Everything in life has a definition. We take words and we assign meanings to them. What connotations come to mind when you hear or read a certain word? What does this word imply? How can this word be incorporated into your own personal life?

Everything has a definition associated with it. Now, some words, like peace, hope, happiness, are generally positive definitions. Whereas words such as despair, worthless, and damaged, have more negative definitions. Each of those words probably made you think of something. Perhaps the word peace made you think of walking through the forest with your best furry friend, without a care in the world.  Maybe damaged made you think of yourself and how everything that you have been through has ruined you. But what if this wasn’t the case?

What if we were able to change the definition of sexual assault/abuse and everything that those two words imply? What if instead of seeing the betrayal associated with the event, the hurt and the pain, or the trauma, we were able to see the healing and the unity of survivors of sexual assault?

You see, all of us here have these two words in common. We are all survivors of sexual assault or abuse. For so long, I have looked at what happened to me as this awful, horrible event that I had no hope of ever overcoming. For so many years, I have let these two words define me, instead of me defining them. I was so focused on what the statistics said, how I should or shouldn’t feel, what a normal response was, that I became consumed with what I have been through. But today I say no more. I’m not going to let what happened define me—I am going to rewrite the definition.

I am not going to minimize what happened to me, or you, but it is time for us to stop allowing these words to define our self-worth. What happened to each of us is horrific, and I would not wish it on anyone, but there is hope. There is hope for our futures, for healing, and for empowering. We can get through the healing process and in that process, we can help empower other survivors. It is so important that instead of allowing sexual assault to divide us, we allow it to unify us. Together, we can become healed, empowered, and restored.