Project Unspoken: Break the Silence, Spread Awareness

These videos are a part of something called 'Project Unspoken' which is concerned with breaking the silence around sexual assault and rape, and spreading awareness. The statistics shown are pretty scary.

This first one brings tears to my eyes, and I love that it's people who know survivors that are speaking out, sending positive messages to the survivors they know; messages which I believe are universal towards all survivors.

You're not just a victim. You're a survivor.

Some of my favourite messages for survivors:
"You could be running around naked and it doesn't mean you're asking to get sexually assaulted or raped. There's nothing that you can do to ask for it."

"There's nothing wrong with you." "And you're still a strong person regardless of that situation"

"No matter what that person did to you, they didn't take away your beauty as a person, as a woman."

"Don't find truth in the way you've been hurt because it's not. The truth is the way that you bounce back and how you recover from it."

"You're beautiful, and I love you, and I'm always here for you if you ever need me."


Just as inspiring as the first, this video asks many of the same people from the first video the question, 'What do you do on a daily basis to avoid rape, sexual assault, or harassment?' It's awesome.

 I am tired of the silence.

I completely agree that "It should be a right to walk down the street and be safe; not something you have to actively work hard at."

It's like there's an epidemic in the midst of society but it's shoved under the rug, ignored, surrounded by a deafening silence. It's time to change that. I too, am tired of the silence.

Introduction

I won’t always be talking about pleasant things. In fact, much of what I have to say is related to something horrible that happened to me when I was eleven. I was sexually abused.

For a long time the abuse shaped my life, my world, everything. But now I’m finally starting take the power back. Power I thought I’d lost but was within me the whole time, waiting to be rediscovered.

What happened to me has changed me, in some ways for the better and in others for worse (and I’m sure there are yet more ways it has changed me that I have yet to uncover). However, I have begun to understand that the abuse doesn’t define me. It’s a part of me now – it can’t be undone – and it always will be. But it’s only one piece of a much larger and complex puzzle.

Slowly but surely I have been moving forward in my healing journey. Every day I get closer to mending the cracked mirror that reflects my image back at me within my mind. Every day the distorting fog lifts a little more. Light is coming back into my life, and though some darkness lingers, it is no longer a giant hulking monster looming over. I’m continuing to work through the shadows of my past.

I want to share this because I want anyone who has gone through anything similar to know that you’re not alone, that you are never alone. That you can make it. And that if you have the courage to try, anything is possible.