i know i've mentioned before that i've read the outlander series and really loved them. recently i decided to reread the first one and ran across a passage that really hit me. to give you a little background, the main character, jamie fraser, is accused of a crime he didn't commit in scotland in the year 1743. after being in prison and having been tortured and abused, he was talking to the other main character, claire, telling her about what his experience did to him mentally. he said,

"It's...difficult to explain. It's...it's like...I think it's as though everyone has a small place inside themselves, maybe, a private bit that they keep to themselves. It's like a little fortress, where the most private part of you lives--maybe it's your soul, maybe just that bit that makes you yourself and not anyone else. You don't show that bit of yourself to anyone, usually, unless sometimes to someone that ye love greatly.

Now, it's like...like my own fortress has been blown up with gunpowder--there's nothing left of it but ashes and a smoking rooftree and the little naked thing that lived there once is out in the open, squeaking and whimpering in fear, tryin' to hide itself under a blade of grass or a bit o' leaf, but...but not...makin' m-much of a job of it."

this---this, is what it is like to be abused.