If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it a hundred times: DO NOT SHOWER.

Right now you are in shock and that means you aren’t thinking. I think back to myself post rape. I couldn’t breath and I was terrified to speak. I sat there with my clothes in shambles; unable to understand what just happened or what could come next. My brain was cloudy from the way my head had been pushed against the wall and all I could think in that moment was “he just ripped my bra”.

Shock is something that you don’t even realize you’ve experienced until after its already over. The adrenaline pumps through your veins and your mind enters fight or flight mode. Nothing you are thinking is logical, nothing you are seeing is clear, in this moment you can’t feel pain. You just know something bad has happened and now you’re going to have to figure out what comes next.

I always hated being referred to as “the victim”, whether it was a police officer or a family member. It didn’t matter to me. I never wanted to admit that I was in fact, a victim. But the moment I embraced it I became a completely new person. The entire event took on a whole new meaning to me and I began to light a fire around the word victim and celebrate what I’d been through. So that there would be articles like this for a girl like you, a fellow victim, another girl that could use this and change someone else’s life with it, another girl this should have never happened to.

Earlier I mentioned that you shouldn’t shower and I truly mean it. Many people don’t know how long DNA can live on your clothes. Go home right now, get into a safe space. Then you need to remove EVERYTHING you have on. Put it all in a paper bag and then, take a long and slow deep breath. You are safe now and no matter how scared you are; you just need to remember that you are still safe.

I kept my story to myself for quite a while. I couldn’t even tell my own boyfriend at the time. My family- those closest to me, some that I see on an almost daily basis; many of them still don’t know my story. Believe me, if this was something I could have kept in until the end of time- I would have. If I could lock the memories away in a box and throw away the key, I would. But that’s just not reality.

Take the help that people offer you and do not push it away. No one understands your pain and no one will ever know what it’s like to be in your shoes, there will be guys that decide they cannot handle you and your story, and that’s okay. That just means they were never worth it in the first place. You will lose friends, you will feel pain, but you will become stronger. You may be a victim now but you must always remember that you are so much more than that.