The importance of speaking out about your experience
hello
my name is emma clay and i am 17 years
old
and today i’m here to talk to you about
sexual assault
and i know some of you probably just got
a bit uncomfortable or nervous at the
mention of this
despite seeing the title or maybe you’re
even wondering
what a 17 year old could possibly have
to say about this subject
but the truth is that a large majority
of youth high school and lower
girls and boys suffer some form
of sexual harassment or sexual assault
before they are 18.
for me personally it happened when i was
14 years old
this is my reality something i’ve dealt
with for years now
and continue to deal with
this and this is my story when i was 13
i was diagnosed with severe depression
and severe anxiety
i was having a lot of issues in school
out of school
all around to the point where i decided
to move schools
at the very end of eighth grade and i
moved from a
private catholic school that i had been
attending for almost nine years
to a public middle school which was
a very big change for me i had never
experienced
public school life there were so many
different kinds of people
that i didn’t know i had been with the
same group of like
10 people for
nine almost nine years and when i went
to this new school i ended up falling in
with the wrong crowd
they were a group of not very nice
people
they hurt me in so many ways
and continued to even after i stopped
being friends
but eventually i gained the courage to
get out of that
relationships and move on
i got myself out which took more
strength than i knew i had
and over the summer i hung out with
people
that i hadn’t seen in a while and i
started making some pretty good
friendships
until high school came and i stopped
talking to them
i became friends with another bad group
of people i fell into the same bad habit
and some of these people weren’t all
that bad they were pretty good
they were nice to me and they respected
me despite
being younger than them most were
upperclassmen and could drive which was
something that was super appealing to a
freshman in high school because
i wasn’t supposed to leave campus and i
was supposed to eat lunch here
but the idea of going to some random
fast food restaurant and just driving
was
so appealing that i started asking
people to give me rides
and most did it kindly they just wanted
to be friends with me which was really
nice and sweet
but some had ulterior motives that came
out
eventually some wanted
to use me for more than
simple things like giving them gas money
which is
seems okay to me i i have to pay for my
own gas now
i understand that but through this group
of people i met two older males
and they displayed a lot of red flags
that
people talk about but i was naive and
vulnerable and i didn’t know how to
see and understand those red flags and
unfortunately something bad happened
with them being able to drive they could
take me places
where i had no way back and in the end
they ended up sexually assaulting me
they raped me
and that was a really hard thing to deal
with
especially because i didn’t even
understand what truly happened
i was dealing with my mental health
still and it was still really bad and
this made it so much worse
and i didn’t accept what happened until
around junior year
when junior came around about halfway
through i decided to try and have a
boyfriend
this this really really nice guy asked
me out and i said yes
i wanted to give it a shot but
i soon started to realize that i was
uncomfortable with physical affection i
couldn’t stand it i couldn’t hold hands
i couldn’t hug
him or my friends not even my family
i couldn’t do anything that normal
relationships
do like i couldn’t do any of that
and that wasn’t fair to him so
eventually
we ended it i ended it with him it
wasn’t fair i wanted
to try and figure out what was going on
with me so i started to talk to my
therapist
that i had for years and it started to
all
come out i eventually told her what had
happened with these two guys
and from there we talked about telling
my mom
i got to the point where i told my mom
which was so scary
i was worried that she was going to
judge me or think less of me
or think i deserved it i
many people do feel that way when
they’re taught when they have these
stories
but my mom was really supportive she
talked to me about it and we
talked through with my therapist too and
eventually i started telling more people
i told a school counselor and from there
the school sro and then
from there more police lots of police
victims advocates sheriffs all kinds of
people that needed to know
for my case because i decided to get
justice
and i am i’m getting justice for me and
sadly
for others as well from there
things have gotten better for me but
just going back
especially when you’re coming forward
with a story it’s really hard
to even think about coming forward maybe
even think about the event in itself
