So, a totem. It's a small object, potentially heavy, something you can have on you all the time. It has to be unique, like - this is a loaded die. Only I know the balance and weight of this particular loaded die. That way when you look at your totem, you know beyond a doubt you're not in someone else's dream.
in primary school we had a creative writing assignment where we had to ‘write about a character in a new, strange situation!’ and i wrote about a squid that was somehow teleported from the ocean to the forest floor and slowly choked to death for two pages and i’ll never quite forget my teacher’s face because it turns out she wanted ‘this new school is scary, i hope i make friends!’ and not a graphic description of a squid dying
I think the hardest part about addressing child abuse is getting people to acknowledge, not just intellectually but actually responding accordingly, is that the biggest threat to children, the biggest risk of abuse, is family and parents.
it is of course most often parents who are crowing about needing to protect children (often against far smaller threats than family), and pointing out that they are, statistically, the biggest threat to their kids is not gonna be received well.