She Kinda has It Coming

Lynn shared with me yesterday that she had to report a peer for sexually harassing her over Snapchat. For "normally-developing" teens with no trauma history or 'baggage', the responses of most of the adults in their world given this kind of event are generally comments full of concern and maybe even anger towards the aggressor. For Lynn, given her complicated history and challenged behavioral choices, the responses were more along the lines of the following, "well, the way she acts and dresses she kinda had it coming."  My first instinct was to immediately recoil and push back on the blame-the-victim mentality, but I admit I had second thoughts as well that looked scarily similar to those of the other adults who commented. Just another example of the kind of cognitive shifting that happens in the world of raising traumatized children.  In the end though,  in the words of her brother, "it still isn't right".