Here I sit waiting for an initiative to course through my veins and provide the inspiration I will need to create this blog post. It isn't going to be easy for me to write this; nor will it be easy for you to read.

I should clarify that ultimately this post was written by the victims and villains who each have stories of their own. The villains are many but answer to no one. The victims, they are another story. "They" are us.

We are the debris that was swept beneath the carpet. Partially fallen between the floorboards, we are a constant source of irritation to the feet that tread on us. We never asked to be the catalyst for our villains' anger. We were born to be vessels of hope and love. Instead, we've become receptacles for their rage.

We are each a blueprint. All of our parts, our abilities, our challenges, even our downfalls are part and parcel of what makes us who we are. We never really were useless rubble. Barely existing in the gaslit world of our abusers we are led to believe we deserve to be damned. These assailants who live to strangle our souls didn't know how to handle us, what to do with us. They live in a constant state of torment, and we are theirs for the taking. For them, we are not good enough for anything ... except to be the dry sponge they use to mop up their heinous verbal vomit. Understand clearly that this is never a one-time endeavor on their part; it is their incessant, insatiable need. They forage for their victims, and we were evidently theirs for the taking.

"You are a stupid bitch. We never wanted you. You will NEVER amount to anything. NO ONE will ever want you. You are a LOSER and will never be enough. You are unlovable, ugly, fat, stupid. I HATE you; EVERYONE hates you! You deserve every single bad thing that happens to you because you ARE bad." These are just some of the many words that slice like a scalpel, leaving our soul eventually emptied from a slow, steady bleed.

What have we become?

Our blueprint was neither honored nor cherished. It was left on the table, ripe for a feast enjoyed by voraciously hungry scavengers. In their callous, carelessness they spilled coffee on our plans. Insidiously and most unfortunately, this disturbed the sequencing of the ideas for all we were meant to be. Our blueprints were left illegible, undermined and bastardized, reducing us to an incomplete set of instructions. No one could have realized the impact from this assault on our personhood and our lives. No one cared to.

The monumental, yet unexpected result is that sadly, we gained so much more than we lost. Many of us acquired a diagnosis of PTSD, yet lost the tranquility and expected progression from childhood to adulthood. Various mental illnesses like eating disorders, depression and addiction are also on the list of what frequently follows abuse. I developed PTSD, eating disorders and severe depression. While I learned ways to compensate for these deficits I faced, it wasn't without considerable losses in both time and money.

Much of this past year I spent 25 hours a week attending an eating disorders program and paid dearly for treatment with psychologists and psychiatrists; no small feat in sandpapering a soul that was already horribly assaulted. You could say I've spent a hefty price undoing the maladaptive behavior perpetuated by those who owned the responsibility of breaking the cycle of their abuse. What a horrible legacy they chose to leave us in their wrath.

Back to the blueprints. Often we wonder what our coffee-stained plans initially dictated. Who would we have become if our journey lay uninterrupted? What path would we have taken concerning employment, relationships, and decisions regarding having a family of our own? The chances are that although I have the proclivity to write, I would not have authored Room in the Heart. Had I not felt unequivocally victimized I might not have landed a position as a sexual assault nurse examiner. Had I not endured constant rejection and mockery at the hands of my family I'd not have developed a tenacity for taking it upon myself to encourage others to sever the chains of abuse.

This brings us to now. It is my fervent wish that you, the reader of these words, will seek psychological help to end the torment fraught by the abusers who live rent-free in our heads. I say, "EVICT THEM!"

Let us leave the past with yesterday. It will never be more opportune; now is our time. Forgive yourself for not preventing and stopping the abuse. There is nothing in our blueprints that instructs us in how to deal with abuse. We need room to grow so that we will become all that we were meant to be. We no longer need to take the heat for those who spilled coffee on our blueprints.