““What you went through is horrible. I'm not disputing it.' 'Okay. So?' 'Just that this man whom you depicted—it was like he was a monster. The sum total of all the evil things in the world.' 'No, I never said that.' 'But that's how it came across.' 'That's not what I intended. It was his violence. That's all.' Here's a friend asking me if there was nothing redeemable about my ex-husband. I do not know how to justify myself. What do I tell people like him, who want a balanced picture, who want to know that this was a real person with a rainbow side, just so that they are reminded of their own humanity? I realize that this is the curse of victimhood, to feel compelled to lend an appropriate colour of goodness to their abuser.””
