Dear Survivor, Please Stop Downplaying My Pain Because You've Had It 'Worse'
Dear survivor , I am writing this letter to you to tell you all the things I should have told you earlier on but didn't have the right words for until now. I am writing to you because in some ways I am a survivor and I know how unsettling this tag of 'survivor' can sometimes be. I also write to you because I know that surviving something that shook the core of your existence even before you knew who you were is a very rocky process, yet does not—and should not, justify invalidating another person's abuse, pain and experiences, because you had it 'worse.' Dear survivor, I want you to imagine this scenario. Imagine you and I embark on a car journey from Lagos to Ibadan. During the course of the journey, our car hypothetically collides with a truck all of a sudden. In the span of a few seconds we think, 'This is it. This is the end.' But a few hours later, we open our eyes and find that alas, we are still in the land of the living after managing to survive ...