This piece is not about overcoming a shit situation. Some people do not overcome a shit situation. Some people are traumatized. Some people are not productive. Some people are not ever gonna pull themselves up by their bootstraps and no amount of expectation that they should will ever make a lick of difference. This piece is about compassion. Not about productivity or getting over things. Most victims are not perfect victims. And this piece is definitely not some herald of the great virtue of personal responsibility, nor is it meant to inspire or empower you. It’s meant to make you consider that you are holding people to unfair, unreasonable, unyielding standards. And if you expect that every person in a shit situation must somehow overcome it, you are holding people to unfair standards. We are not all starting out from same place, and most of us will not all end up in the same place either.