The first time I said the word out loud, I was on holiday with two friends. Abuse. I had been living inside it for years and I had never named it, not to my family, not to my closest friends, not really to myself. One close friend had suspected something for a long time, but she had never pushed, and I had never offered. So I carried it alone, which is its own kind of weight. And then one day, somewhere far from home, it came out of me. The relief of being seen was almost phy
