Thank you all for replying.

I'm in therapy and processing my traumas one memory at a time. I have a dissociative disorder, so it takes processing these things a longer time than usual. Sometimes I need to process this pain more than once.

The pain I felt just one abusive relationship was a enough - over time - to make me fear all relationships, including friendships. I don't know how cruel humans could be until I experienced intimate partner violence. I knew how hard it was for me to leave, and I eventually left. I could say that I am happy to have survived, but the aftermath of survival brings with different levels of pain.

I have a good therapist. My pain is just really deep.

When I hear news stories like Gabby Petito, I can empathize so much that I could feel her pain and torture. I can't imagine dying like that though. It just shows me how cruel humans can be in relationships. Supposedly, they found her abuser's remains, too.

I think about all of the other potentially battered and abused victims there are out there, or those who were murdered by a stranger. There were more human remains found during the time of Petito's and Laundrie's searches. Months prior, I kept up with another really sick and twisted case that resulted in multiple deaths spanning a few decades, including the deaths of two children. And then there were hundreds of missing indigenous women's bodies found near where Petito's body was found years prior, and all of those indigenous women were likely abused in some way before their murders. Stories like these bring chills up my spine because I know how easy it is for abuse to happen in silence, behind closed doors, or even in public, with bystanders watching and doing nothing while a woman gets raped on a train. It sickens me how all this abuse is common. It makes this world a very dangerous place, to me.

It's hard to trust anyone when times are tough, such as during a recession, during a pandemic, during war, etc. The focus on other tragedies brings the focus off of the abusers and their victims. And even then, those other tragedies often bring about abuse, violence, bullying, hate, and horrible things seen in public or hidden behind closed doors. Not everyone reports. I tried to report, but I didn't report it all. And my abuse happened over 20 years ago! The pain and memories of it all come back the more I read even just mere headlines without the details. I almost always know what at least 25% of the details say anyway. I've lived it, and it's too common to not know.

It's painful to read such news over and over again.

It's painful to read about multiple forms of abuses happening on an hourly basis across the globe, including the U.S. Laws deter some, but not all. Laws are nowadays shunned because people are losing hope in the protective factors of the law or completely disregarding the law altogether. Career criminals see the laws more weakened now than ever, especially how the corruption from the top down makes it easier for abuse to happen anywhere - from the top down, from the workplace, from a train, from the streets - anywhere.

But experiencing the betrayal trauma from people you know - people you are in a relationship with, people you work with, people you serve with, and people who were supposed to be your own family - that kind of abuse hurts the worst!

I don't feel safe in this world. I can find safety in the world, but it's not safe enough to protect me and others from what happens behind closed doors.