April is upon us, and with it comes Sexual Assault Awareness month.  How does one spread awareness of sexual assault?  First, you need to know what sexual assault is.  Sexual assault is defined by the American Heritage dictionary as “n. Conduct of a sexual or indecent nature toward another person that is accompanied by actual or threatened physical force or that induces fear, shame, or mental suffering.”, while the U.S. Justice department defines it as “Unwanted sexual contact that stops short of rape or attempted rape. This includes sexual touching and fondling.” Some states will use the term interchangeably with rape. Well thats pretty damn broad, and deceptively vague.

There are many types of sexual assault, rape, child abuse, drug facilitated assault, domestic abuse, hate crimes, sexual harassment and incest  to name a few.  Abuse can occur at any stage in life, by a relative, a stranger, a co-worker, an acquaintance.  Does this mean you should walk through life in fear?  Hell no!  Just be AWARE, know that these things happen, prevent them when you can and be supportive of those who are victimized.

As a victim, nay, survivor of sexual assault this topic is both painful and close to my heart.  So bear with me.  When I was a girl, maybe 8 or 9, I was abused, sexually and mentally.  The abuse continued for more than a year till I gained the courage to tell my parents, they took it in stride, trying to be sympathetic,  therapy ensued, and I was deemed a well adjusted young lady, who seemed to be coping quite well.  I wasn’t, I was a tween with an uncanny ability to compartmentalize as a defense mechanism.  I’d learn later in life that this would come back to bite me in the ass.  By age fifteen I was sexually active, of my own volition this time, I would discover in yet more therapy that this too was a way of coping, I was trying to overcome my former helplessness by being the sexual aggressor, not that I was ever forceful, just the instigator.  With puberty came hormones, and depression, I began cutting myself because I felt I didn’t have an outlet for all the confused jumble of feelings I had within me.  I felt worthless, damaged, that I must be defective if the powers that be would allow what happened to happen to me.  Dating was an adventure to say the least, I found myself unable to maintain stable, healthy relationships for more than a few months, I’d either maintain unrealistic boundaries and force people away, or choke when the time came to be intimate, and no I really didn’t want to talk about.  In my early twenties I was still bouncing about life, behaving questionably, drinking too much, using sex as a means to feel connection, because in my mind sex the act and sexual intimacy were two entirely different fish.  If ten years and a handful of therapists couldn’t fix me what the hell would?  I kept falling back into bad patterns of behavior alternating periods of emotional dependance with bouts of sexual aggressiveness.  It finally took someone who didn’t know me at all, that wasn’t a therapist or a family member to look me in the eyes and tell me with sincerity that it wasn’t my damn fault, and it didn’t make me broken or damaged.  That person is now my husband of nearly 3 years, and that occurrence was our first date where I decided to try the “full disclosure method” and lay out my whole life to this poor sod who thought the girl with the green mohawk and too many piercings in her face was cute.  Not every survivor is so lucky.  Depression, anti-social behavior, borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder and self mutilation are very common effects that the trauma of sexual assault can bring on.  I thought I was tricking the therapists and the world into thinking I was just another normal kid with a few weird personality quirks, turns out I was just finding ways to cope and suppressing the shit I thought was too ugly to face.  Now nearly twenty years after I was assaulted I still deal with it in some way on a daily basis, but now I can accept that it wasn’t because of me, it could have been any other kid, I was just the one who was there, and it most certainly wasn’t my fault.

So how do you make people aware?!  Do you quote statistics such as “1 in 6 woman and 1 in 33 men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.” or “60% of all sexual assaults are not reported to the police.” both of which were taken from www.rainn.org, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, a website I think everyone should take the time to visit, and an organization I fully support.  Should you talk to friends and family about the subject, abso-damn-lutely, especially if you think  you or someone you know may have been abused.  Do you share your story, as I just have, if you’ve been assaulted, regardless of if it was 20 years or 20 seconds ago?  YES, letting everyone know it’s real and it happens and the profound effect it has on not only your life but those closest too you is the only way to keep people from turning a blind eye.  If only 40% of assaults are being reported that means that 6 out of 10 victims are not speaking out.  Thats six sisters, mothers, brothers, daughter, fathers, sons that are allowing the vicious cycle to continue.

So this april, if you mention to just one person a day that it is sexual assault awareness month, and if everyday that one person goes home and googles “sexual assault” maybe that will be one less person who will become a victim, or one person who has been a victim that will get help, or even one person who will prevent someone else from becoming a victim.  You can’t spread awareness with your mouth and eyes closed, so speak up and speak out.