THIS IS WHAT STRENGTH IS. ❤️Trigger warning: a brave personal story involving rape. ❤️ "Less than a year ago from today I was gang raped by three men that attended my university. I was destroyed I hid in shame, I didn’t come out of the dorms very often, and when I did, I was in the biggest baggiest clothes I could possibly find, doing everything I could to hide the body that must have invited strangers to stay. When it was the weekend I was tossing drinks back in an outfit I used to love wearing, that I felt radiated beauty and the body I was working so hard to get, but it now felt like a giant red target right over my back. Like the clothes I wore and the body I inhabited plotted against me to destroy all I thought I knew. I sunk. I heard people talk, I saw my rapists on campus, saw the way that one of their girlfriends looked at me, like I chose this. Like I was attempting to steal her boyfriend from underneath her, and apparently his two friends too. I fought through the rest of the semester; I did everything I could to keep my head above water. The last day of finals finally came and I packed up my stuff and I walked away. Right off campus, right back home to my mom. I hid in shame and that shame kept me ruined. I thought that somehow I asked for it. That I shouldn’t have drank anything, or dressed the way I did or flirted, or danced, somehow I should have known better.
But then I got up, and I kept pushing. I went off for a semester to find healing and to go travel, and that saved my life. It was a missions program that allowed me to heal on my time surrounded by incredible people, and eventually I got to go help other people in different countries that were dealing with similar things. Our group could have been assigned to work with any ministry, and it just so happened that it was trafficked girls in villages, and red-light districts in the heart of the city. Both giving women back their power and fighting alongside of our sisters. Right after I got raped I discovered Fred and Far, because I started a self-love page on Pinterest to help remind myself of who I am, and what I am capable of. (Continued in comments)
We ❤️ you beyond words @summeralyxandra333