My story

I've gone round and round in my heart trying to decide if I wanted to share this with all of you.  I don't want to but I feel the need to, just to show a different perspective than the media shows.

Do you wonder what the face of a sexually abused person is?  Look at me.  I'm not going to share the details, because its not your business.

Have I held it in for a long time?  Yes.  The effects of this tragedy, yes, it's a tragedy have affected me my whole life.  MY WHOLE LIFE.

Did I say no.  You bet I did.  It didn't matter.

The person who did it told me I shouldn't bother to tell anyone because they wouldn't believe me anyway.  So I stuffed it really far down, pretending it didn't matter, because it happened and like most tragedies, you either get stuck on it or you move on?  

Years later he stopped me in Meijer, asked if i remembered him. I looked at him in disbelief, how could i forget? He acted like nothing ever happened. He asked me to have coffee. "No thanks" i said. I think i was in shock. No how i thought I’d react.

Well, that day, someone took something from me.  No one saw, no one knew.  No police reports were filed, it didn't make the news. there isn't even a journal entry.  

I started watching the news yesterday, I heard people say "why didn't she say thing, she must be lying", I saw it on Facebook, it made me sick.   Why is she lying because she didn't want to set down the shame for everyone to see, a shame that she shouldn't have carried anyway.  She's not the one who should be ashamed.  it doesn't matter what she was wearing or if she was in place she shouldn't have been.  The shame isn't hers. 

I've seen so many people on the news being called out for their behavior and people not believing the women, and then later, it comes out after more are brave enough to come out, it's found to be true.  If there are more than one does that mean it actually Happened? If it only happens, it still happened. The truth is the truth. DOes the same thing happen when men come out after being molested?  Personally haven't seen it.

I am sorry to say, we don't stand by our sisters enough.  If a woman in a bad neighborhood is raped is it any worse than a woman in an affluent area? No.  There is a Pastor in the Chicago area who was accused and so many women came forward, and still people don't believe them.  That is shameful.  Just shameful.

So I'd like to say, if you've been sexually abused or harassed, I'll listen and cry with you. I have no training, I can just listen and loveyou.

It’s time to put down our shame .