Picture this.

On the day you're wrapping up your final lecture of high school, the secretary comes in and asks to see you in the hall. She tells you there are some police officers here to talk to you about something, but she doesn't know what it is concerning. You sit and answer their questions, all honestly. They call your mom to ask her if she will meet us at your house. You ride in the back of a detective's car to your house. You hope people can't see into the car and think you did something bad.

You agree to press charges, give a statement, and they leave. They come back later to listen to you talk to him on the phone. You're scared. The next day, he is arrested. You immediately feel safe as soon as you get word.

Picture this.

A couple of days later, you call your friend to tell her you want to get together to catch up. In reality, you need to tell her that you’ve been living a double life and that your stepdad has been arrested. You get to the point and tell her that you were abused when you were a kid, by your stepdad. It’s not happening anymore though, so don’t worry about that.

Right here, in this moment, her view of you has changed, and you are potently aware of it. You talk some more about the extent of the abuse, and she asks if you ever told anybody about it. When you give your answer, she raises her eyebrows. You’re not the same person anymore, in her eyes.

Picture this.

A few months later, you decide to make a blog post about a nonprofit organization that you’re super passionate about. It raises funds for people who can’t afford counseling and you want to spread the word. Your family comments on it energetically and responds with humility and pride in your ability move beyond your past. Your friends are sweet and encouraging. You feel good about it. Then somebody comments simply that they never knew that about you and that they respect you so much more now for what happened to you.

Picture this.

Two a half years later, you’re in the grocery store, rolling your cart up to the coffee creamer. There’s a man there already, so you patiently wait. He looks to be of average height and build, has olive skin, dark hair, is wearing a baseball cap and a sweatshirt with jeans. Your heart rate picks up. He turns around to put the creamer in his cart and you see his dark facial hair and square framed glasses. Panic.

You remember the safety word that you and the counselor talked about and say it over and over to yourself in your head as you quickly walk away. Your thoughts drift and you move on with your day.

These are all occurrences that have forced me from victim to survivor and forced me to be stronger than I thought I was capable of being.

The most important change I experienced was realizing that the more often things happen, like what I talked about previously, the better your ability to cope with them. I found that after so many times of breaking the news to my closest people, I was an expert at blocking their facial expressions or change in attitude. They bounced off of me, as if I was wearing a protective invisibility cloak.

This change doesn't happen overnight, but it is a key change that's needed to convince other people to see you as a survivor, rather than a victim.

If you went through anything like what I went through, you also must realize that fear is now going to be a regular part of your life. It comes into my thoughts when I’m crossing the street between my house and the parking lot at night or when I’m in the grocery store in the middle of the day. I’ve come to know, though, that sometimes fear just isn’t logical and is a direct result of what happened to me. And that’s okay. It’s just another part of my day.

But here’s the kicker: I can’t dwell on it. If I were to dwell on it, then I would be miserable and it would consume my life. You have to validate what happened to you to yourself (nobody else has the right to know) and move on with your life. What happened to you doesn't always have to be a part of you that must be addressed every single day.

People tell me that I’m strong all the time for what I’ve gone through and how I’ve dealt with it all since telling my story for the first time two years ago. My truth to them is that I just can’t hold onto that burden anymore. It’s not my weight to carry.

And it’s my truth to you to just let it go.