As part of the reading requirements during the school year, my daughter's class read the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Intrigued to see what all the hub bub was about, I picked it up for myself when I was at the Oswego Bookmobile last week. Set in Syracuse, New York, the storyline follows a freshman girl as she struggles to cope with the trauma of being raped at a party by a classmate. The title is a conundrum for what the main character Melinda did not do after the attack. She hid inside her shell and chose to become a selected mute rather than tell anyone what had happened to her that summer night. Thinking that it was her fault and that nobody would believe her anyways, silence became her only escape.
But the past always has a way of catching up with you and when Melinda saw that her ex best friend had started to date her abuser, she knew that she had to speak up in an effort to save another girl from going through the torture that she had endured. To Melinda's surprise, once she opened up about her past she found that she was not the only girl who knew that this guy was a creep. No longer alone, Melinda was finally able to take back her life and begin healing.
The message that book sends is powerful and it is the exact reason that have alson chosen to speak about my family's adversity. It is not done to exploit my daughter and her assailant, instead it is meant to reach out to others to let them know that they are not alone. Years ago I knew of no one else who had gone through anything similar. My world suddenly kept shrinking, until it contained only a few small people that I trusted. By shutting the rest of the world out, we keep our secret safe.
Little by little, the need to reclaim our lives creeped up on us. I started to talk about the pain that we had went through and to my surprise found that others were willing to share their own personal stories. Not only were we no longer alone, we had somehow managed to bring others out into the light for the first time. No longer held captive by our past, I knew that we held the key to helping others. Within the past six months, I have had five people disclose their own abuse for the first time. I think that is amazing and I am so proud that they took the first step towards healing. Words are a very powerful thing. Whether written or spoken, they have the power to touch people's lives.
But the past always has a way of catching up with you and when Melinda saw that her ex best friend had started to date her abuser, she knew that she had to speak up in an effort to save another girl from going through the torture that she had endured. To Melinda's surprise, once she opened up about her past she found that she was not the only girl who knew that this guy was a creep. No longer alone, Melinda was finally able to take back her life and begin healing.
The message that book sends is powerful and it is the exact reason that have alson chosen to speak about my family's adversity. It is not done to exploit my daughter and her assailant, instead it is meant to reach out to others to let them know that they are not alone. Years ago I knew of no one else who had gone through anything similar. My world suddenly kept shrinking, until it contained only a few small people that I trusted. By shutting the rest of the world out, we keep our secret safe.
Little by little, the need to reclaim our lives creeped up on us. I started to talk about the pain that we had went through and to my surprise found that others were willing to share their own personal stories. Not only were we no longer alone, we had somehow managed to bring others out into the light for the first time. No longer held captive by our past, I knew that we held the key to helping others. Within the past six months, I have had five people disclose their own abuse for the first time. I think that is amazing and I am so proud that they took the first step towards healing. Words are a very powerful thing. Whether written or spoken, they have the power to touch people's lives.
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