Fear is the enemy. That is the common theme. Honestly I think silence is a bigger enemy.
Later today I will be speaking to how many people I don't know-- A radio station will be there broadcasting, and somehow I am the star. Something I never wanted to be. I'm shaking in in my boots-- my very worn ones.
Let me clarify-- I am simply a girl with a dream of writing and someday being published-- perhaps even having my manuscript being popular--that is with a pen name. The girl never dreamed of speaking in front of anyone. Never had a desire to give a speech. In fact she avoided people. She never dreamed of a radio station being interested in anything she had to say. Literally that was NEVER her dream. She was happy to be a mouse with the name of Cat.
Now the girl has grown into a woman in her mid-forties with battle scars that she would still like to hide, and somehow what she has had to say has become more popular than the manuscript she published. This woman is still the girl and she still wishes it to be the opposite of what she has become. Silence is golden--Except she knows that's really not true-- it is a lie that is pretty comfortable.
You see she speaks on behalf of those who have been harmed as she was so many years ago. She remembers a little too well sometimes what it was like to be the child left to bleed, or the teenager set up by who she thought was her best friend, or the pregnant wife that her husband got off on.
Now she is safe and has healed. Now she has a wonderful man beside her that loves her, but she remembers the times when that was not so, and she speak on behalf of those that are suffering as she has. She speaks not so much because she wants to-- she does not-- yet to not speak would be to not do what she can to help-- Speaking is not easy or comfortable or even painless. Writing is a much better medium, but in order to give a voice to those who are not able to speak for themselves she must break the silence.
Back to I am shaking in my boots. I am petrified. Do you think I would be up at almost three o'clock in the morning other wise when I need to be up and showering before eight? Yet here is the deal. At one o'clock in the afternoon-- about ten hours from now I will get up and read and speak and somehow not stutter nor let my voice quiver. I better damn well have a mic because I am only loud when I have to yell at my son to get him to stop arguing! But I will speak, and every word will come from the deepest place in my soul because every person that has ever faced any kind of sexual assault deserves someone to speak up and out for them. That person right now-- later in Des Moines will be me.
My speech is called The Loudest Silence, and whether I will follow it word for word I cannot tell you, but I will be as loud as I can possibly be because I know what it's like to be a victim of sexual assault and the people around you being deafening quiet.
It's happened to me during three time periods in my life, and it's happened to two of my daughters. My family has survived and because of that I refuse to be voiceless.
I will speak for the friends that have been victims, and for some of the wonderful people I have met that have suffered. I will give this all I've got, and hopefully my words will help others, and hopefully there will be donation to The Iowa Coalition against Sexual Assault.
Hopefully some of the people listening will choose to be a support for the ones around them that have been hurt like I was.
Hopefully parents will learn what to say to their teen daughter after she sneaks out to got to a party where she was drugged then raped.
Hopefully friends will know how to comfort their close friend when they have to sit down with her as she tells them what caused her not to catch up to them the night before.
Hopefully they will know how to listen to a hurting wife that talks about the pain her husband went through as a child, and how it is effecting their marriage and their parenting of their children.
Hopefully they learn what to say to the child that has watched her mother be afraid to be alone all their life and just found out why.
You see sexual violence doesn't just hurt the victim. It hurts everyone around them. Those people can be a person to give a kick in the booty as needed, a voice to call out for help when the victim cannot, and a shoulder to cry on when requested, or they can tear the person down more. The Coalition helps train others on how to respond to those that have been harmed. Different people respond to being harmed different ways, and even some respond different at different times. Sometimes it paralyzes their will to go on, sometimes they turn into angry souls, sometimes cold, and sometimes it turns them into a perpetrator.
Sometimes after time does it's work along with a few good friends that stand by them, and maybe a counselor or two they grow into survivors. Then they learn by the goodness that was given to them how to help those that were harmed around them. Those of us who do survive do not survive without scars, but still we must speak out so that more will be able to move beyond victimhood to surviving and finally helping others.
That is why I speak even while I am afraid-- I am still more afraid of not speaking. Because of my own healing I was able to talk to my daughters after their own tragedies. I have been able to listen to friends. Now I have gained a following, and so here too I have a chance to make a difference. And I must for the memories of being the victim-- the lost child, the hurt teen, the destroyed young woman, the mother who felt powerless when I learned what happened to my daughter. I have been all of that. How can I not speak?
I guess this is Cat out... I don't have much of a conclusion. Just needed to talk this out-- In the most comfortable way I have--- Writing. Hope you don't mind.
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