One of the things that is important to me as a creator (& someone who went through different sorts of abuse) to explore is the idea that trauma doesn't just go away when the source is out of the equation.

I think about that scene at the end of Xena S1, E3 (Dreamworker) with the lake and the stone.

(Yes, I am still thinking about it 26 years later, some things hit right, at the right time.)

Throw the stone in, and the water ripples and churns. Eventually is calms down again, but the stone is still there. The lake is forever changed.

BUT, I want to add, that the lake is no less beautiful, no less a lake.

While I don't believe that we are doomed to be stuck in the trauma/abuse forever, it leaves a mark that does change us.

I am a different person than I might have been because of the things that were done to me. I will never be the person who is not touched by all that. BUT--

--the person I am is still strong, capable, and worthy of love.

Abuse DOES NOT make someone less than.

But it DOES change people, in ways that can take years to unpack.

My value as a person was not tarnished by what happened.

My point of view, my memories, and my understanding of myself and the world ARE, however, forever changed.