Recently, I opened up and decided to inform all of my friends and family about my sexual assault through an article that I wrote for Odyssey. It has been a long, emotional journey for sure. Hitting the year anniversary since my rape and still seeing the forever that I have to endure because of this man is extremely difficult and emotional to work through.

I am absolutely blown away by the amount of support and love I have seen from everyone around me. So many kind words. So many people telling me I'm brave and strong and amazing and all of these adjectives I wouldn't consider myself as. These words meant so, so much to me and helped push me along this journey of healing.

Throughout that day, the realization that everyone now knows began to settle in. This hit me with a stream of emotions. I was happy and relieved that I wasn't hiding it anymore, but then I began to feel nervous and settle into some self-blame. I was wondering what others were thinking and how they were judging me through all of this.

I've dealt with a lot of self-blame throughout this entire healing process. People not believing me, people questioning me, people wondering if I changed my actions throughout the night if that would've prevented it.

I began to tell myself, "Well, maybe if I hadn't chose to walk into that room with him." "Maybe if I hadn't gotten to know him in the first place." "Maybe they think I was drinking because it was Fourth of July weekend, so they are justifying it and blaming me anyway." "I bet they think I was wearing some skimpy clothes and asking him for it." "I bet some people, especially my guy friends, assume I just didn't say anything and am now putting all of this blame on him.."

As I began to place all of this blame, as I have many times since the event happened, I got really sad and was not really accepting the love everyone else was pouring all over me.

Then I realized that the people who love me the most wouldn't care what I was wearing that night. They wouldn't care if there was alcohol in my system that night. They wouldn't care how the night started. The people who love me, and should be the most influential in this journey, will take me where I'm at, no matter what the situation might be.

For those of you doubting me, even though you don't deserve this information, I was completely sober, and I was wearing leggings and a long hoodie that covered my bottom the night he took everything from me. I realized a couple months after the event, that the way that it could have been prevented was by this boy choosing to listen to me, this boy choosing to treat me like a person, and to have some self-control. It was this boy that needed to have power over me. It had nothing to do with me. It was all because of him.

The biggest point here is that no matter what state I was in or whatever I was wearing is that I said no. I told him I was uncomfortable, that I didn't want to have sex with him. He did it anyway. I was a piece of meat to him and nothing else. He is to blame for my rape and this painful journey. No one else. Not my best friend who set me up with him. Not the friends who met him and didn't tell me how they felt about him. Not me.

It is time to stop victim blaming. It is time to stop making survivors feel like they could have prevented it because it was never their fault. It is time to just support and love people, no matter what baggage they come with because life is tough. Stop letting religion get in the way of you loving people. That's what we are called to do — love people, and most of you struggle with that the most. Stop talking about ways to prevent rape and start talking about asking for consent. It's not the survivor's fault; stop making it seem that way.