Stand Up!

This week, I saw another video about sexual abuse. Two best friends made a video expressing that one had experienced molestation and the other had experienced bullying.

I was so touched that I shared the video on my personal Facebook page, thinking that others would comment and stand up for these young ladies and for all the women who have experienced abuse. To my disappointment, only two people commented on the post. I was angry. I am angry. My joy for these young ladies finding their voices and being able to ‘speak’ their truth turned into anger toward the people who would rather keep them silent. I am angry that people who claim to love me still don’t support my work of giving a voice to women who have experienced sexual assault and sexual abuse. Oh, they support me privately, where no one can see them. They send me text messages and inbox messages and emails that no one can see. God forbid that they have a public opinion about violence against women. Did I mention that I AM a woman? And that the majority of my Facebook friends are women?

If I had posted a video about a monkey who could climb a tree while drinking from a baby bottle, I would have had over 100 likes and shares. In fact, the video would go viral and be shared by millions across social media networks. But when I post a video about something that is so prevalent that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men experience it in their lifetime, I get 2 comments and 2 likes. Wow!

You see, this is the root problem with our society: We’re numbed to the things that matter. We’d rather be entertained than informed. We’d rather be silent than speak. We’d rather feel sorry for ourselves because our greatest problem is that we can’t buy the new car we want or afford the new house that we don’t need. We don’t want to think about people who are hurting, who are dealing with a real problem that has affected their lives so much that they want to cease living. Watching a video about two young ladies who came out of the shadows of shame and the darkness of depression due to sexual abuse and bullying is too much reality for us. We’d rather be watching a “reality” show called Survivor than watching a video about someone who has actually survived something real.

But, that doesn’t mean that we’re going to stop telling our stories.

No! We’re going to keep standing up to be seen by you. We’re going to keep speaking out about violence against women and children. We’re going to keep standing and telling the world that it’s WRONG to assault a woman. It’s disgusting to molest a child. It’s sick to rape anyone!

I spent the greater part of my life sitting down on my pain and laying comfortably in a bed of sorrow. I spent my youth screaming and crying into a pillow because I knew if I even whispered to the world what happened to me that they wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t even stop to ask me to repeat myself. I can’t do that anymore and neither can you.

It’s time to stand up and speak out! Living with your pain is so much harder than thriving in your truth. The truth only hurts the person who is hearing it. The person who is speaking it is finally on the road to freedom. I’m not sorry if my truth hurts you. I’m not sorry if my truth makes you uncomfortable. I’m not trying to save the world. I’m trying to change the world. I’m not looking for your approval, I’m looking for your compassion. I’m looking to see if you have an ounce of empathy for the human condition. I need to know that through the use of technology, we haven’t actually lost touch with each other. I need to know that we are still capable of feeling the pain of another and that we care more deeply about their healing than we do about their silence.

We can’t afford to sit silently while men continue to rape our women and children. We can’t sit in comfort while another little boy is abused. We can’t sit there and watch another story about a woman in India who has been raped by a group of men and then killed by her family because SHE has brought shame to THEM. We can’t sit here and watch two young ladies tell their story of pain and recovery and then skip down the timeline to see who is acting out on another “reality” TV show. How can we continue to be silent?

Your experience with rape, molestation, incest or abuse was not meant to silence you. Your pain was meant to inform you and to strengthen you. I really believe that what you’ve been through would have killed someone else because they are not as strong as you. You were chosen for this journey because you can make it. You didn’t die. You’re still here.

You will spend one-third of your life sleeping. You will spend another third of your life working, usually sitting down. Why not use the rest of your life to stand up? Be willing to be uncomfortable and be willing to make other people uncomfortable.

Stand up and tell someone your story. You might save them from experiencing your pain. Tell a young girl to believe in herself and have self-esteem, no matter how much people bully her or talk about her. It may keep her from seeking love from a boy or a man who is out to harm her and take something from her that doesn’t belong to him.

Stand up and speak to a mother or a father who has a child they love. Tell them the signs to look for and the behaviors to watch for in their children and the people who are around their children. Stand up and tell them your story, so that the next time they feel uncomfortable about a family member or a friend hugging their child a little too long, they will stand up and say, “Get your hands off of my baby.” Make them feel comfortable talking to their child about what appropriate touch and genuine love feels like. Empower them to tell their children that their bodies belong to them and that they should never be embarrassed about saying no to someone, even an adult in authority.

Stand up and tell your husbands and your sons about how to treat their daughters, sisters, and girlfriends. Teach them about how to respect a woman. Tell them that a father’s love lays the foundation for his daughter’s expectations from relationships for the rest of her life. Teach your sons to protect themselves and their siblings. Teach them that it’s ALWAYS okay to say no. Teach a family to talk to each other about everything and avoid the secrets that kill, steal, and destroy lives and families every day.

Stand up and tell your girlfriends your story. Tell them so that they can begin to understand your struggle and so that they may reach out to someone else who may be hurting. Stand up and tell her so that she can talk to other women about sexual assault and abuse without judging them. You may find that your closest friend has also been keeping her secret from you (1 in 4). But, you’ll never know if you don’t stand.

Stand up and tell the world that even though you’ve experienced sexual assault or sexual abuse, you’re still here. You’re valuable. You’re worthy. You’re a mother. You’re a daughter. You’re a sister. You’re a wife. You’re a warrior who has lived through a battle that would have killed most.

Stand up for love. Stand up for you. Stand up for change and transformation. Stand up for deliverance and healing. Stand up for freedom from hiding in the shadows. Stand up and be the light.

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“I began to ask each time: ‘What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?’ Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, ‘disappeared’ or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.

Next time, ask: ‘What's the worst that will happen?’ Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end.” ~ Audre Lord

STAND UP!