There was a time when I believed in a savior—Prince Charming, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny.
Soon, I learned Santa Claus was a story designed to control my behavior. If I were a “good little girl,” I would get the most presents. Prince Charming—the hero who rescues the helpless woman—was another fabricated tale, packaging love as salvation.
And still, some of us find comfort in the delusion.
At fifteen, my best friend met a man she believed was her Prince Charming. That illusion shattered the night he held a knife to her throat. I begged her to stay with my family a little longer. One evening, bleary-eyed, she told me she missed him. The next day, she went back as if magic were hidden in his back pocket.
I never heard from her again.
I spent nights afterward stewing in guilt because I could not save her. I told myself that if I had tried harder, shouted louder, loved her better, she would have stayed.
Four years later, I was the one shouting for help, pinned against a car in a parking lot while people stood nearby, silent, turning their heads. More than twenty years later, I still wake up screaming for that woman.
That was the first time I understood something every woman must eventually admit to herself: No one is coming to save me.
No Santa Claus.
No Easter Bunny.
And definitely, no Prince Charming.
So I wrote my way back to myself.
Writing gave me a place to unpack shame, to set down self-blame. I wrote about the things that hurt me, the things that made me angry. I found power in naming the tiny violences committed against me—even if it took decades to say it out loud.
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