Writing CAN make a difference.
My parents lecture me after almost every time I post on my blog, because they don’t think I should be exposing myself so much on the internet. I completely understand where they’re coming from and I do take it into consideration. This is something I thought deeply about before I posted my latest post on sexual assault, but it turned out to be more worth it than I would’ve ever imagined.
After I shared my experience with sexual assault, I got text messages from people I haven’t talked to in years, saying that they needed to hear what I said. There are so many women out there who feel alone after experiencing something similar to my encounter because they’ve never had the opportunity to talk about it. I think the reason it took me so long to talk about it was because I thought people would say I was making a big deal out of nothing.
If exposing myself comforted even one person, it would’ve been enough. But far more people than that expressed that my story helped them to feel less alone. Even if it wasn’t necessarily with sexual assault, people find comfort knowing that things can get better as soon as they know that they’re not the only ones struggling.
One girl sent me this: “I’ve been going through some tough times since I got to college and have struggled with mental illness and felt really alone. Your writing made me feel a lot better just knowing that there are people like you in the world. If you want to know if you’ve helped someone just know you’ve helped me.”
I deeply hope that this isn’t coming off as bragging, because that would be a twisted way of looking at how hard it was for me to share that story. What I’m trying to get at is this: writing can make a difference. Even if I don’t have the answer to ending sexual assault permanently, it’s a success when I can show one person that their feelings are valid.
I often get discouraged by the idea that there’s so much writing on the internet that mine will get lost in the blah-blah gush of people’s unwelcome opinions. This is another reason I refuse to write the typical, boring blog posts about how I feel about last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I’m not going to take the time to write anything if it doesn’t really matter to anyone.
Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s great that people are scared to post too much about themselves on the internet. Putting yourself in danger for the sake of social media is not worth it, and cyber bullying is a very real problem. I wouldn’t suggest telling the whole world your deepest, darkest secrets. Unless they have a purpose, and unless you’re ready for the world to fire back at you. There will always be someone who discourages you.
Don’t be ashamed of what you’ve been through. They’ve made you into the person you are today, as cliche as that sounds. Mental illness and sexual assault are not caused by the victim. You didn’t make this happen, it happened to you, and now you can choose if you want to share your story to help others along their journeys through this messed-up world.
My parents try to get me to censor my blogs so that future employers won’t know that I have mental illnesses or that people won’t know so much about my personal life. I’ve decided that I don’t want to work for someone who discriminates against people for biochemical disturbances in their brains. I’d rather be hired by someone who knows me for who I really am than someone who thinks I’m perfect. My past shaped the person I am today, and if any employers don’t like who that is, then we certainly wouldn’t work well together anyways.