Content Note: This is a deeply personal post that includes discussion of trauma and sexual assault. Please take care of yourself while reading.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and for me, this isn’t just something I acknowledge from a distance. It’s something that shaped my life in a very real way.
Like a very large portion of the female population, I carry that kind of trauma.
For most of my life, I didn’t talk about it. I held it quietly, the way so many of us are taught to do. I protected the person who hurt me, and I carried the weight of what happened as if it was mine to bear. For over 39 years, I believed it was something to be ashamed of, something that needed to stay hidden.
When you live under something like that for long enough, it starts to feel almost protective. You build your life around it. You learn how to function with it. It becomes something you hide beneath, like a blanket, because naming it feels far more dangerous than carrying it.
Especially if you’ve ever tried to speak before and were silenced.
There is so much shame wrapped up in sexual assault, and it’s one of the biggest reasons people don’t report. When the person who hurt you is a family member, that shame becomes even heavier. You internalize it. You learn to live with it. And over time, it doesn’t just stay in your mind—it lives in your body.
Five years ago this October, that stopped working.
I experienced a major resurgence of my trauma, and it didn’t come back quietly. It was overwhelming, and it broke me in a way I had never experienced before. My spirit broke first, and not long after that, my body followed. About two months later, my health problems began, and everything started to unravel.
I had spent a lifetime carrying something that was never mine, and my body finally said no more.
Around that same time, the #MeToo movement was happening, and I was watching women—many of them very visible and very powerful—stand up and speak openly about what had been done to them. I watched them place the blame where it has always belonged: on the abuser.
I watched them name what happened without apology, and it gave me something I hadn’t fully allowed myself to consider before.
It gave me another choice.
Because when you’ve lived under that kind of silence for your entire life, speaking it out loud feels terrifying. It feels like you’re stepping out from the only thing that has ever kept you “safe,” even if that safety was built on hiding.
But I reached a point where something had to change.
I had to face what I had spent my life avoiding. I had to become comfortable with my own darkness instead of running from it. I had to start saying no to people and situations that were hurting me. I had to learn how to use my voice instead of swallowing everything that was handed to me just to keep the peace.
And in the middle of the darkest period of my life, I had to find a way to hold on to hope.
For the first time, I chose not to give up. Not in the way I had before. I chose to get better, not just for my kids who were watching me go through it, but for myself.
That year, I fought for myself harder than anyone ever had.
I spoke about what happened to me publicly. I didn’t hide the uncomfortable parts. I didn’t try to make it look neat or acceptable. I let people see it, because part of my healing was learning how to exist out in the open, even in my discomfort.
And I lost people because of it.
There were people who were more comfortable with my silence than they were with my truth. But by that point, I understood something I hadn’t understood before.
The secret itself was what was breaking me.
The belief that it needed to stay hidden. The belief that it was something I should carry quietly. That is what nearly destroyed me.
For more than 39 years, I protected the person who hurt me.
Enough was enough.
One of the most important things I found in naming what happened was support.
Speaking it out loud connected me with people who had been through similar experiences. It allowed me to see that I was not the only one carrying something like this, and that mattered more than I can fully put into words.
That is what made the #MeToo movement so powerful.
It showed people they were not alone.
We saw women from every walk of life—military leaders, Olympic athletes, prominent actresses—stand up and say, “me too.” And in doing that, they helped dismantle the idea that this was something rare, or isolated, or something that only happened in the shadows.
We also began to see something else.
Accountability.
We watched abusers fall from positions of power. We watched them be named. We watched, in many cases, as they were finally forced to answer for what they had done.
For so many of us, that mattered. Not just because of justice, but because it validated what we had experienced.
It made it real in a way that silence never could.
Letting go of that silence didn’t erase what happened, but it changed my relationship to it. It allowed me to reconnect with myself in a way I never had before. It allowed me to start healing in a way that was honest instead of hidden.
And that transformation is what became Green Magick Apothecary.
This business was not created out of a trend or an idea. It came from a place of necessity. It came from learning how to care for a body that had been through too much, and understanding that healing has to include both the physical and the emotional.
Everything I create comes from that place.
So when I say that this month matters, it’s not about awareness in the abstract.
It’s about truth. It’s about removing shame from something that never belonged to the survivor in the first place. It’s about understanding why so many people stay silent, and what it takes to finally step out of that.
And if you are someone who is still carrying something like this, still holding onto something that was never yours to carry…
You are not alone.
I am here.
Support is available. There are people who care, people who will listen, and people who will witness your truth without turning away.
You don’t have to hold this by yourself anymore.
I will be your witness.
I will hold it with you.
If you need support beyond this space, you can reach the RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE or chat online at rainn.org — confidential, 24/7 support is always available.
https://rainn.org/
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