Quote image editor
“If someone says they feel like an experience of theirs was assault and that they feel violated, the response should be quite simple: believe them. Telling someone they weren't hurt won't make it so. It will only confuse and invalidate them, usually them in further mental distreess, deeper in the shame they've been told they should have. Another person saying that a painful experience didn't happen will never negate the fact that, for the survivor, it did.” — Catriona Morton
If someone says they feel like an experience of theirs was assault and that they feel violated, the response should be quite simple: believe them. Telling someone they weren't hurt won't make it so. It will only confuse and invalidate them, usually them in further mental distreess, deeper in the shame they've been told they should have. Another person saying that a painful experience didn't happen will never negate the fact that, for the survivor, it did.