Quote by Audre Lorde

Silence gives power to our abusers and oppressors. But learning to speak your truth can be quite hard. Part of the reason for this is biological. When someone goes through a trauma, the part of their brain that is in charge of speech goes off line (for my nerd friends, it’s the Broca’s area). This affects both how survivors tell their stories and whether or not they tell their stories. But if the traumas are never spoken of they tend to fester and cause other problems, shame being chief among them.

I fully support survivors in making whatever choice is healthiest and best for them in their healing. Regardless of those choices I do believe that learning to speak your truth about what happened is vital to healing. Speaking your truth might be writing poetry, telling a friend or partner, sharing it with a religious figure, going to the police, finding a support group or getting into therapy. There is no one right way to do it, find what works for you. In learning to put into words what has happened to us, it helps us better understand and also helps put those experiences into their rightful place in your life story, as a part of your past, not as a part of your present and your future.