To the girl who is to afraid to tell anybody, doubting whether it even happened.

To the girl thinking she's overreacting, doing everything she can to minimize it.

To the girl feeling alone, ashamed, and afraid.

To the girl blaming herself and shutting those she loves out.

I stood where you are standing. I have lived through all the complex feelings of anger, victimhood, shame and fear that inherently come with sexual assault. On college campuses alone, the statistics show we are part of a club with far too many members. But even if you're well aware of the statistics, well aware that one in five women on campus is likely to be a part of this club, you feel isolated. I understand this feeling all too well.

I offer you my story. It comes from a place of solidarity. I tried to heal by myself, it didn't work. It took a village to get me healthy again, and I work every day to ensure I stay healthy. It's an uphill battle, the hardest climb of your life, but it's not forever. You will walk on flat ground again someday.

You are not alone.

I washed my bedding after, only letting myself cry until the rinse cycle started. I lied and told my friends who knew he came over that we had fun. They didn't see the bruises on my body, they didn't know how much physical pain I was in. I began blaming myself as it was happening, after all, I brought him over, I kissed him, I got myself into this mess. I locked the pain and fear into a box, hoping that, like a bee, if I didn't pay attention to it, it would go away. Time passed, I carried on and met a new guy, but no matter how innocent, his touch would make me shut down. I would tell myself to stop overreacting, what happened was surely normal, you have no right to be affected by it. I wouldn't let people in.

I couldn't see it at the time, but the box I locked my emotions in wasn't strong enough to contain them, instead they just grew, spawning a sense of self-loathing. My emotions grew and grew until the box could no longer contain them. It wasn't until months later, after my being shut down chased away that guy I met, that I said it out loud to somebody else. “I think I was raped.” As I said it for the first time, not just to a family member, but to myself, the box exploded open, letting all the emotions out at once.

Moving on will not be easy.

I fell deep into a hole after I said the word “rape.” It’s still a word I choose not to use. I couldn't deny the pain anymore. I fell into an emotional pit so deep, the light could no longer reach me. Being across the state for school, I didn't have my usual support system, and I spent my days and nights having random attacks of uncontrollable crying as a result. For months, I felt that I would never escape the pain. I was in counseling, both group counseling and individual counseling, and while it would help in the hour I was talking to my therapists, it would only get me thinking deeper later on, bringing up new and old emotions with nobody to talk them out through.

The hardest thing I had to learn in order to begin to heal, was to not undermine my experience by comparing it to others. In my case, I told him no several times, my words hardly phased him, so I told myself that if I said yes, I would one day mean it. My "yes" was pressured, pressured out of fear. He was big and unrelenting. But because I said yes, I told myself I was overreacting, even after I admitted what happened wasn't okay. Once I stopped comparing my experience to others, once I found solidarity, not guilt, in others' stories, that was when I truly began to heal.

I lost all hope at one point, but I survived. It took months, but I crawled myself out of that pit, the blood, sweat, and tears only making me stronger along the way. My friends and family, once let in to the emotions that were crippling me, worked together to send me the equipment I needed to get out of the pit. Without their help, It wouldn't have been possible.

You can come out of this stronger than you can imagine.

Naturally, some of my pain came with me out of the pit, but I changed where I carry the pain. Rather than strapping it on my back, it hunching me over and weighing me down every step I took, I used it as a stool, standing over it, in control, using it to carry me. From my pain, I discovered so many things I cherish about myself and now use it to motivate me. Never again do I want to feel like I’m not in control over my own body, whether it be at his hands, or that of the pain he left in his wake. From my experience, I found what I am passionate about. I no longer silence myself. I am no longer ashamed of what happened, I am proud of how I overcame it.

To the girl who isn't sure what to do now.

To the girl whose world just came crashing down around her.

To the girl who is struggling to cope with it all right now, despite the smile on her face.

To the girl handling it all on her own.

Sharing my story with you isn't easy. I'm sure some of my friends and family will read this having had no clue about what I just shared and will have a lot of questions. They may even be hurt. I needed to share it with you, though, both for you and for me. In many ways, the girl I have been writing this to is a former version of myself. When I was starting to see that what happened wasn't okay, I still felt so alone, there was nobody I could relate to. It wasn't until almost a year later, when reading a Cosmo article, that I read another woman’s, another member of our club's, story that I saw I wasn't alone. Once I saw that, I began to feel normal again. My hope is that my story can also show you, that while what happened to you isn't okay, that while it happens far too frequently, it doesn't make you less of a person. Your feelings, all the complex, confusing emotions you have experienced since it happened, are normal. You are not alone. I am healing right along with you. We are strong enough to get through this.