We Have No Choice but to Use Our Voice

What Will you Do When it Happens to You?

We have no other choice but to use our voice.

All we can do as survivors is use our voice.

The system leaves us with no other choice.

We have no other option but to, as you say… “secondarily re-traumatize you”.

Then, they say to us survivors, “Did you go to authorities? Didn’t you tell the police?

Hunny, you need an attorney, don’t tell me this.”

Oh yes, we say, “I have an extra money lying around to hire an attorney and the police wouldn’t listen.

The cops say there is not enough evidence, why would we bother.”

When rape cases rarely have little physical evidence, if only they knew their own stats.

You must know the signs and behaviors instead.

That would require more work than another abuser is willing to give to locking up one of their own kind.

The system is full of men in power protecting other men.

So we as survivors have to enrage you with our story, to get a chance at change.

That’s why they try to silence us.

They DARVO us.

They economically abuse us and use us some more.

Because changing a system that protects and benefits white men will never get survivors justice by going through their own ‘proper’ channels.

Going to police, going to UCMJ (uniform code of military justice), going to court is NOT a place for vindication.

We only have our voice.

Our abusers and the enablers try and try to take that voice away.

To our own detriment, we speak out louder than before.

Does it hurt you to hear what we went through? It still hurts us too.

Speaking out as a survivor hurts us more, our abuse only continues.

It hurts us to tell millions of strangers the worst moments of our lives.

We are ostracized, violently questioned and isolated more.

Loss of economic opportunities and loss of friendships.

Our voice is all we have.

Even though we should have no reason to feel shame and embarrassment, we still do.

There is no way NOT to feel shame because of how the public and sometimes even dear friends look at us different and question us over and over again.

They put themselves in our shoes and tell us post-attack, presumptuously what they would do.

We speak out anyway.

We were not the ones who did the harm.

All we have left is our voice.

We speak on stats, and the public still is shocked that it could ever actually happen to you.

It’s happens to nearly all of us, or we know someone, so where have you been?

Us survivors are re-traumatized just in attempting to seek an ounce of justice.

Enraged no one in the community cares to do anything other than share a whimsical prayer.

We have no other choice, but to use our voice.

We have no other recourse than to verbally traumatize you with our stories.

Until you believe us without requiring all of the gory details next time.

You continue to need all the gore and details just to believe survivors.

You judge us thinking we want some kind of clout.

As if we want the fame of being abused and used.

A fame that leaves us more isolated, broke and hurt, with only our truth to cling to, and a hope for a better future world.

We speak out when it hurts us, because we are thinking of the next survivor.

To our own detriment, we continue to speak out.

If we don’t speak out, the abuse can keep going without anyone knowing.

I won’t apologize that it hurt you to hear what happened.

Us survivors speak in power to fight what we all know isn’t right.

But what will YOU do when it happens to you?

Believe survivors and release the complete files and names.