I am a 40-year-old female eclectic solitary Wiccan feminist survivor of incest, rape and
stalking (not at the same time). I am my own woman and have children. I have been with a sexual
assault center (as a volunteer) for about 9 years and do crisis line, peer counseling, training
volunteers and public speaking for 10 years. Abuse has been in my life from the beginning in
the forms of witnessing domestic violence, alcoholism, and being a survivor of incest.
The varying forms of coping mechanisms that helped me to survive became the same things
that almost destroyed me. I was around 26 to 28 years old when I discovered that I
could not cry over the death of a person that was close to me. My parenting skills
were also an indicator that there was something askew. I could not play, for I had
never had the freedom to learn how. I wanted to end this cycle. The first person I
spoke to about the incest was a psychiatrist that thought it might be having an impact on the
here and the now. He also told me that he was only a first step and that he could not
help me: He was out of his depth. It was a very long search to find someone who could
work with me. I think we are very choosy about who we allow to work on our car,
and if we don’t trust or like the service, we switch. We have the same right in
choosing who works with our mind, soul, and body.

One of the things that I have learned is that survivors know what works for them and what
doesn’t. Healing is about taking control back and having boundaries for the first time. It feels
like telling a survivor, “you need this” is a continuation of saying they are not
capable. What would it be like to offer choices and options and have the survivor choose? I
prefer to lose the word “should”. To use that word, is continuing to tell the survivor, “you
are doing it wrong.” So it has been attempted to have this site come from an
empowering perspective as opposed to a directive one. If we keep removing power from the
survivor, when do they get to use their voice? Another turning point was learning that
all the feelings that you were never allowed to feel.... did not go anywhere, they were
all still there … I just pushed them away. It was now time to honor them, feel them
and not have them crush me in the process. The first time I understood that I was
worth something was when another person (a therapist) cried for me and I asked “Why?” She
replied, “Someone has to....” Thought is the reality, and beneath the thought are the
feelings that form that reality.

We ask you to copy information if it is of interest. We ask you to remember that we have
created it from a feminist and myth breaking perspective, to literally challenge stereotypes. We
ask that if you read something, and find it uncomfortable, to read it again. These
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