*Trigger warning: In this post I talk about my experience with sexual assault.
Seven years ago, you were 21.
You were about to start law school, reveling in the freedom and openness of your early twenties. You were at the beginning of the rest of your life, and that excited you. The world felt open and ready for you. The unknown of the future invigorated you. You welcomed it. You were in a space where the universe felt like it revolved around you, and you were the author of your story.
You were fearless. You were free.
I remember you well and I think about you so fondly. You remind me to stay open, even when I want to close in around myself. You were beautiful. And I wasn’t ready to let you go.
But I know why you had to leave.
Seven and a half years ago you were raped.
I can still feel the cold, wet ground under your feet as you ran out of his apartment. You had waited until he had fallen asleep. You didn’t know why you waited to leave. And you carried that shame with you for a long time. You told yourself you were cowardly. Broken. Stupid.
Four years ago you wrote about your experience and shared it publicly.
You had only told three people before that. And two of them used your vulnerability against you. And you had silenced yourself. But in 2018, amid the outpouring of millions of victims sharing their story, you decided that sharing your experience was more important than the pain you might feel from people who choose not to understand. You could no longer carry that secret inside you.
After sharing your post, you felt like a lot of the trauma was behind you. You were really on your way to this being something that had happened to you and not something that was still happening to you. Then…
Three years ago you were sexually harassed by a colleague for almost a year.
All the trauma responses you learned seven years ago came back in full force. You didn’t even allow yourself to fully process what was happening to you. You could not go through all that again. So you told yourself everything you needed for it to be anything but that.
A year later, you told a friend. Then another, and another.
You felt freer. But you also felt so stupid. And like the biggest hypocrite.
You had been to hell and back. Shared it openly. Encouraged other women to share their stories. To speak up. To tell abusers to go straight to hell. You thought you were invincible now.
And here you were again. A victim. Who didn’t say no. Who should have known better. A coward. And a liar.
You are now 28. And I cannot thank you enough for your bravery. And for loving yourself.
Because of the way you have carried us, I am now ready to write this letter to you. And there are some things I want you to know:
Seven years ago, you told yourself that nobody would believe your story because you waited before leaving. I can tell you now, that what you did was escape. And what you were doing was trusting yourself when you decided to wait. And I don’t look back at that as weakness or stupidity. I am thankful that even in a moment when you felt so silenced you couldn’t even cry out “no”, that you somehow still trusted yourself enough to do what you needed to.
I call that power.
In 2018, you wrote that your shame had alchemized into anger. And you were unapologetic about living in that space. I still don’t apologize for your anger. That is where we were. And you still needed that last wall of protection in order to step into your next movement of healing.
I carry your courage with me. And I hope I never apologize for my anger. Just like you didn’t.
When you were sexually harassed by your colleague, you felt like you had abandoned yourself. What you couldn’t have seen then, under the shame and fear, was that you, again, were saving yourself. You were doing what you had to do to keep moving. To get out of bed. To grow. To stay focused. To take care of your family. To take care of yourself.
You also didn’t realize that you did not let shame keep you from reaching out. You did not let yourself play the same tape in your head – You are dumb. You asked for it. You are weak.
You spoke the secret out loud. And you changed the narrative for yourself. Instead of walking in shame, you chose power. Instead of guilting yourself, you chose grace. You did not hide from the pain, you chose to sit with it and start healing yourself. And you placed the shame and responsibility on the shoulders of the person who had done this to you. Because you refused to carry what was not yours.
I need you to know that you did everything you could for us. Every time you got out of bed even when depression was holding you down. Every time you went on a walk because you knew the air outside would make you slowly feel human again. When you reached out and set your first appointment with your therapist. When you told your story. Then told it again. and again. and again. Every time you did not give in was you reaching up to pull us just a little higher from the depths of hell.
I know somedays it just felt like surviving. Eating was hard. Sleeping was hard. Being in your body was hard. But you always showed up.
And I am so proud to tell you that we are still here.
It has been seven years since you were raped. And we will never fully recover from that.
But you. are. still. here.
I promise to continue showing up. For who you were seven years ago. And for who we are now.
The Patio 