Meeting My Abuser In The Mirror

This piece by Dawn Clancy originally appeared on The Establishment, an independent multimedia site founded and run by women. Content Warning: descriptions of child abuse. My mother had a thing for serrated steak knives. When she was sober, those knives, unlike the silver ones with the dull edge she’d use to spread soft butter on toast or yellow mustard on white bread, were used to slice through the salt and pepper steak she’d make for Joe, my stepdad. But when she was...