We Can Survive This

Surviving sexual violence is more than just staying alive. It involves an ongoing recompense between society as a whole, the world, and the harmed individual. Everyone plays a part in ensuring that victimized persons are given the needed space to become whole (as much as possible).

Unfortunately, we live in a society that doesn’t proactively address sex crimes or fully provide all required support to survivors. Surface level efforts, such as putting a temporary spotlight on accused predators, are enacted then the topic is no longer a focus. Survivors are left with very limited support or long-term communal embrace needed to successful reconnect with society. This causes the mental, emotional and physical labor of improving our global society [in a way the properly supports survivors] to fall on victimized persons.

It’s understandable to want to avoid doing the work. It’s also understandable for us to believe that people who haven’t been victimized should be the ones to do all of the work to fix society. Shifting ownership seems to ease the already overwhelming amount of stress and tiredness that we survivors carry. Doing the work feels like a lot of responsibility - it is. Doing the work feels hard - it is. Doing the work feels never-ending - it is. Doing the work seems impossible - it’s possible. It’s also less intensive than you might think.

Getting and remaining on the path of wellness requires us to wake up everyday, be true to our wants and needs, and acknowledge all of our feelings. The most important thing that we can do to start us on our journey is to fully understand the following:

    • it’s not our shame to carry

    • the victimization wasn’t our fault

    • we’re good people who didn’t deserve the harm

    • we’re good people who trusted someone who manipulated us

    • there’s nothing that we could’ve done differently to stop it from happening

    • there’s nothing the predator can say or do to take away the pain or make things better

    • we’re going to survive this…we’re going have to fight like hell…we’re going to survive this

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