🛡️ Survival Required Specificity

🛡️ Survival Required Specificity

We don’t survive by blending in.
We survive by knowing who we are,
what harmed us,
and what helps us heal.

Oppressive systems thrive on confusion.
They pressure us to be vague, quiet, and palatable.
But when your life is on the line,
vagueness can be a death sentence.

📣 Specificity is not a luxury. It’s a lifeline.

• The Black girl Survivor can’t afford to be mistaken for “angry” when she’s asking for help.

• The disabled woman needs a ramp, not just an invitation.

• The undocumented mother needs protection, not paperwork delays.

• The deaf teen needs a sign language interpreter, not just a hotline number.

• The poor rural woman needs access to safety, not an inspirational poster.

Survival required that we say what we need. Out loud. Even if it made others uncomfortable.

💥 The world teaches us to shrink—to make our needs small and invisible.

But many of us only survived because we did the opposite.
We got specific.
We named names.
We stopped pretending.

And in doing so,
we disrupted the script that was written to erase us.

🕊️ We don’t need to apologize for our clarity.

Being specific doesn’t make you divisive.
It makes you honest. Brave. Alive.

We have every right to say:

• “This is what happened to me.”

• “This is what it took to survive.”

• “This is who I am—not what they called me.”

• “This is what I still need.”

🌿 Because survival isn’t silence.

It’s strategy.
It’s self-respect.
It’s sacred clarity in a world that keeps trying to fog the mirror.

—WeSurviveAbuse.com
For every Survivor who got specific to stay alive—and now speaks so others can live, too.

🧠 Reflection Questions:

1. When were you told to “just move on” or “don’t name names”? What did that cost you?

2. What details of your story have been ignored or erased by systems that say they support Survivors?

3. Have you ever softened the truth to keep others comfortable? What did that do to your spirit?

4. What do you need to name—clearly, fully, and without shame?

5. What does “being specific” look like for you in your healing journey today?