Honoring our Truth

I was talking with one of my Sisters in the Revolution today about this weird phenomenon where when we are abused/assaulted we are told these strange, dismissive things by society, our family, our peers, our perps that make us doubt our experience, and our feelings  Strange things like "it wasn't that bad", "nothing REALLY happened", "you're crazy/wrong/bad", "you're over-reacting", "you asked for it by (fill in the blank with something stupid)"...and so on...we all have that phrase we've heard that set us off kilter, when we are already thrown off course by what has happened... And we are silenced...we are silenced by these messages that tell us that some how WE got the experience wrong.

We are further silenced by the impending shame that comes from all victim-blaming messages that we are gifted from Rape Culture, directly and indirectly, that we internalize and make our own. Messages that tell us that we mustn't really know our reality,  that we somehow "let" this happen, that we should have known better, that we must be the only one (so WE must be bad/wrong/damaged for this to have happened), that it could have been worse (so, get over it)...again the list goes on and on... is it any wonder that we lose our voices, and doubt our truth?

But we know all of that, don't we? Here's what I haven't really figured out...why is it that society is so willing to believe a perp over a victim? Why is it we have to question the motives, actions, integrity of a victim, as if they are the ones guilty of some crime, while we allow perps to be considered innocent until proven guilty? Why is it so much easier for society to believe that victims are lying, and that perps couldn't have possibly have committed the atrocities that they are accused of? I have answers to these questions based on my research, and my work...how if we acknowledge that there are monsters among us that maybe WE could be a monster, or someone we love could be a monster; or that if we acknowledge that someone else was victimized we might have to acknowledge our own victimizations, that the perps have shouted so loud for so long that we started to believe their "truth", etc...yes I have some intellectual answers...but these answers don't satisfy me in my gut, and they don't satisfy my sense of justice.

What is the answer? Maybe, at least part of the answer is Honoring our Truth. Honoring the Truth of our Sisters (and Brothers). Letting our voices be heard. Letting all of our voices drown out the voices of the people who would blame us, shame us, dismiss us.

Here is one of my Truths that I will Honor today:
I was 7, John McA$$hat was 15.  For years I thought "I should have stopped it, I should have fought harder." Truth: He was literally twice my size. And even when my brother, who nobody messed with threatened to kill him, he still didn't stop. I couldn't have stopped him.