The most helpful paragraph I've read in a long time...

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Rid of my disgrace is a book by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb about sexual assault. It is a hugely helpful, compassionate and informative book that I would encourage survivors of sexual assault to read. I'll post a review on this book in a later post, but for now, I just want to focus on one paragraph.

I wanted to share it here in full and then take some time to consider it sentence by sentence in the next few posts. I think that Justin and Lindsey have managed to get to the heart of the lies that sexual assault survivors believe and expose their lies with true, moving, important words.

  These words are things that I struggle to believe. I struggle to accept them. I sometimes say them, but struggle to really internalise them. I find myself grappling with feelings of worthlessness and confusion over what happened to me. This paragraph helps me to silence the lies. It helps me to set my eyes on the truth. I hope you find it as helpful as I have:

What happened to you was not your fault. You are not to blame. You did not deserve it. You did not ask for this. You should not be silenced. You are not worthless. You do not have to pretend like nothing happened. Nobody had the right to violate you. You are not responsible for what happened to you. You are not damaged goods. You were supposed to be treated with dignity and respect. You were the victim of assault and it was wrong. You were sinned against. Despite all the pain, healing can happen and there is hope.
[Holcomb, J., Holcomb, L. and Hurter, S. (2015). Rid of my disgrace. Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press. p.15]

Take time to read this. Slowly. Take time to let it sink in. What happened to you was not your fault. It. was. not. your. fault.

More on this in the next blog.

Until then,

Julia x


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