And the damage may last for lifetimes. We live in a world where the predator’s pain often gets more airtime than the Survivor’s truth. He had a roug
And the damage may last for lifetimes.
We live in a world where the predator’s pain often gets more airtime than the Survivor’s truth.
He had a rough childhood.
He didn’t have a father figure.
He was struggling with his identity.
He was hurting.
He didn’t know better.
Photo by Tolu Akinyemi 🇳🇬/Unsplash.com
He made a mistake.
And so the spotlight shifts.
The shame gets softened.
The focus moves to his healing, his trauma, his reputation, his needs.
Meanwhile…
The one he harmed is left bleeding in the background,
expected to heal in silence so that he can return to comfort.
Yes, the predator may be misunderstood.
But what he did was not confusing.
It was:
Evil
Harmful
Violent
Deliberate
Manipulative
Calculated
It was a violation of power, trust, and human dignity.
And the impact isn’t just immediate.
It can span decades.
Sometimes generations.
🧠 Some wounds become inheritance.
A Survivor lives with chronic illness, flashbacks, and anxiety.
She becomes a mother, unsure how to trust anyone around her children.
She marries or dates but never feels fully safe in intimacy.
She over-functions, over-works, or disconnects from joy—because that’s what she learned early.
She struggles to find a God who won’t blame her.
And all the while, someone keeps saying:
“But he’s not like that anymore…”
But she still is recovering.
She still jumps at night.
She still can’t walk past certain places.
She still avoids family gatherings.
She still remembers the smell of that room.
Stop confusing accountability with cruelty.
Naming evil isn’t being hateful.
Protecting children isn’t unloving.
Saying “what he did was wrong” isn’t canceling him—it’s telling the truth.
There’s a difference between being misunderstood and being dangerous.
He may be misunderstood.
But what he did left scars.
What he did reshaped someone’s entire relationship with the world.
What he did might take a lifetime to heal.
Let’s make peace with this:
He can be human.
He can be wounded.
He can be loved by God.
And still—
what he did was evil.
And we will not pretend otherwise.
