Why I could not tell my story of domestic abuse in my book – or put my name to this piece | Anonymous

It feels like a Greek myth: to wait a lifetime to speak out, only to find you are cursed with eternal silence

I have long believed in the power of women's stories. A free person tells her own story," writes Rebecca Solnit. A valued person lives in a society in which her story has a place." As a feminist and a writer, this is the closest thing I have to a doctrine: we have to create a society in which women's stories are told by them, and heard by as many people as possible.

The #MeToo movement has made plain just how many stories remain disregarded, ridiculed or, perhaps worst of all, never heard, but it also revealed how an avalanche of change can occur from the simple, ancient act of a woman telling her story. Then another. And another. And another.

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