Johnathon Cassidy was sexually assaulted by a stranger he met while at a local bar who put a date-rape drug in his drink. "Everyone always said ‘Go with Johnny, you’ll be safe with him.’ I’ve been told my entire life that it was impossible for this kind of thing to happen to me.”

Tasha Wilson was sexually assaulted by an acquaintance on her college campus. She did not feel comfortable reporting the assault to campus administration because she had heard about other students’ negative experiences in doing so. “It didn’t feel like a welcoming or safe environment to disclose. I didn’t know if there were even resources available.”

Tarhata Brazsal experienced rape and intimate partner violence from her high school boyfriend. After the relationship ended, Tarhata told her sister and cousin about what had happened. “Everyone was trying to make me do what they thought would help me. People were trying to force me to act in a certain way, but my sister didn’t. Because of that, she truly gave me my voice back.”

Sarah Whitney was raped when she was 16. She told her then-boyfriend, who reacted in an extremely unsupportive and hurtful way—blaming her for the incident and breaking up with her on the spot. The reaction of the first person a survivor tells is pivotal and can have a huge effect on their healing. “I would like people to know that this is no one’s fault but the person who did it.”

Christa Hayburn was sexually assaulted by a superior at the Police Department where she served as a law enforcement officer. “I’m so glad I can be there for survivors. I will continue to advocate for change until true change takes place across the country. People in these institutions have to take sexual assault seriously and be more supportive of those who come forward.”

Tara is a survivor of multiple sexual assaults and intimate partner sexual violence. “I’m a very open person with everything else, I’m very outgoing and I talk a lot. But when it came to these things, it took me years to say anything to anyone. The first time I talked about them was years later with my husband and after that with my therapist.”

Brad Simpson was groomed and sexually abused by a private sports trainer from age nine to his mid-teens. He didn’t tell anyone about the abuse for the next 35 years. “It was scary; I was afraid of judgement most of all. I had feelings of guilt, and I struggled with self esteem and trying to hide my story.”

Her ex-husband sexually abused their daughter. “No more shame. No more secrecy. No more silence.”

Eileen was sexually and emotionally abused by her father starting at age two and sexually abused by her uncle starting at age four. “There was always that darkness inside me, but I didn’t know the root cause for all of it. The floodgates of my memory opened. I spent most of my 20s in a lot of pain and trying to find my way out.”

Katie Clark was drugged and raped by strangers during a graduate research trip in the Dominican Republic. This was unfortunately not the first time she experienced sexual violence. “The way we address this as a society is to make it very clear that we condemn this behavior.”