You Don’t Have to be an Advocate

"So, you may be looking at all these videos and thinking how brave or strong individuals are for, you know, speaking out and telling their story. But I want to make sure that you know that advocating and advocacy is healing for myself, but might not be healing for you or others. I’ve had individuals come up to me and say, you know, ‘I feel a drive to advocate, but I’m not comfortable, I don’t want to share my story.’ And the answer to that question is, you don’t have to share your story. You have control over your story, and that control piece is actually part of healing. So you can choose not to share. You could share, and then stop sharing. Or, later down the line, you could share. But again, I want to make sure that you know that there is no pressure to share your story and advocate.

There are other organizations that you can see on this website if you want to advocate, or at least just doing research. But I also tell people that if you’re really wanting to advocate for something, you don’t have to advocate for survivors of sexual abuse. You could actually pick a totally different cause, because there’s other organizations out there that need volunteers and individuals to help with their mission. So, if you find yourself wanting to advocate, but you don’t want to share your story, there are other ways to help other people. So I wanted to make that very clear to you, that for me and for others who do share their story, that process helps our healing, but then again, that might not be for you, and that’s okay."