Silence

[Trigger warning]

Words are powerful. But why doesn't any one ever use them?

When people die, we are not afraid to cry. We are not afraid to tell people how angry or upset we are. Some people grieve loudly, full of words and words and words.

When people are violent, we scream. We yell at the highest volume we can reach. We are not afraid of what people may think.

When people receive a diagnosis of cancer, we share our fear. We talk about the 'what if's' or the prognosis. We are not afraid.

When people are harassed or attacked sexually, we shut up. Suddenly, it's like the world is quiet. Victims are told to deal privately, to not bring it up. To not report it because the attacker is going 'though issues.' Isn't the victim going though issues? I mean, the person was attacked, harassed, wronged in more ways than you can imagine. Sometimes they change, so drastically, that everyone around them avoids them. "She's different," they say "weird."

Unless you go through an assault or an experience, you never know how scary it is to say something. And you never know how painful it is not to say anything.

You can't describe the pain you go through everyday. You lose the trust in people, in humanity. You stop believing you are real. You change so that it will never happen to you again. Sometimes, you isolate yourself, refuse to move, to socialize. Maybe you turn to harmful substances, cutting, suicide. Maybe you forget how it is to own your sexual experiences. Maybe you never even had the chance to own them in the first place.

Your closest confidants look at you differently. They treat you like a fragile glass slipper. You want to tell them to stop, to just forget that it ever happened. You want to be normal. You try so hard. You have dreams at night where you are. Where it never happened. But that's the closest you can ever get to being normal.

Sleepless nights, where the dream doesn't come, brings bags of circles under your eyes. You wonder if those nights would go away if you just told someone. You fear that you may lose the only thing that keeps alive, those dreams that keep you normal.

I encourage the survivors I meet to report it, to talk about it, and I don't even follow my own advice. I provide survivors the support I never received in hopes that they can be strong enough to face the fears of talking. I push survivors through recovery treatments, to counseling. I assume every woman I meet has had an sexual experience that was not wanted. I hate that I never tell these women that I've been though it. That it happened to me.

But I stay silent.

(Submitted by a friend)