Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault
My existence has been traumatic in different ways, for different reasons, since the beginning.
I’ve spent my lifetime trying to cope, trying to suppress, and in more recent years, trying to work through it and heal.
I kept my deepest trauma buried the longest, sexual assault.
I was reminded today that it’s the four-year anniversary of the last time I was assaulted.
A repeating cycle in my life that began around the age of 4 or 5, courtesy of a mustachioed babysitter.
It wore different faces, different context, different genders, different threat levels through the years, but the result was always the same, until the last time.
4 years ago, something shifted within me, a breakdown that finally broke me.
Shattered me so completely, there wasn’t anywhere left to hide…and more importantly, I didn’t want to.
Through years of practice I hid it well, but like many survivors, I was a shell of a person.
And I couldn’t live that existence anymore.
We deserve to heal.
We deserve to feel whole.
To feel worthy.
To feel genuine happiness.
To feel loved.
To feel valued.
To feel respected.
To feel safe.
To feel free.
And that is why, as uncomfortable as it may be, I share my history.
We can’t heal from that which broke us, while hiding from it.
Whatever it is you’re facing, you can triumph.
You are strong.
You are valued.
You are loved.
You are not alone. 
