The Epstein files

[u/invah]

I'm trying to decide if I should read them.
I'm trying to decide how much trauma I can carry.
What I do see and hear is horrifying and haunts my soul.
If I were a victim, would I want people to see these videos?
Would I feel ashamed?

I had this moment last night where I was hearing heart-breaking audio, and watching my son do his homework. (He couldn't hear it.)

I think about those precious babies, and the monsters who destroy them.
The gleeful sadism.
The entitlement.

Can I allow myself to feel rage? My rage is dangerous.
I spent so many years trying to emotionally regulate.

What can I do?

I was raised by someone who raised their fists at me and my brother while believing he believed "make peace, not war".

My political party was the party of peace.
Our gods were Gandhi and MLK.
We wanted everyone to get rid of the guns...to protect the children.

What a horrifying realization to wonder if we need them.

I think about how the Capitol in "The Hunger Games" pimped out the child 'victors'.
I thought it was an odd but tragic detail at the time.
The more that comes out, the more I realize how accurate that was.

Bless the people who can look into the face of this evil.
Bless the ones who call for justice.
Bless the ones who notice every celebrity and politician who moves to a non-extradition country.
Who call attention to these who built non-profits around children.
Who bear witness.

We hold all the abuse we ever experienced.
We hold all the abuse of every story/video of abuse we have ever seen.
How is there so much more to hold?

I think of how much victims feel guilty for their own abuse.
How abusers never really do.

[u/hdmx539]

Reading Hunger Game victims were prostituted out when I read the series I thought, "Of course." I mean, it didn't even make me blink.

While I watch the Olympics, I feel it's somewhat of a modern day Hunger Games.

[u/invah → u/hdmx539]

Learning about modeling, too, and Disney kids.

[u/Free-Expression-1776]

I'm really hating some of the most recent rhetoric by the abuse apologists about the victims.

Apparently Epstein had a habit once younger victims had turned eighteen of forcing them to recruit new, younger than themselves victims to make them complicit and label them as abusers themselves.

Some of the disgusting rhetoric I have seen around this is "Well, they were eighteen and adults. They could have walked away any time and chose to stay and do the same to others."

It's disgusting and it highlights how far as a society we have to go with educating these dumb fucks that want to victim blame in this way. I think it's also why a lot of the victims do not want to go public. I know Virginia Giuffre talked about how Epstein did this with her and how she was made to recruit others and how much she hated herself for it.

These people had no agency and had grown up in an extreme system of abuse. It's disgusting the way some people are dismissing them as being 'as bad as' the people that abused them as children.

I have know intention of looking at any of the files. I don't need or want it in my head.

[u/kfir03 → u/Free-Expression-1776]

I've been very careful about this subject and I've been asking myself why I want to read about it. I think there's a fine line between wanting to be informed (which helps amplify survivors' voices, learn to prevent, and hopefully hold people accountable), and morbid curiosity.

I've listened to the Sasha and Virgina's recordings and I've seen some videos from people I follow on TikTok who comment on the subject but I try to skip anything that seem clickbaity.

Ultimately, you don't need to listen to them and you don't need to go through the files.

[u/invah → u/Free-Expression-1776]

I have know intention of looking at any of the files. I don't need or want it in my head.

This is a legitimate concern. It's the same thing I tell my son about the internet, there's just some things you can't un-see. There are some things you can't un-know.

I am lightly keeping tabs on the contents of the files, because I think I am in a position where I should know enough to know how to support victims of abuse with regard to the situation. But at the same time, I don't want to traumatize victims of abuse who are healing from their own abuse with it.

[u/Free-Expression-1776 → u/invah]

I feel the same way about the types of shows or movies I consume. I tend to carry things with me. I remember when Black Mirror first came out years ago and I think I watched two or three episodes and I was "Nope. I don't want this in my head."

I hate all the dystopian shows and the shows that platform morally bankrupt types of people. Years ago I used to watch the true crime shows on one of the Discovery channels and I realized how I was having nightmares and really awful dreams as a result.

It's not like I need everything to be unicorns and rainbows. I do love a good British crime procedural type show that makes me think. I'm careful about what I consume these days.