To every rape victim that has not yet come forward,

It was not your fault. Not in any way shape or form. No matter what you did or didn’t do, none of what happened is on you. It is not your responsibility to ensure you are not raped and in no way did you bring this on yourself. It doesn’t matter if in retrospect there was something you could have done to prevent your assault, you are still entirely blameless. Someone took advantage of you in the worst way possible and no one on the face of this earth deserves that. Nobody. That includes you.

Even if you cognitively know that you are not responsible for what happened, you are allowed to feel guilty about your assault or the way that you handled it. Society tells us that you are supposed to instantly walk down to the police station and report the very first second that you can. While that certainly is commendable, it’s alright if you didn’t. There isn’t a ‘right way’ to feel about any of this and there certainly isn’t a ‘right way’ to be raped. What matters most is that you are alive. If you have succeeded in that, then you are doing the right thing.

Weather you handled it in a way that you liked or not, you are still brave and you are still strong. You have been violated on a molecular level and to even just acknowledge that in your own head is an act of Herculean power. Having been raped is one of the hardest truths in the world to come to terms with. Living with something like that takes more courage than some people will ever need throughout their entire lives. However it is that you survived your assault, you did and I am so proud of you for it.

It is possible that someday you will find a reason behind what happened to you or find some sort of meaning in it. It’s possible you won’t. Sometimes there just isn’t any sort of higher purpose to find. Sometimes terrible things just happen and we never find or figure out why it is that they did. If your rape doesn’t ‘make you who you are today’ or turn you into an activist, that doesn’t mean that it didn’t matter .

No matter how much time has passed, your story will always be valid. It doesn’t matter if your assault wasn’t as mentally or physically damaging as someone else’s. It’s still important. The sad fact is that no matter who you are or what happened to you, there will always be someone out there who had it worse. That doesn’t mean that what happened to you is somehow less horrific. Someone else’s pain does not negate your own.

You are entitled to worry about your own pain before anyone else’s. Sometimes, it’s okay to be selfish. It may not come naturally to you to take care of yourself first. It may even make you feel like you’re doing something wrong. Prioritizing yourself doesn’t make you a bad person. Practice it and give it time. It’s perfectly alright to not be able to do things that used to come easily. It’s okay to have to take more time to do things, give up a project or tell someone that you need to take a break. Be gentle with yourself, you are nursing a monumental wound.

Lastly, and most importantly, remember that you are loved. If you feel like nobody cares about you or loves you, please know that I do. I love you if you are bitter. I love you if you are hateful. I love you if you can’t get out of bed. I love you if you have forgiven. I love you if you’re sleeping around. I love you if you can’t even bring yourself to shower any more. You are just as worthy of love at your ugliest, messiest moments as you are at your brightest and best.

I am not alone in caring, nor am I alone in thinking any of these things. We hear horror stories about rape and rape culture everyday and no one in their right mind would deny that these things are very prevalent in our society. Yet, on the whole, there are more kind people out there than cruel or apathetic ones. It may be hard to believe right now but in the long run, you will come into contact with far more people who want to lift you up than people who want to pull you down. There are good people out there and when you’re ready to speak, be that today or be it a decade from now, I promise you that you’ll find them.