Keep Showing up in Your Own Life

(The pictures I am going to use are picture that make me happy and remind me that I am strong and I can continue going Just so you're aware)

So, April is sexual assault awareness month and May is mental health awareness month as many of you know. 

Some of you may know as well that I have struggled with my mental health for many years as well as I have struggled to heal which is something I don’t talk about very often, but with it being SA awareness month lets talk about it. I am probably going to be very vague in this because it is hard for me to talk about with people I am close to, but typing it out is a very

different beast.

If you are going through something regarding sexual assault or mental health please feel free to reach out and we can talk. Again I feel like I always have to say this, I am not a professional I am just a girl who has been through this and has done some research about it all.

It has only been like a year since I started talking about what happened to me but it’s also because I have accepted what happened and stopped denying what happened to me, but I am not going to fully tell the stories of what happened because it’s still extremely hard. 

So I will leave it at this: I, Stephanie, am a victim and I am still healing.

Writing this has taken me multiple weeks, but I wanted to be sure that I was okay with posting this. The conclusion I came to is that I am okay with it and the repercussions that come with it. I am not mentioning names. I am not telling the story, but it happened I know it happened. And nothing anyone says can change what I know happened.

So with that lets talk about it all.

Here are some statistics for you. 

It is estimated that 463,634 people ages 12 or older are victims of a sexual assault (and rape) each year in the US

1 in five women and 1 in seventy-one men will experience rape.

1 in six children have been sexually abused

Almost 1 in ten women have been raped by an intimate partner.

These are crazy numbers and I and others out there that you may know and others that you may not know are part of those numbers. It’s a very sensitive topic for many people and is something that they tend to stay quiet about. There is a tendency when people say something that they are blamed “They could never do that I know them” “They aren’t like that” etc… 

I told a couple of my friends after a night out what happened while we were out dancing where I was forced to kiss someone when I didn’t want to and I tried to get away and I couldn’t until I reached out for the arm of a person that was near me and they pulled me away from the situation.  The guy that did this to me was a coworker, when I told some people as I mentioned before they dismissed me and said he would never do that.

Turns out he would and did and he did it to another girl that year too. A guy beat him up for it and they both got fired. I thanked the guy that beat him up because it meant a lot that someone would stand up against what was happening despite repercussion 

This situation and others that I don’t like to talk about shaped the adult I am today. 

My internal monologue after these things happened was a nightmare.

I had dealt with depression, anxiety, and self-harm before these instances occurred but after them I fell into deep depression and constant anxiety. Dealing with this while in college was extremely difficult because I had no motivation to do anything. Some days I could barely get out of bed, but I had made a promise to myself years before that no matter what I would continue to show up whether it was in pajamas to class or I could actually get dressed.

 I showed up. 

If you are going through anything that I have gone through in my life and you are struggling I encourage you to Show up in your own life. I know that’s hard, but coming from someone who did it before you it’s possible and it’s worth it. 

In 3 days I will be 1,000 days self-harm free and on July 19th I will be 3 years free. I never thought I would be able to say that. 

When I was in the depths of it I didn’t think I would be alive to see a day where I was self-harm free because it was how I coped for 7 years. One day I will surpass the number of years I did and the number of years free will be more than 7.

I want any of you reading this that I am here if you have no one to talk to. It is NOT your fault and it never will be. You can keep showing up. You are always stronger than you know. 

I wouldn’t be able to talk about this today unless I had the people who believed me then and that believe me and support me now. The friends and mentors I have today I will be forever grateful for. Without them I would’ve never been strong enough to talk about this let alone post on my blog about this. So if you’re reading this you probably know who you are. Thank you for giving me the strength to take my voice back and be able to talk about this.

If you don’t have people like this in your life, find them. Until you do, I can be that person if you need. Having people that support you and give you strength until you can build your own strength back is extremely important in the process of healing from everything. I don’t even want to think about where I would be without them, but I know for sure I would not be the person I am today. And I want you to know I still struggle, I still  break down sometimes, I still am healing and probably will be for a long time, I still flinch at movies when a man gets forceful with a woman, I still blame myself sometimes. I am on this journey of healing and it’s hard, but I wouldn’t want to change that for anything.

It’s not your fault.

With love 

-Stephanie <3

(I know this isn’t much and is a little all over the place, but it’s what I can bring to the table right now)