I live in a developed country, it’s pretty bad everywhere but i figure I have significantly poor look here. Spanning many Years, several occasions, several men, different in nature, same result, collectively took away pieces of me, pieces that I’m not sure what they are anymore. You people are the first to know. Decades and no one real knows, I have no words for it, I don’t recognize what I feel. I did okay in life so far, not great, mostly quite lonely in my thoughts, chirpy enough otherwise. I think too much to a point it’s mistaken as a disorder but in actual fact they don’t realize how much I’ve had to think about over the years. I make up different scenarios where i would deal with it and the scenarios are all different. I’ve cried here and there, everywhere over the years and I dont know why, now I’m just mostly numb, I read about all these survivors here with great emotion, with great break through yet I’m here with 0 feeling choosing to ignore all of it. Should I go this way?
— Survivor, age 24
Dear survivor,
I am very grateful you shared your story with the Brave Miss World community. Everything you said about feeling numb and making up different scenarios in your head makes a lot of sense. Every survivor is on their own healing journey. What works for one person might not work for another. Some survivors speak out immediately, others wait decades. Some come to feel their emotions about it all with great emotion, while others don’t. Dealing with the emotions of sexual trauma can be uncomfortable for some and overwhelming for others. What I have learned over time is that ignoring those emotions makes it difficult to actually heal, but each survivor must deal with that healing in their own way. You are very brave for sharing your story. It took a lot of courage to speak out for the first time. I hope that sharing here helps you on your journey to heal. Please know that sharing your story was a great break through for you – one you should be really proud of. Light and love to you, Alissa
I understand, many understand. I too kept it hidden for soo long. Their are many people I have turned down just out of fear. Every person seems to have felt relieved to tell but I still feel just as nervous and even more scared now that this person know he has to be more sneaky about it. I know what its like to not feel relief and how much differently I act now. I never go places alone or when there are several men. I dont even feel comfortable being around men I have known. Sadly in my case there was little they could do for there was no evidence because it has been so long ago. I even know a lot about them including their name and where they live. I hope you have found some relief in posting here to complete strangers who all have different stories so unique but yet suffer greatly. One day we will find a way to prevent these violent attacks.
I was the same for many years. But there was a point, where I just constantly asked myself, if the sexual assault is still influencing my life. And I ended up not knowing anymore, who I am. Is ist my personality, not being able to fly or is it something related to the past? Am I just an emotinal person or is it related to the past? I started to get curious, who that real me might could be. I could have just live with it and still being “alright-kind-of”, but the new question was: Do I want to live like that? Being an agressive person with no ambitions, hating myself, crying easily, feeling, like noone does understand me… Then, at the end of “my old life”, it suddenly happened.. it was at my parents house, in the middle of the night, and it might was the most painful but also releasing moment after the Assault. I realised: This actually happened. It happened and it’s part of my biography, like my first day in school or my first boyfriend. It belongs to my life and there is nothing I can change about it. And I cried and felt so desperate but for the first time I knew, why.
After my whole journey, I want to tell you just this: You will be able to survive without starting this way. But you should ask yourself, If you want to live your life plainly surviving, or if you actually want to live. If you choose to dare the Journey, keep in mind, and I really do promise you that: You can only win. It is fully worth it and you deserve it. Don’t let them take away your life, they already took enough. Facing the past will finally put you back in charge (regaining the control after events, where it’s been taken away from you will satisfy you so much). At the very end of the journey, there will be nothing there to hide from yourself anymore and you will be able to fully discover your soul the first time and there you will see: you, lightened all up again. Full of love for yourself and the world and proud of being a survivor.