Your Voice is Your Medicine - Pt 1

Two years ago I was a victim of abuse, today I am a survivor of sex abuse. 

I love this photo, but it also makes me sad. Here's a photo of me with my
parents, hours before I became a victim of sexual abuse.

Bold but true. I honestly had thought I had dodged all of the bullets of ever being a victim of a sex crime after I had made my way out of my risky teenage years, hours before it happening I remember even making a comment how lucky I was that I had never had anything happen to me before, I should have knocked on wood. 

When I was 20 I had a painful reminder that I couldn't run or hide from being a victim of a sex crime. There are plenty of horrific details to the story, it was someone close to me, my best friends dad, we don't talk anymore, she blames me to this very day, there was a court case, prosecutors, attorneys, law enforcement, jail time, probation, sex offender registries, lots of money, therapy, medications, loneliness, yah-dee-yah-yah, blah-blah-blah, the list goes on and on. This happened to me the Saturday before I started my first semester at UVU of Fall 2011. I went through all of this alone, I have no family here in Utah, not many close friends at the time, and was trying to work, go to school, and keep myself together.

I have more I can say about it all, but will slowly open up more over time because I'm not sure if this is an appropriate medium to go into the details, and to show you the video I recorded of myself that day hysterically crying explaining in full detail what happened to me, or posting the audio to my emotional ten minute statement which was played in court. However, I hope that this story and others learning to talk about their pain will help them heal.

I was lucky that I reported the crime within the first 24 hours of it happening. I was also fortunate that I had previously had a roommate during the summer who told me her story of abuse and how she wished that she would of reported it and since she didn't report it in a timely manner the cops couldn't do much to help her. I knew that when it happened to me I had to report it if I wanted to see justice.

Your Voice is Your Medicine (YVYM)

My voice was my medicine and I had to accept that. When the crime happened to me, I thought back to my roommate saying she wish she had reported what happened to her and I came to the acceptance that to heal, have peace, have justice I was going to have to report it.

The crime happened to me August 27th in the middle of the night, and within the first twenty four hours I had done the following: Told my parents, talked to my brother who is a lawyer, recorded a video of myself explaining in full detail what had happened to me, reported the crime to my friend's dad's ecclesiastical leader in his church to assure he was aware of the crime, went to the police and reported and filed a report, told my friend what had happened and watched her sob hysterically, told my friends mom what her husband had done to me because my best friend insisted I tell her, talked to my ecclesiastical leader in my church, talked to a therapist, and told my siblings.

Talk about one hell of a day?
#1stworldproblems

To be continued.