I don’t want to talk about the time I was five years old and on a Kindergarten field trip, a boy kissed me against my will and threatened to kill me with his karate if I told the teacher.

I don’t want to look back on the numerous times that as a child, I would walk the short distance from my house to the park, and a car would slow down and drive beside me as I walked. A man with a scary voice and a twisted up face would always roll the window down and say things like, “hey baby, where you going?” or “you’re beautiful, you know that?”.

I don’t want to think about the first time (of many) that someone grabbed my butt in the seventh grade hallway. I don’t want to remember turning around, embarrassed and shocked, to see him high-fiving his friends who were sneering and giggling and mocking me.

I don’t want to flash back to the time in ninth grade when I was wearing my “flyaway” cheer skirt, and I caught my history teacher licking his lips at me. I don’t want to recall his big wink and the chuckle he let out when I made eye contact with him.

I don’t want to talk about Halloween my sophomore year, when the boy I loved locked me in his house, pinned me down on his couch and tried to force himself on me. I don’t want to remember having to physically shove him off of me and onto the floor. I don’t want to hear his angry voice calling me “bitch” ringing in my head.

I don’t want to remember when I was fourteen and a boy I didn't like forcibly kissed me when I was laying down on my couch. Or when I was fifteen and another boy forcibly kissed me by grabbing the back of my head and pulling it towards him, sitting in his fancy SUV that was running in my driveway. Or when I was sixteen and another boy grabbed me and forcibly kissed me in front of my English class.

I don’t want to think back on the time I was in college and was filled with so much anxiety and fear after all of these years of sexual mistreatment, harassment, and assault, that when the boy I wanted to marry overstepped the physical and sexual boundaries I was comfortable with, I tailspun into a wild episode of depression and anxiety, unable to properly function for months.

I don’t want to admit that the man I did end up marrying used his addiction to pornography as an excuse to abuse me sexually, to molest me, to attack me in my sleep, and to rape me. Not only that, but when I wasn’t enough for him, when I couldn’t fill his sexual desires, he entered into another sexual relationship with another woman, hurting me even further.

I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to remember it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want every bad touch or scary feeling or creepy stare or gross word or sick smile to be seared into my memory. I don’t want to carry this brokenness with me. Because I don't want any of this to have happened.

But it did. It happened.

So I do want to talk about it... because I want to share my experiences. I want control of my own narrative. I want the boys who have hurt me to be held accountable. I want others to know they are not alone in their hurt. I want to be a part of opening the dialogue so that this sin has nowhere to hide. I want to remove all shame, all guilt, all embarrassment from every survivor of this kind of sexual torture.

Of course, I also want to be heard and believed. Ultimately, however, I know that not everyone will hear or believe me. Thankfully, though, I know I have a heavenly Father who hears my pleas, mends my broken heart, knows my testimony, and is restoring my soul. He is my hope and my salvation. He is my strength. He is my joy. He is the only reason I am alive and have not taken my own life, despite my flesh’s constant longing to be torn apart.

If you have a story like mine, please know I love you. Please know I want to talk to you and empathize with you. Please know I believe you. And please know that there is an abundance of life and joy and grace and healing and freedom that is found in my Savior.