations with those around us, rather than in isolation where they can become impossible to handle alone.

Being in an environment safe enough to have these conversations is another topic in of itself, but it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that this is not a reality for a great many people, and something we must work towards solving.

For now at least, there feels to me that there’s a moment everyone will face where the silence is so loud it’s impossible to ignore, or indeed even see beyond it. Even if you do survive, you know that nothing will ever be the same, and that you’ll be asking questions of how and why over and over again.

For me, this is that moment.

The only way I can describe the silence, or have been able to describe it in conversations over the last few days, is facing the reality of what people have done to me feeling like a nuclear bomb just detonated in the middle of my life; and realising in the moment of silence between the rising mushroom cloud, and roar of the resulting shockwave that follows, that it will obliterate everything in its path.

For me, the damage was relentless, and my safety utterly disregarded, but instead of cities with bombs, it was the nervous system of a vulnerable young girl left devastated over and over again by people who took full advantage; knowing she would responded in the only way she knew how... to freeze, to be small, to stay silent, and to deal with the fallout that remained in the air long after the dust had settled.

The question now... How do I move forward? How do I build a life that is safe? A life that moves us all towards a future where safety is as fundamental to existence as water, where one cannot exist without the other? And while I recognise that this is a question I might never have an answer for, I’m not going to give up hope that there is one, and if not now, then at least be a voice that believed it to be possible.

The price of safety should not cost you your body or your voice.

I deserved so much better.

We all do.