Trigger Warning: The following contains content about sexual assault and violence that some readers may find disturbing and/or potentially triggering. Reader discretion is advised. 

Meet Amanda. 

Amanda is a proud and loving mother to her two children, aged six and nine. She has been married to her supportive husband for 10 happy years. The family also have two dogs, a cat, and a guinea pig, and are in transition of moving from the midwest to the south. 

Amanda likes to keep her life very busy – as anyone would with two kids and four pets! She is an office administrator for her local church and her husband works busy hours as a mailman. In her free time, Amanda loves spending her time at burn boot camp, a gym in which she has found community, dedication, and strength in. While Amanda never thought she would be a gym rat, she frequents burn boot camp and enjoys the second family she has found as her owners, trainers, and fellow workout buddies are aware of her story and offer compassion and encouragement. Burn boot camp is a time and place where Amanda can escape to and push herself to new limits. 

“Some may think it’s a negative change and yes, while I still deal with it and still struggle with it, I am now finding the good in the bad”

Before Amanda was working for her church, she was working at an office downtown that was connected to a parking garage. Restless from the previous night of tossing and turning, Amanda decided to get up and start her day early around 5 am. On her way into the office, Amanda stopped to get coffee first. In order to get to the coffee shop, Amanda had to walk through an alley to get there, where she heard deep male voices. Not thinking anything of it, she kept walking, until she found several men standing at the bottom of the stairway. She attempted to walk past them, however, they forcefully grabbed her and shoved her into a room next to the elevator landing. They pinned her down and began each taking individual turns assaulting her. 

“I was convinced they were going to draw it out and prolong it as long as possible and then eventually kill me,” Amanda says. At some point, she lost consciousness and woke up at a hospital. She was told that the group of men was startled off by something. The police believe it was a gang-related incident, and the men were never caught. Amanda has had several broken bones as a result of the trauma and has had to have surgeries as well. 

Living with the fact that her abusers are roaming around free is disheartening to Amanda, she struggles with the fact that they got away with it. She has experimented with multiple therapists throughout the years, but none have really clicked.

For such a long time, Amanda had placed the blame on herself. The place she previously worked for had placed the blame on her for going to work so early that day and made her feel at fault for what happened to her. Amanda had even convinced herself that going into work that early wasn’t a good idea. She had also shoved her trauma under the rug, resulting in a multitude of terrors and anxiety. However, Amanda has grown out of that mentality as she has blossomed into her healing journey. A big step in this has been finding a therapist that fits her needs as Amanda has recently begun working with a trauma-certified therapist. “If I wasn’t going to be me, it would have been someone else,” says Amanda. “A lot of people deal with blame, they wish they had done something differently. It’s perfectly natural, but it’s not your fault. It doesn’t matter if you’re walking down the street naked; it’s never your fault”. 

Amanda has since left employment in her office downtown (go her!). She has shared her trauma with her husband when they were dating, although it has not been easy to share and makes married life difficult to navigate, especially romantically. Thankfully, her husband is very understanding and sensitive to her trauma, and has made it easier on Amanda. Additionally, Amanda has a very good friend with whom she has shared, who has been there for and continues to be her support as she now navigates healing. And of course, Amanda has her family at burn boot camp who has been phenomenal in her journey. 

“A lot of people deal with blame, they wish they had done something differently. It’s perfectly natural, but it’s not your fault. It doesn’t matter if you’re walking down the street naked, it’s never your fault.”

To Amanda, healing looks like being able to say “I’m having a bad day”, struggling, and not having to apologize for that. For a long time, she felt like she had to apologize for having a bad day. “It’s ok not to be ok. It’s ok to have a bad day,” emphasizes Amanda. When she is having a bad day, Amanda has accepted that it’s ok to sit on the couch, sometimes in silence with her husband, and just relax and hug it out. Other times, healing to Amanda is being able to yell and scream and say “it’s not ok” and “I hate that I have to deal with this 13-14 years later.” If Amanda is still having a bad day by the time she walks into the gym, she is lucky enough to have her burn family to hype her up and motivate her to put her effort into the gym and tune everything else out. 

For a long time, Amanda thought that if she could get over this and move on, she would be healed. But Amanda has since realized that this is never just going to be over; no one’s ever going to fully heal to the part where it doesn’t affect you anymore. “It’s about finding ways to move past that struggle that day not to let it ruin the rest of your day,” says Amanda, “it’s about letting your triggers affect you, take breaths, work through it, and not let it ruin the rest of what you’ve got going on.”

Amanda says that her kids are her biggest blessing. They are what keep her going every day. She has found ways to rise above it and grow through her husband, kids, friends, and gym community. “It certainly changes your life. One day you’re going down one path, and the next day you’re going down another. It changes who you are as a person, but that doesn’t mean it changes you in a bad way”. For Amanda, it was a change in her career. “Some may think it’s a negative change and yes, while I still deal with it and still struggle with it, I am now finding the good in the bad,” says Amanda.