epigraph

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"I'm not meaning to say what happened wasn't traumatic. Obviously, it was traumatic. To end up where we did, in the middle of nowhere, completely cut off from the lives we left behind.

"That brings us to the real question, doesn't it? What was so fucking great about the lies we left behind? Because here is what I remember of all that.

"I remember not being enough.I remember wanting to be more. I remember the dark moods, the violent moods. Moods that nobody had any patience for. And then there was the brutal social scene, which some girls could just glide through like they belonged everywhere. And there you were, just trying to belong somewhere.

"I remember the ridiculous expectations they had for us. Like we were supposed to be these golden Gods 24/7. I remember the responsibilities, heavy burdens meant for adults forced on us before our time. Responsibilities that made you think 'Yeah, this is definitely fucking with my healthy development right now.'

"And don't get me started on the impossible problem of sex. If you were terrified of it, which you had every reason to be, you were deemed a frigid chastity bitch. But if you were somehow unafraid, like it was just naturally your thing ... Then God help you. The world is a dangerous place for a sexually evolved girl.

"And on top of all of that, there was this new feeling, this sick, ugly feeling of wanting to love and be loved back, which never ends well.

So if we're talking about what happened out there, then yeah, there was trauma. But being a teenage girl in normal ass America, that was the real living hell."

- Leah Rilke

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started: 1st January, 2021

Suffocating // Toni ShalifoeWhere stories live. Discover now