I want to dwell on this, because it is the least understood and most important thing about how children are trapped, and I did not understand it myself until I had lived it.

When people imagine why an abused child does not simply tell someone, they picture fear — the child too frightened of the abuser to speak.

And fear is real, and it is part of it.

But it is not the deepest part, and focusing on it misses the more insidious mechanism, the one that kept us silent even in the moments we were not afraid.

The deeper trap is disbelief, installed in advance.