The Truth

Sexual violence doesn’t primarily occur the ways that we think. We’ve been programmed to believe that a stranger grabs us out of the shadows at night, beats us and rapes us then leaves us for dead. So, we’ve been raised to not talk to strangers, be by ourselves at night, or be in unfamiliar places.

Although it’s good advice, it only protects us from a very small percentage of potential attack scenarios. To be more specific, we’re saved only from 7% of possibilities.The reality is that 93% of attacks are committed by someone known to us and are more likely to occur in someplace familiar to us.

Those of us who have already been victimized are all too familiar with the fact that a friend, family member, neighbor and/or intimate partner are the people who harm us. And, we’re harmed at their homes, our homes, a familiar vehicle or event space. It’s the familiarity that causes the disbelief and may increase the trauma that we realize. It can push us to a point to question whether or not we’ve been victimized when we already know that we’ve been victimized.

As victimized people, we don’t want to believe our new reality - we were sexually assaulted - for many reasons. Due to what we were raised to believe about how the crime happens and who gets harmed; our belief that we are good judgments of character and wouldn’t pick a dangerous person to be in our lives; and, what we witness happen to other victimized persons who publicly come forward (in our communities) we try to distance ourselves from the reality.

“Those of us who have already been victimized are all too familiar with the fact that a friend, family member, neighbor and/or intimate partner are the people who harm us. ”

Many of us who have been harmed try to tuck it away and keep going like nothing happened. We stay quiet or we’ll tell only the people we trust and we ask them to remain quiet. Then, we just move forward without any real support or professional help that can teach us how to process it all in a way that allows us to have healthy relationships in the future. Silence doesn’t help us in the long run.

Silence allows for the false beliefs about sexual violence to persist. Silence also keeps those of us who have been harmed in the prisons of our victimhood. It prevents us from fully accepting the reality of things and, for some of us, forever questioning whether or not we were actually sexually assaulted.

In our own time and in our own we, have the right to come forward with the truth.

When we come forward with the truth, we allow ourselves to realize a survivorship journey focused on our wellness.

Image: Freepik