I'm grateful for my trauma. (But that doesn't mean it was easy.)

We use the word "trauma" a lot. A quick primer on what that means for me in relation to politics.

I’m grateful—in so many ways—for the trauma I’ve incurred in my lifetime. I certainly wouldn’t be who I am, or where I am, without it.

But just because I’m grateful for the person it made me doesn’t mean it was easy.

Here’s a very brief review of what I’m referring to when I talk about “my” trauma:

1.) Grooming and sexual abuse by a swim coach’s older brother around ages 16–17 (our actual coach had died a few months earlier in a car accident, so I was a teenager deep in grief).

2.) Violent sexual assault by another intern at the Statehouse at age 21.