Heroes by Catherine Maven 2018 Our innocence, which should be a treasure, can be destroyed or used against us and manipulated to make us the playthings of bullies. I have a saying: "The biggest bully wins." But the OTHER side of the story, for MOST of us, is that not only are we SURVIVORS, but we try NOT to let the abuse we have suffered destroy us or turn us into abusers of others. Those of us who have been abused, but who have NOT turned to alcohol or drugs or other addictions to distract us from our pain, are HEROES. Maybe they will never write us up in a magazine; maybe no eulogy will be spoken that says, "This person SHOULD have turned UGLY; she had every right to kill herself, to make excuses for hiding from love and life, to hurt others in the way she had been hurt. But instead, she CHOSE to put it behind, to offer from the GOOD heart NOT destroyed by other people's ugliness. She chose to offer LOVE instead of hate; chose to HELP instead of des