As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, deciding to go public with my truth has been a journey in itself. As I film, edit and publish every single one of my videos, I continue to process old memories that come forward. There is so much more that goes on behind the camera and between the video cuts. To be honest, it is incredible and unbelievable how each video is born and even makes it way up on YouTube and my website.
My decision to go public with my story has turned out to be an amazingly cathartic and healing experience.
The decision to become visible and tell one’s story is also an incredible feat of transformation for any survivor. It is the moment when, finally, the survivor is able to use their own voice to bring about change. For the survivor, visibility screams at the top of its lungs that what has happened to the survivor should never, ever have happened in the first place. And even louder, it declares with conviction that this should never, ever happen to another person…again.
So when YouTube contacted me by email to say that one of my videos entitled The Truth About Your Anger had been taken down because of defamation, I became numb. Really numb. I had just been triggered. And I knew this was a big one! It hit me hard. And I felt myself slowly giving in to this trigger. It was taking me over. I was making it about now. But triggers aren’t about now! Triggers are teaching moments. They happen for us, not to us. But it is so hard to remember this in the moment when you’ve just been triggered.
But it felt like this was happening to me now. I knew who was behind this. I knew that this same family member was trying to silence me…again. This was not the first time that he has tried to silence me since I went public with my story. I wanted so badly to make this about now. I wanted to control what was happening to me because I felt out of control. I wanted to scream, cry, punch something and rage. All at the same time. This was so unfair what he was doing to me NOW!
But this trigger was not about NOW. This family member was triggering a childhood memory buried so deep inside of me.
It was like he had just taken a hook and yanked it out!
And I was left to deal with the pain of this memory, alone, again.
This was a flashback that was taking me back to the time of my childhood when someone tried to silence me. And all I knew was that I needed to process this because I was in a lot of pain.
So as always, I took out my number one tool to process all my memories – my laptop. I began to journal furiously. And I continued for hours. I didn’t sleep all night. There was a lot to process, and I knew there would be because the pain was deep this time. My abusers made sure that I would not remember. I was not supposed to remember what was coming up.
I was not supposed to remember that they had tried so desperately to silence me as a child.
I was not supposed to remember my years of sexual abuse. They didn’t happen to me. Instead, I was told I was crazy, and I was making this all up in my head. And I believed it for years. I had to in order to survive. The pain to remember would have been too much. But in taking down my video on YouTube, my family wanted to silence me once again. And this family member brought up the deepest wound for any sexual abuse survivor to heal – the wound of being told that you are making it all up. And that you are crazy. So it took a few days to feel the emotions that I couldn’t feel as a child.
And here is the lesson I have learned from this emotional trigger, and I will scream it from any mountaintop for the world to hear:
I WILL NOT BE SILENCED!
And as I continued to work through this emotional trigger, I felt that I needed to make a video because I had a message to share with all other sexual abuse survivors who are struggling to find their voices:
It is time to get angry at your abusers and at people who cannot and will not believe your story. I believe you! You are not crazy, and you are not making this up. And together, we will be silenced no more!
NOTE: After two attempts to appeal YouTube’s decision to take down my video, I received an email from YouTube stating that they have reinstated it. This is a definite WIN for all sexual abuse survivors who will be silenced NO MORE!
