Crow and Flame

I’ve carried stories I wasn’t sure anyone could hear—stories of assault, of violation, of a fear so deep it felt like it might swallow me whole. And with those stories came the heavy, silent companion of shame. The world whispers it in quiet ways: “What did you do to deserve this?” or “Why didn’t you fight back?” Stigma wraps itself around survivors, invisible but crushing, telling us our pain is ours alone, and that speaking it will only make us less, not more.

Shame and stigma are powerful. They isolate us, they twist truth into self-blame, and they make silence feel safer than speaking. But silence doesn’t heal—it buries trauma and lets the world’s judgment fester. The truth is this: assault is never the survivor’s fault. Ever. And yet, living in a world that doubts, questions, or blames can make it feel as though fault is ours to carry.

Life after assault is not a neat story with a tidy ending. It is messy, complicated, and sometimes painfully slow. It doesn’t mean forgetting or pretending the trauma didn’t happen. It means learning to walk forward with it, carrying it without letting it define or destroy us. For me, that journey has been through creative expression—painting, writing, sharing stories, and advocacy. Art becomes a way to speak when words fail, a way to transform pain into something tangible, something real, something that connects me to others who have felt the same shadowed weight. Advocacy becomes a way to reclaim power, to challenge stigma, to remind the world that survivors are not invisible.

Healing looks different for everyone. Some find it in therapy, some in solitude, some in building communities that honor and hold them. Some find it in speaking their truth, in creating spaces—like Crow & Flame—where voices can rise without fear, without judgment, without shame. Each step toward expression, each act of advocacy, each stroke of art, is a reclamation of self, a defiance against the stigma that wants to silence us.

I carry my story with me, but it no longer carries me. I have learned that life after assault is not defined by fear, by shame, or by what was taken. It is defined by resilience, by courage, and by the choices I make to keep creating, to keep speaking, to keep living fully. And in that, I find freedom.

I am more than what happened to me. And so are you.