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>> So, it was a month before my nineteenth birthday and it was just your typical,
run of the mill, getting drugged, dragged back to the fraternity house date rape.
The next thing I knew, I woke up and I was in his bed with no clothes on and he got on top
of me and rapped me and I started to say no and then he put over to silence me.
>> I was sexually assaulted by a stranger while I was walking alone in my neighborhood.
>> I was assaulted and robbed at gunpoint in my own neighborhood.
>> I was in an abusive relationship for two years.
It started out with verbal assault and escalated to physical.
He would take a knife and cuts the parts of my body that he thought were too fat.
>> I was sexually assaulted in high school by an older woman that I knew.
She had her friends hold me down by my shoulders while she like peeled off my clothing
and basically groped me wherever she felt like it.
>> I was assaulted right outside the door to my home.
Growing up as an athlete and a physically strong woman,
I thought that I might be physically prepared for a situation like this,
should it ever happen, but by God, I was not mentally prepared
for a weapon being put in my face.
>> How do you build up your feeling of self-worth?
And it's been stripped from you in an instant.
>> I didn't want to talk about it too much, but it was a big thing happening in my life
and some people just didn't even want to be associated with me.
Being treated like you're just nothing really messes with you.
It makes you think about things in different perspective.
>> When this happened to me and I decided to open up to others about it, I was so surprised
at how many of my friends and family members had experienced assault
but had never talked to anybody about it.
>> For a long time, I was just afraid of people.
>> I think it's necessary to speak about these experiences, just to create awareness
because there are so many people like you who have experienced the same thing.
>> Sexual assault attacks your body in one instance.
It really also attacks your feelings of self-worth and that's a lasting repercussion
that needs to be taken more seriously.
>> I think because I'm a male survivor, a lot of people invalidated my experience,
as if like what happened to me didn't really happen.
So, I think for a long time, it was hard like for even me to believe
that what happened to me actually happened.
It is so important to not suppress what you've been through.
If you don't process it, then you're basically giving your assault permission to run your life.
>> Everyone's first reaction is to ask why you stayed and it's because I felt so ashamed
and isolated and embarrassed because no body likes to talk about it
and if you bring it up, it makes people uncomfortable.
It took me about a year to be able to look in the mirror again.
There are more of us out there than you think.
So, open up and reach out.
>> I'm an assault survivor, not a victim, a survivor.
>> I'm an assault survivor, but I'm not a woman.
>> I'm an assault survivor, but I'm not going to let the actions
of someone else dictate the rest of my life.
>> But I am not any less of a man.
>> But that doesn't mean I am a weak little girl.
>> But I am not afraid.
>> I'm an assault survivor and I'm so much more.
>> I'm an assault survivor and I'm married with two kids.
>> I'm an assault survivor and it wasn't my fault.
It was not my fault.
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