Brave Enough To Be Bliss

All of this and more is vital information for survivors to understand and would be provided IF survivors reach out for help. However, most survivors do not even tell someone close to them what has happened, let alone report the crime. While completely understandable with our society’s response to survivors, we must find a way to make it safe for survivors to talk about their experiences so they can begin healing, because the impact and ripple effects of them not healing is impossible to even quantify (suicides, addictions, chronic and uncontrolled mental health conditions, broken relationships, unhealthy parenting, physical health conditions, abusive behaviors in an attempt to regain power, etc.). The legal process is a whole other issue that needs to be tackled, but my first concern is making it safer for survivors to tell and begin healing because that is within each single individual’s control. And that is how we can truly make societal change , because unfortunately it’s impossible to legislate it. The key is, though, we each have the ability to take our internal power back. Our power to think, to reason, to be happy, to live. The struggle is to believe we can when we ’ve been conditioned to believe we are less than, worthless, unloved, unworthy, unclean, etc. Following are just a few of the things that went through my mind at 17 after I was raped. ▪ Why did this happen to me? ▪ What’s wrong with me that this happened to me? ▪ Am I just a bad person? ▪ Who would ever want to touch me if he knew what happened to me? ▪ Was I naive or stupid and that’s why this happened to me? If only I had been smarter maybe it wouldn’t have happened. ▪ It doesn’t happen to very many people, and none I know of, so I must have done something or there must be something wrong with me that this happened to me. ▪ If anyone knew they would think it was my fault. ▪ If anyone knew they’d think I was dirty, unclean, trash, used, foul, ruined, stupid, a slut, broken, disgusting. While I do think there has been some improvement in the willingness to talk about sexual abuse and assault, the societal norm is still one of fear. The rapist gets forgotten because our fears are more about how awful it must be for the victim and how we would never want to be the victim, so the perpetrator is, in essence, protected because victims are silenced and shamed into keeping the secret. I bought a table at a MOCSA luncheon one year and invited various friends from different parts of my life who had been supportive of me through the years. At the time, I didn’t know it, but through the years since, I have learned that more than half of my guests were also sexually abused and/or assaulted. In a CNN report of “How Michael Jackson’s death unfolded,” an iPhone recording from May 10, 2009, is heard where he states with slurred speech, “I love them, I love them because I didn’t have a childhood. I had no childhood. I feel their pain. I feel their hurt.” I do believe those who reported the abuse and am so sorry they were hurt. If your brain wants to question these men thinking if it were true, why wouldn’t they have reported it back then, please read the following article and understand your fear is normal, natural…our human brains don’t want to believe people could do such horrible things to other people, especially children. But the reality is it happens so much more often than your brain will want to believe. It is sad and the best thing we can do is feel that sadness and then become people who help heal adult children who have been hurt, talk with children openly and honestly so if they have been hurt, they will feel safe to tell, and start changing our society from one that lives in fear to one that lives in love. There is no individual, family, group, or societal injustice that is improved by keeping it quiet. That is simply the tool that those with control use to maintain their power over others.

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