Look. As a survivor I still get anxiety attacks on the regular and that shit has been buried and done for me for thirty years.

Fuck anyone minimizing the trauma sexual violence leaves behind to score political points today. #MeToo
(THREAD)

(2) When I was a rape crisis counselor I heard a prosecutor once say that he thought rape was the crime that inflicted the most trauma.

I was kind of floored. What about murder I asked.

He said most of the time you don’t have to live with the trauma of murder. You’re just dead.

(3) But victims of rape and sexual assault have to live with this trauma for the rest of their lives. It’s in the way they have to struggle to stay present or be intimate.

It’s in the anxiety attacks. The eating disorders.

(4) I broke down and cried during the Capitol Riots because it was fucking terrifying watching a bunch of violent men flood the halls of a place I thought was safe and threaten to kill and kidnap.

As a survivor, you get transported right back to that place.

(5) I learned to be small. How to slide out of rooms without being noticed. I found places to hide. In my room. In the woods. In books.

I know what it feels like to press your face against door hinges, to hold your breath so you can hear where he is & if he’s coming for you.

(6) And fuck anyone who has an ounce of blame to lay at the feet of a woman who dares to voice her experience living through that violence.

I hope she keeps speaking her truth.
Let her rage. Let her refuse to be silent.

(7) Stop trying to make survivors bear the shame of violent men’s actions. Stop blaming women for the violence done to them.

This burden isn’t ours to bear.
Keep speaking up, survivors.
It matters. #NeverAgain