For the ones who did the right thing — and paid for it with peace of mind.

You did what most people won’t.
You listened when others turned away. You saw what no one wanted to see. You spoke up when silence was the safer choice.

That courage came at a cost.
Because the brain doesn’t differentiate between what happens to you and what you witness with empathy. The same stress circuits — the amygdala, the hypothalamus, the body’s fight-or-flight systems — all ignite. You carry the residue of what you saw.

Psychology calls it secondary trauma.
Neuroscience calls it mirror activation — your brain’s empathy network lighting up as though you were the one living the pain. It’s the invisible toll of caring, of witnessing, of refusing to look away.

So now it’s time to do something just as brave:
Step back. Breathe. Reclaim your peace.

You have done your part.
You’ve spoken truth into the world.
The rest is not yours to carry.

Healing begins the moment you give yourself permission to let go — to stop replaying, to stop explaining, to stop defending your decision to do what was right.

Because you are not what you witnessed.
You are what you chose to do with it.

So yes — you have heard it, seen it, reported it.
Now, step away and heal.