The fact that you’re struggling doesn’t make you a burden. It doesn’t make you unloveable or undesirable or undeserving of care. It doesn’t make you too much or too sensitive or too needy. It makes you human. Everyone struggles. Everyone has a difficult time coping, and at times, we all fall apart. During these times, we aren’t always easy to be around — and that’s okay. No one is easy to be around one hundred percent of the time. Yes, you may sometimes be unpleasant or difficult. And yes, you may sometimes do or say things that make the people around you feel helpless or sad. But those things aren’t all of who you are and they certainly don’t discount your worth as a human being. The truth is that you can be struggling and still be loved. You can be difficult and still be cared for. You can be less than perfect, and still be deserving of compassion and kindness.

[TW: Rape] Most people perceive rape as being an event where a person, usually a woman, but not always, is attacked by a stranger, perhaps dragged off the street and forced to have sexual intercourse against their will. They assume that there must always be strong physical evidence of the attack, proof credible enough to march to the police and say, behold! I am a rape victim and I have all the evidence you need to pursue a successful prosecution.

I promise you, this assumption is incorrect the vast majority of the time. It happens of course, don’t get me wrong. But more often than not, the victim will know their rapist. Their judgement is clouded by matters of responsibility. There is often alcohol and/or drugs involved, often you will have invited the person into your home and very often it is your partner who is committing the rape.

Rebuilding a life, restoring trust, resurrecting confidence are monumental tasks – they are exhausting, frustrating and tenuous undertakings, readily undermined, frequently challenged and never assured. They are intensely personal and intimate acts and yet, necessarily, social and public. You cannot do them alone and yet, you can only do it yourself. Without the understanding, compassion and support of others it cannot be done, but only your bravery, resilience and persistence will achieve them. This is what it means to survive rape – this is the cost and the achievement of survival, the despair and the hope.