“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”

If you have been following my personal journey through this blog, you may notice that I have rewritten and reposted one of my entries. This entry was the one titled “My own little hive” where I first shared with you the abuse that has been hidden in my past. I have made the decision to exclude some of the indirect nouns in the repost that I used in the original. This was a difficult decision but one that I was able to come to peace with.

Almost two weeks ago, I received a letter from an attorney asking me to remove the post claiming it was defaming his client. After speaking to some of my amazing friends and family, I decided to utilize the skills of an exceptional law firm and arm myself with knowledge. I used this firm because they have a wonderful reputation with similar cases. So, after some wonderful advise from my brilliant attorney, I have become aware of what my rights actually are. (There is so much power in knowledge!) I know now that I have the right to tell my story and will not be scared into silence again, as I was as a child. The changes I am making to the blog post are solely my decision. The reason I am doing this is because speaking my truth has absolutely nothing to do with my abuser. It is about my need to uncloak myself from the shame and fear that have surrounded these events. And by having even a vague description of him in the post it shifted the focus of the post from its original intent and put the light on who the abuser was. And I want to say this in no uncertain terms, I am done with him. He is not worth another moment of my time. He has had held a dark place in my life long enough. It is long past time to move on!

Don’t get me wrong, there is a part of me that wants to come at this from the direction of anger. To speak of how many people in my life could possibly fit the description I gave in my original post, and how only one person jumped up with the threat of a law suit. But I am trying to remain on the high road. To keep my direction clear and not be tempted down the path into the dark place that my abuser can take me. Ok, well maybe I went there for a minute, but I will allow myself that one indulgence…

I feel this deep need to speak my of journey and the lessons I have learned from them. I am not sure if this is journey will be just for myself or if my story may be able to reach out and help someone else. Nonetheless, I am going to continue to follow my heart and speak my truth. I am not the same scared child that kept this secret to myself for all these years. I will not be bullied into silence anymore!

This last couple of weeks has shown me first hand why so many people keep these secrets to themselves. Why there is such deep fear in speaking out. And until we as a society can create a space where victims can feel safe to speak the truth we will never have an idea of the true number of people who have gone through similar situations. The numbers currently for sexual abuse is staggering.

Here are just a few:

• 88% of cases of sexual abuse are never reported to the authorities. (www.childhelp.org)
• In as many as 93 percent of child sexual cases, the child knows the person that commits the abuse. (www.stopitnow.org)
• Adult retrospective studies show that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men were sexually abused before the age of 18 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006). This means there are more than 42 million adult survivors of child sexual abuse in the U.S. (www.d2l.org)

With all that being said, I am grateful for the lessons learned over the past couple of weeks. Before this situation arrived in my life I did not know my rights. Now I do! Now I know that truth is not defamation, and I have every legal right to tell my story. And I know that I never have to allow myself to be silenced again. I have the greatest support system in my life right now. And that is not something that I could have said a year ago. I have meticulously cut away the negative people who have been in my life over the last 10 years and have now aligned myself with loving and supportive people. All my love and gratitude goes out to my supportive portion of my family and Scott’s family, and to the amazingly beautiful friends that have become such a positive influence in my life.

“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.” ~ Buddha

I am looking forward to where this blog will take me as I continue to grow. And I am grateful for all of you who are taking this journey with me!

All My Love, Michelle