April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and this week I wanted to do my part in raising awareness through education-prevention while providing a space for survivors to be freed from the suppressed feelings they live through every day. At the start of the week, I wanted this to feed off the #MeToo movement that seeks to “empower through empathy” and remind survivors that we are not alone. I also sought to draw attention to patriarchal microaggressions that are experienced in our everyday lives never to something more severe, yet may have a dominating and demeaning effect just the same.
I was never prepared for the stories that I would receive and the abundance in which they came.
The idea was inspired by the work I have done in my creative writing classes where the instructor sets a theme and we each created six-word stories that were both intriguing and succinct. After reading a rather entertaining article by Vice where strangers were asked to recall how they lost their virginity in six-words, I knew exactly how I could apply this to an audience of empowered women.
In these exercises, the owner of the story is given the power to define it –to alter the way in which it is remembered so that the perpetrator loses its dominance over the survivor. It is this way of defining my own story that I found very therapeutic after facing more than one abuser in my lifetime. After years of guilt that followed, wondering if there was something more I could have done, I realized that in my role as a writer I have the opportunity to free the voices of my sisters who otherwise would not speak up.
It is important to note that in this survey that I sent out over Facebook, I allowed the opportunity for women to take credit for their story that they created. Not one person wished to be credited. This says a lot about the shame and guilt that has long been taught to us that somehow we are not to be believed, or that in one way or another we have become “different” from those terrible moments that we did not wish upon ourselves. Just because a safe space is provided to come out and seek shelter in the support of your peers, doesn’t mean it is easy. To this day, I do not know who these stories are by, as they remained anonymous to me in the responses. I have no trace of their email or their username.
These brave women are all of us. Here are their stories:
I didn’t know I could leave.
“Oops.” Wordless therapy sessions. Permanent scars.
Lying on bed, helpless and numb.
Aggressively touched my body without consent.
You hoped I wouldn’t wake up.
“You’re too pretty to work here.”
He said, “trust me you want it.”
I said no, he drove faster.
Spit in my face and left.
Scared of love because of him.
You do not own my body.
Frat party; tongue down my throat.
I felt ashamed for wearing leggings.
I said stop, you heard go.
I was unconscious, he didn’t care.
“Sweetie”… “Sweetie”… “Sweetie”…
Dancing at party, right to touch.
Walking alone, thinking I was safe.
Tossed onto a bed-frame. No mattress.
Turned lock; “You’re not going anywhere.”
I said no. It didn’t matter.
He was satisfied against my will.
Creep grabbed my ass at party.
Followed through market, sucking tongue sounds.
“Girls don’t take woodshop, try sewing.”
When my dad hit my mom.
He let his friends touch me too.
He threatened suicide if I left.
I want to take a moment to credit all the brave women that I walk past every day, the ones I sit by in class after a long night, the ones who make me laugh and will sit there while I cry, the ones who have raised me to be stronger than I ever thought I could be. Thank you for empowering me to write this article.