"What hurts the most?"

“What hurts the most,” I was asked by my therapist, “in this healing process?”

How do I pick just one? Physically, the pain I have because of the years of abuse.

But that isn’t what she meant.

I can’t decide what hurts the most. Feeling alone because I can’t find many people who relate to me hurts. The constant fear that at any moment I could see my abuser’s face in a flashback hurts. The thought that I will never marry because men see me as “damaged goods” hurts.

How do I decide what hurts the most? How do I find healing from this?

The only way to answer my therapist is with one word. Everything.

Every part of me hurts. The flashbacks that make my heart beat as though I am running a marathon, the panic that causes me to feel like I have a thousand bees in my lungs, the headaches from my inability to sleep. Everything hurts.

Therapy hurts. It feels like someone is taking a knife and filleting my flesh so that every layer of me is exposed. The police interviews hurt. The excruciating detail they have made me reveal as testimony makes me feel ashamed and unbelieved.

I can't describe the pain of feeling unloved, broken, and dirty.

People who haven't felt the level of trauma abuse survivors have felt don't understand the unfairness of that question.

I can't tell you what hurts the most because every piece of abuse hurts in different areas.

The physical toll even just talking about the abuse is immeasurable. I can't even drive myself home after therapy. I am too exhausted from it.

What I am trying to say is, be empathetic to those around you. Ask yourself, "Is this question going to cause more pain than good?"

This is the pain abuse survivors face and the answer to the question “What hurts the most?” is this: Everything.