Trigger Warning: Rape Mention 

I was sitting in the room, a computer, a plant, and two chairs beside me. I was crying so hard; I didn’t want to tell anyone. I refused to. I knew it would break this person’s heart and I could not watch that happen.

My psychiatrist has been pleading with me for two years to tell her; every time I even thought about it, the tears would begin to fall down my face because the wound was still open. She came into the room and, with the tears still running down my face, my doctor told her that I have gone through something – but that I was not ready to tell anyone.

This person was my mother. I usually tell her everything about my health, but I just couldn’t tell her about the rapes that had happened to me. As we left the office that day, I remember her saying, “Emily, anything you tell me, we can handle.” Even with those words coming out of her mouth, I still wasn’t ready. Every day since those rapes happened I have sat with hate in my heart, not only for the men who did this to me, but for myself, for letting this happen to me. “I am smart. I knew better; why would I put myself in that situation? If I had gotten up and left with my suitcase in the middle of the night, would he have found me? If I had yelled “NO” louder, would he have stopped?” This is what went through my head every time I thought about the rapes.

It was actually after writing my first blog for this website that my parents found out about the rapes, by reading it in my bio section. For some reason, I never thought they would read that, but they did. I woke up on a Sunday with a message from my dad, saying that he had read the article and that we would get through this. I tried to hide more tears as I lay next to someone in their bed. I went home and cried some more, feeling embarrassed and scared – the secrets I had been hiding for all these years had finally come out. People who know me know that I will hide everything I can until I decide to let it out; this time, I couldn’t hide anymore.

I went to my psychiatrist a couple weeks later, and told her that my parents knew about the rapes. We discussed it and thought that this is now a good time to finally tell them everything. We brought my mom into the room like we do every appointment; we told her that we knew that she had found out and that we were going to set up a meeting with my so we could talk about it all.

November 8th 2016, was the day. The three of us sat in the room with my psychiatrist, and I finally told them about how I was raped twice. My mom’s reaction was, “we have already prepared for the worst, so this I’ve been ready for. It’s still a punch in the gut, but I have been prepared” My dad’s reaction was the same – we were already prepared for the worst. He also threw in some curse words in there about the men who did this to me.

But now I felt free; I wasn’t hiding this dark cloud above my head or in my heart anymore. It was like all the anger has slowly been drained.

I don’t want to say that this is the case with everyone. We will never forget what has happened to us, but until you tell the people you love, you don’t realize how much support that is truly out there. Writing that blog bio was the best thing I could have done. It had the silver lining.  This blog is meant to encourage people to get their darkness out and let the light in. Being in the dark is scary, but letting the rays of light in opens your eyes to the things you have been missing; a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a best friend. These could all slip past you if you resist letting the light in. Don’t be scared.

Like musician Frank Turner says in his song Glorious You,

“So come on now, if we all pull together
We can lift up the weight of the world from your shoulders
Lift up the weight of the world from your shoulders
Just for a moment or two.”

Read more of Emily’s posts here.