Top Tweets for #GetAccountability

My sincerest apologies for speaking about rape. For breaking the silence. For warning others. For refusing to make someone else's comfort more important than another person's safety. I was advised to speak. So I listened. Funny how a survivor who finally finds her voice is sometimes treated as the problem, Especially by scary and obsessive rape apologists Who really know Nothing About Thinga Things But lets assume they know Because rape apologists are the experts Apparently I was once innocent. Twenty-nine years old, with a life, a future, a heart that had never asked to become a battlefield. And something happened that I cannot simply unlive. I cannot put the pieces of my innocence back where they once belonged. But I can decide what happens to my voice. You can presume innocence. You can dispute my words. You can have your version of events. But you cannot demand that I disappear into silence. I will not confuse silence with dignity, nor secrecy with healing. I speak because other people deserve safety. I speak because survivors deserve solidarity. I speak because shame belongs nowhere near the person who survived. I am not asking to be everyone's favourite story. I am asking for a world where nobody has to become a survivor before we start listening. And if my voice gives another person the courage to recognize their own, then perhaps my words have become something beautiful from something painful. I am not fearless. I am vulnerable. I am still healing. Sometimes I am trembling while finding the words. But I speak anyway. I am not the shame. I am not the silence. I am not what happened to me. I am the woman who survived rape and sexual assault, the woman who questions, the woman who advocates, the woman who refuses to let another survivor believe they are alone. Call me outspoken. Call me difficult. Call me a warrior. I call myself someone who finally understands that my voice belongs to me. I survived. I remember. I have a voice. And I refuse to apologize for reclaiming it. Amen. #Vss #Vss365 #Survivor #Warrior #Autistic #BraveWrite #WriteMap #WritingCommunity #PoetryCommunity