You know what concept is way less soul-crushing to grasp? "Everything happens for a reason." Rationally, I hate that phrase. Irrationally, my brain would 100 percent rather go that route, because it hurts less. On the other hand, if everything happens for a reason and a bad thing happened to me, it must mean that I am a Bad Person and I deserved it.

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There's a reason nobody ever made that PSA.

I didn't even call what happened to me abuse until I was 19 or 20. For three-plus years of my life I thought Mark was an asshole but that I had given "mixed signals" or something, that I secretly wanted it, that I'd brought sexual exploitation upon myself. It was my fault that I had a relationship with him in the first place. It was my fault because I was dirty and I wanted it to happen. The catfishing was my fault -- I was an idiot for talking to strangers, regardless of the fact that everyone makes friends on the Internet these days.

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At 21, I am still kind of fucked up, but I'm also much kinder to myself. I'm much more accepting (rather than guilt-ridden) about what happened. But it's an uphill battle. There are a lot of aspects of our culture that fight tooth and fucking nail to blame women for their abuse, to police the way they process that abuse -- and that's if anyone believes them at all. To have a TV show that is well done and popular while still being accurate and validating to abuse survivors is genuinely amazing, and I am absurdly grateful for its existence.

Sure, Jessica Jones is dark, but Marvel has a history of being randomly more morbid than Airbud's funeral. See why the Marvel universe shrugs its shoulders at mass death in 5 Sad Truths You Learn Watching All The Marvel Films At Once, and learn why Jessica Jones could be the only hope for us to see a strong female Marvel character in 5 Ways Marvel Movies Keep Screwing Up Female Superheroes.

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