that happened.

You can be a woman or man who’s doubted yourself and your experience for an entire lifetime and decide to speak up, for yourself and for others, one day many years later.
You can be a judge and have abused a woman or women in your past.
You can have nights that are burned in your memory and body forever, while others who were with you have no recollection of the details you carry with you every day.
You can love beer, not be an alcoholic, and still have nights in your past where you blacked out.
You can come across as poised and brave on the outside and be shattered by terror on the inside.
You can be a loving husband and father and treat some women poorly, or even abuse them.
You can be a loving friend and treat your wife and children poorly, or even abuse them.
You can suffer abuse that others might just call ‘boys being boys’ or ‘an accident’ or a ‘misunderstanding’.
You can be paralyzed in fear — unable to say “no” — and still not want nor deserve what happened to you.
You can say “no” and be ignored.
You can have vivid memories of a trauma, while some details remain blurred (in fact, that’s been proven widely by experts).
You can think ‘it’s not that bad’, when in fact, it has changed your thoughts, relationships, and how you feel when you wake up in the morning or try to sleep at night.
You can go an entire lifetime without so much as a tear and then be set off by just one event or interaction that leaves you paralyzed and just beginning to heal from what happened.
You can hear all sides and strive for justice — in your 9-5 — and make a mistake that made someone a victim — in your life outside of the office.
You can cry out of fear that your darkest truth has been revealed.
You can cry because you are telling the honest truth.
You can survive and not feel like a survivor in the slightest.
You can choose not to believe.
You can believe.

#ibelieveher