My closest friend used my trauma in her university essay
Dear Delyara, My best friend is studying psychology. I told her years ago about the abuse I experienced as a child. Last week, she sent me an essay she was proud of. Halfway through, I realized the “anonymized case example” was me. Different age, different city, same details. My mother’s reaction. The locked bathroom. The phrase I told her I still hear in nightmares. She received an A. She says nobody can identify me and that using lived examples makes academic writing powerful. She apologized for not asking permission but says the essay may help her become a better therapist. I feel stupid for being hurt by a document strangers will probably never connect to me. Still, I gave her that story because she was my friend, not because I agreed to become material. She keeps saying she changed enough details to protect confidentiality. I want to ask who protected intimacy. I trusted one person with the worst room of my childhood, and she found a way to turn on the lights for a professor.