What a great post. There has been a culture of silencing victims for far too long. This is precisely the reason women feel unable to talk about it; why so many crimes go unreported and the perpetrators get off scot free. It makes society uncomfortable, so we internalise that shame and carry it as our own. We are punished twice: once by the abuse and again by the censure we experience as a result of it. And that's without even getting into the legal position for the few who do report it.
#MeToo came as a relief to the many, many women who, as a result of that collectively shared experiences, no longer felt quite so alone. Some had never spoken of it before, and had bottled it up for decades. One of the saddest things about that movement - unfortunately the scale of it came as no surprise - was the immediate pushback and determination to stop women speaking openly about their experiences. They were 'jumping on the bandwagon'. Why wait all this time to report/speak about it? They were attention-seeking. They were probably lying anyway. All is rhetoric with which every victim of abuse will be all-too familiar. The reason they often don't report is the fear that they won't be believed - and the response to #MeToo/#TimesUp showed why that fear is palpable and very real.
That culture needs to change, because this is endemic. Nearly every woman has more than one story with varying degrees of severity to tell. Silence only protects the perpetrators.
My heart goes out to all those with unresolved trauma. I know, far too well, what that's like. And in some senses, 'triggers' can be a good thing. They can show us where there are issues: for eg. they helped me to a diagnosis of cPTSD, which is eminently treatable, and with that I felt I'd been thrown a lifebelt. There is now very effective therapy available for trauma.
I'm sorry you were triggered. No one who's spoken about this kind of history on this thread has set out to offend anyone. By the same token, I'm not going to apologise for talking about it. It took me nigh-on 25 years to come to a point where I felt able to do so. I'm no longer willing to perpetuate that culture of shame surrounding victims - that 'nice people' don't talk about this no matter what - and there might be a possibility that these experiences might help someone else.
I'd rather help other victims with openness than help the abusers by maintaining my silence.