which is why something i did first and
continue to do
i do all the time still whether it be
regarding
the rape and sexual assaults or
the random things that occur throughout
my life
and that’s talking to myself sometimes
in a mirror sometimes in my car when i’m
just driving around
which is a really great thing to do i
encourage you all to do it
it’s an amazing way to voice what you’ve
been thinking about
and voice your opinion on this subject
to an audience that’s yourself
you don’t have to worry about being
judged because there’s only one person
listening and it’s you
from there after you get more
comfortable talking about it out loud
you can start to think about the idea of
telling other people
and it doesn’t make sure it’s someone
you’re comfortable with and you don’t
have to go out and tell everyone
it can be one person it can be a best
friend a parent
a sibling a therapist if you have one a
counselor whoever you feel comfortable
with
that’s totally up to you you decide when
you’re ready
and who you’re ready to tell one
suggestion that i do with my therapist
that she taught me
is playing with something i i usually
used a rubik’s
rubik’s cube which i finally learned how
to solve i’ve done it once have
never been able to successfully do it
again but
just messing with something in your
hands or drawing
allows your brain to have a little
distraction to where you’re not
solely focused on what you’re saying
which is an amazing thing to do
it makes you less likely to start
freaking out because
you’re distracted this is something i
encourage
to you to do and i do still today all
the time
from there you can start to tell other
people and more if you want you can
start to think about going to the police
but it’s totally up to you you’re in
control of your life
you determine when you’re ready and when
you’re not ready it’s all up to you
i don’t care if someone’s saying that
you need to start talking now
you don’t have to i really
don’t care what they say you don’t have
to you
do what’s best for you because you know
what’s best for you
this is you we’re talking about your
parent
or your friend they don’t know what’s
going on inside your head
and what you’re thinking about
so it’s totally up to you and i know
when you’re coming forward and thinking
about coming forward with these stories
there’s so many worries i had the same
ones
like with my mom whether she would think
i’m lying
which unfortunately people do lie and
people and now people
have to question the legitimacy of
others stories because of that
or they’re going to judge you and think
you asked for it but no matter what
you’re wearing what you do
nothing makes you nothing you did
made it your fault it’s never your fault
especially i know it’s an issue when
you’re in middle school or high school
school can be
a hostile environment sadly to say it’s
not supposed to be but it is
we walk on eggshells around making sure
we don’t say the wrong thing
or do the wrong thing so people start
judging us or boys
take that word or action you did and use
it against you
it does happen but you don’t have to let
it
if you stand up to them you don’t they
can maybe use some embarrassing thing
about your life but if you don’t act
like you’re embarrassed it doesn’t have
to
be bad to you which is
an amazing thing you have to come to an
acceptance in yourself
to the point where you don’t have to
care what other people think
i i still do but i work
to try and not to think about what
others say about me because
they don’t matter what matters is what i
think about myself
and i’m proud of myself i’m proud that
i’ve come this far i’m a survivor
but i was also a victim and you can also
you’re also survivors
of anything in your life and i’m so
proud of you for doing that
it’s amazing that you are able to get
through this
and even if you haven’t told your story
you can
but there’s no pressure to do that
there’s no peer pressure and i’m not
trying to peer pressure
into anything if you’re whenever you
know when you’re comfortable
especially regarding things such as
serious as this
one of my favorite quotes i’m gonna give
you before i go
is from one of my favorite tv shows
criminal minds
it’s scars remind us where we’ve been
they do not have to dictate where we are
going
which i think is a beautiful quote to
live by
i have plenty of scars emotional and
physical
and in all my past they’ve it’s created
me
to who i am today but it does not have
to define who i’m going
to be it does not it’s not saying that i
need to go and do this or i need to go
and do this i can
i can create my own destiny in a sense i
do what i want to do
because i do what makes me happy and i
have all my scars
like i said emotional and physical and
i’m showing them to you
because i want you to know that you are
not alone in anything you do i’m here
for you i believe in you
and i’m so proud of who you’ve become
and where you’re going to be
thank you