If I could write a letter to Hannah Gadsby

First let me start by saying how much gratitude I have for Hannah, for speaking up, and for not being sorry about sharing her voice.

Out of the twenty-minutes near the end of her show when she spoke with the tone like she was holding back tears, I too was biting my lip. The moment she started talking about sexual assault I hadn't felt uncomfortable, just was filled with so much emotion (and still am) that it's been hard to put into words how it's affected me. In this post, I hope to do that, I hope to explain why I "shut down."

I shut down not because I was afraid or shying away from my experience, rather because I was lacking the correct response to what she had been saying. I was speechless.

The topic of sexual assault alone is enough to make almost anyone in a room full of people hush up, but what happens to those listening who are also survivors? The answer to this isn't as simple as you think it would be, EVERYONE responds to experiences like these differently. THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG WAY TO FEEL ABOUT A TRAUMATIZING EXPERIENCE, read that again.

With tears in my eyes as I write this, I can't express just how much gratitude I have for Hannah.

She spoke on behalf of herself, and survivors everywhere.

I've experienced rape and other forms of sexual assault throughout my life, and one thing that made me tear up faster than smelling an onion was that Hannah also had experienced something so similar to me. She too, was sexually abused.

At a VERY young age, I'm talking about not even toddler years yet, I was raped by my own biological father. Hearing Hannah speak so powerfully about her experience so similar made me happy to hear another voice has spoken, but also made me sad and angry to know that someone else experienced something so utterly disgusting as I had. It takes so much energy to bring attention to yourself within any subject matter, whether positive or negative and I couldn't imagine just how much relief yet so much emotion she had felt leading up to and after telling this story.

I hope this post has shed more light on this subject.

Now, a note for Hannah.

Dear Hannah,

Your are amazing, an absolutely powerful woman and deserve the world.

Thank you for shining such a bright light to situations such as these, catching the attention of EVERYONE listening.

Thank you for giving me the confidence to further write and share my story with others.
Thank you for being you.

Yours truly,

Jamie