Note: why am I not posting this on the actual anniversary? Because I'll be too busy having fun with my best-friend!
1.
I’ll
never forget the day I really first reported it
This is
something that you may think I’ve spoken about but actually, I’ve only ever
talked about my reporting the abuse to professionals and the Police. The reason
I haven’t been able to talk about the first reporting is that it’s been hard to
find a way to see it in a way that doesn’t reveal who my abuser was because - for
legal reasons - I can’t do that. So basically, the first time I ever told
someone what was happening to me happened after a huge argument with my abuser
and something in me snapped and I thought ‘this is never going to end if I don’t
do something about it.’ So, I told my abuser’s ‘boss.’ I was called a manipulative
liar and it, obviously, left me completely convinced that I could never tell
another person. 
2. I can still feel unconditional
love
I always thought, going through what I had, and dealing with it by dissociating, meant that I’d always stay cut off from the world. I – and others – put a lot of trust in my abuser and I actually relied on him at some point before it began so I worried that I’d never trust in another person again. That I’d never feel another feeling towards someone because I’d be forever scared that someone would destroy me the way that he had. It did take a long time to get to where I am today in terms of relationships but going into recovery helped me to appreciate all of the people who had been there for me through the hard days and in stabilizing my mental health, I’ve learnt how to build stable and healthy relationships.
