Stay ConnectedRecently with all the news about Bill Cosby and R. Kelly there have been a lot of talk and television media attention that has followed.
If you follow me you know I don’t watch television very much as I am so busy doing other things and I refuse to let such negativity in my space.
The one of the few series I do watch still is Grey’s Anatomy. I’ve watched since day one and the latest episode dealt with sexual assault. About how it can affect you through your whole life.
I thought in my own life that I was past mine. I forgave my rapist and got counseling and thought I was good.
But as I watched this episode, so many things hit me. The smell that can bring you back to the moment. The random flash of watching something on television, the memory that you thought was gone, can be brought back in a instant.
This episode was it for me, this brought me right back there, the feelings, the emotions and the hurt.
So many people ask why did the victims wait so long to step up and this episode addressed that as well.
Because especially if you knew your abuser, then somehow you must have wanted it, is the most common. The way you dressed, maybe you had a drink with him, or like me smoked a joint with him.
Society is so quick to judge the victims and it makes it hard for us to come forward. Maybe like these men, they are famous so you think who’s going to believe your story.
Maybe like me your beating yourself up so much that you don’t need anyone’s else help to beat you up and say it’s your fault.
Or maybe your ashamed, what will your family think? Your spouse or significant other?
I freely took the ride with him, I knew him, I smoked a joint with him so it had to be my fault, I said a million times.
It is never your fault when you say no and they continue, repeat after me, it is never your fault!
It doesn’t matter if your naked in their bed and you change your mind, it’s your choice to say no, even then.
If a man and I use that term loosely here, keeps going when you said no, that my dear is RAPE plain and simple.
Why do we blame the victims? Why is everyone saying they should have said something earlier? They are hurt, they are devastated, they are in shock, they are afraid, they feel guilty, there are a million reasons why we don’t step up or step up right away.
None of them makes it our fault. None of them lets them off the hook for their horrible behavior.
Watching this show took me right back to that moment and maybe some women need that jolt to move them to the next stage of getting justice. So I take off my hat to this show for hitting on the realities of today. For showing what we really go through, how this lasts for years, for decades of a womens life. For standing up and being a voice for so many of us that didn’t have one.
This is why I write this blog every day, to be a voice for others that may not have one. To speak out against injustice, to make a difference and to inspire others. We all get to do this, as we live in a free world, for now anyways, we still live in a country with free speech. So we need more shows like this, more people like me and you to take a stand and say this is not right. We do not need to blame the victims and glorify the abusers because they are rich and famous. We demand justice even if it’s years later, it is our right and they need to pay for their crimes and the affect it had on our lives.
Trust and believe if they did it once and got away with it, they did it again. So if one peson comes forward it gives courage to the many others still out there, hiding and hurt.
So today my friends, remember you can be that one voice, you can stand up for the millions, you can be that Rosa Parks and say no more!
And as I say at the end of every blog it’s up to you to…
“Be the change you want to see” justsmmservices.com
What Everybody Ought to Know About The Effects of Sexual Assault
