Hello, excuse me for my english but I’m Spanish, so I hope you can understand me.
When I was 15 years old I was walking to the beach with a couple of friends, and it was so hot I was tired …when somebody said we can take a shortcut, I never saw him before but he was a cousin of a neighbor of my friends, so I thought it is okay, you know, we are just a teenagers trying to go to the beach and have a good time.
He said ” it is a shortcut I know where it is, follow me, so I follow him, and then when nobody was there he start to kissing me and push me so I felt and I start saying no, no ,no, and he said you can shout If you want but nobody can hear you here. I could’t move any muscle, just I remember I was trying to shout HELP, but I couldn’t.
I felt so dirty, guilty, I took a shower for an hour maybe and cry, cry , cry all the night.
I could’t said nothing to nobody, nobody, I used to have so many friends and I never said something, I don’t know why.
Then I couldn’t sleep so I start drinking alcohol, and my parents have relationship trouble so they never notice my change, I was the rebel girl, for almost 10 years I was totally alcoholic and nobody notice, now if I’ll try to remember his face, I can’t, because that’s I was trying to do with the alcohol…..forget everything. The only person who knows everything is my husband, now I’m healing myself for those years of silent suffer, I have a daughter, so I need to be alert, and we are taking classes of taekondo for self-defense, she is my angel.
I’m from Chile, but now we living in Memphis, TN.
I saw this film an hour ago and helps me a lot, maybe someday I’ll be able to write a book with my experience and try to help to prevent this kind of awful and ghastly things.
For now continuous healing my soul and try to be strong and totally happy again.
Congratulations for Linor’s marriage and blessings for her babies.
— Survivor, age 39
Dear survivor,
I am really proud of you for reaching out and sharing your story. So many survivors suffer in silence for a long time. Even telling your husband took a lot of courage. It is actually really common to not be able to find your voice during trauma. A lot of survivors freeze and can’t speak – this is one of the most common reactions to have during rape, but it leaves many survivors questioning themselves. Your body protected you and your silence protected you in the aftermath. There are a lot of negative emotions that come with rape and it can take a really long time to be able to heal your soul. The healing journey can be long, but you are on the right path. I hope someday you do writer your book! Light and love to you, Alissa