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I wish they had told me; I wish I'd known then what I know now
Often in life, we find ourselves unprepared for certain things or thinking back to a time when we were unprepared and wishing someone had told us something important or that you had already known to do that instead of learning it weeks, months, even years down the road. What is something you have learned that you wish you'd known or been told earlier?
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Poetry_Whore
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PTSD.

I wish I had learned what it was like to be touched by a man. I wish I knew that not all men are kind and not all touches are the gentle caress that novels romanticize. I wish I knew how to decipher the signs and the clues that were seemingly spoken in a different language. I wish I knew that it is not unusual for a man to hurt a woman. For a man to disrespect her and take advantage of her. I wish someone had told me that he wasn't the man I thought he was. I wish someone would tell me it wasn't my fault. Maybe I could have known that no one would believe me, and no one would support me. Maybe I would understand that what happened to me was traumatic, as I am told I have PTSD. The diagnosis doesn't surprise me, but I can't help but wonder what would have happened if someone had told me my worth and my rights as a woman. I wonder what would have happened if I had screamed rather than lying frozen in fear, surrounded by my sleeping friends. Maybe someone will tell girls someday that a man will come along and promise them the world but warn them that they can also take it all away.

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