Great post Cyclopea!
It made me think of an example where I felt silenced, but decided to rise above and post anyway.
On another website someone started a very emotionally charged thread about parental abuse of a specific kind.
Someone came in and said parents do the best they can and people needed to just get over it and stop whining.
Being a survivor myself, I immediately felt like maybe I needed to not speak out, maybe I needed to suck all my pain down and just deal. Maybe I deserved the abuse? maybe I am a whiner? Then, after I talked myself off the ledge, I decided that it is important for us to speak out because if it helps just one person to not feel so alone, it's worth putting myself out there....not to mention how much it helps to get things out.
So I felt silenced, but I spoke my truth anyway.