“So Much Of Coming To Terms With Hard Things From The Past Seems To Be About Believing Our Own Accounts,

Surviving harassment doesn’t mean it didn’t affect you. Being strong doesn’t make it okay. You shouldn’t have had to be.

ᴇᴅɪᴇ sᴇᴅɢᴡɪᴄᴋ, ᴀɴᴅʏ ᴡᴀʀʜᴏʟ ᴀɴᴅ ᴄʜᴜᴄᴋ ᴡᴇɪɴ NYC, 1965, by Burt Glinn.

Being sexually harassed is less like you were running and tripped, and more like someone pushed you. Replaying everything you did or didn’t do doesn’t actually help you to prevent it from happening again.

Anything you avoid in life will come back, over and over again, until you’re willing to face it—to look deeply into its true nature.

-Adyashanti

Life gets easier when you stop fighting it. The rain will fall whether you complain or not. