Luke Toop

… the pain and destruction of backlash, which can be just as bad or worse than the original offense. Women, often lacking in power, include this in their calculations when they decide to say nothing. Bizarrely, the same women are so powerful that their mere speech could cause infrastructure to collapse: careers and companies that have been built, friendships and families that are depended upon, religious institutions and their leaders who are meaningful to so many, sports teams that have devoted fans and income from advertisers, young men with promising futures, old men with legacies. Backlash is a mechanism to hold up infrastructure.

The suicidal depression and seemingly all-day panic attacks began eighteen years ago. Each experience with a man who hurt or terrorized me had removed a brick or two from a load-bearing wall in my brain. I thought I had set it all aside, choosing to not dwell on past events. But when circumstances required me to face these experiences in their totality, all at the same time, they blew through the wall like a monster truck.

Which is it: big enough to destroy or so small that it is harmless? Women are driven crazy and driven to silence trying to answer this question.