Rape.

Did you flinch? Did your heart skip a beat? Did something inside you shift when you read that word?

It’s strange, isn’t it? How one word can hold so much weight, can evoke so much discomfort. It’s like Voldemort—He Who Must Not Be Named. We avoid it, we tiptoe around it, we flinch at the sound of it. And the more we shy away from it, the more power it holds. The more it silences those of us who have lived through it.

For me, it took two years. Two years to finally say the words “I was raped” out loud. Two years of dodging the truth, burying it deep so I wouldn’t have to face it, so no one else would have to deal with it either. I was protecting myself, sure. But I was also protecting everyone else from the harshness of my reality. I wrapped it up, made it softer, easier to swallow. And even now, I catch myself doing the same. Shielding those around me from that word, from my truth.

But here’s the thing: it wasn’t their experience. It was mine. It’s something that happened to me. I survived it. I live with it, day in and day out. So why do I have to make it easier for everyone else to hear? Why do I have to tiptoe around the truth of what happened, when the weight of it still presses down on me every single day?

That night—my night—ripped away my sense of safety, my trust in the world. It wasn’t just an event, it was a moment that forever changed the way I moved through life. I was no longer carefree, no longer able to see the world through innocent eyes. I stopped trusting people. No matter who they were or how much they loved me, I always held a part of myself back, always questioned their intentions.

It’s not like I wanted to live that way. It’s not like I woke up one day and decided that every human I met was a potential threat. But after someone forcefully takes something so intimate, so personal, how can you not feel that way? How can you not question the world around you?

And yet, even after surviving something so brutal, I’ve spent years censoring myself—avoiding that one word. Rape. Saying it feels too raw, too real. We’ve come up with all these softer phrases to talk about it, haven’t we? "Sexual assault", "SA’ed". Even social media won’t say the word outright, like calling it something else makes it less violent, less soul-crushing. But why? Why do we dance around the truth when the truth is what we need to face?

I’m not trying to downplay how horrific it is. I know exactly how horrific it is. I live with it every day. I live with the memories, the trauma, the constant vigilance. I’ve had to reshape my entire world after that night, after someone else’s actions stole something from me that wasn’t theirs to take. And yet, I’m the one who has to soften the blow for others. I’m the one who has to be careful with my words, careful with my truth.

I think I’ve reached a point where I’m done with that. I’m done hiding behind softer phrases. I’m done making other people comfortable with my pain. It happened to me. It happens to millions of people every single day. And the more we flinch at the word, the more we feed into the silence and shame that keeps survivors like me quiet.

So here it is. I’m saying it. I was raped. It was brutal. It changed me in ways I’ll never fully understand. And I’m not going to shy away from that truth anymore.

I know it’s not easy to hear. It wasn’t easy to live through. But if we keep tiptoeing around it, if we keep refusing to say the word, how are we ever going to stop it from happening to someone else?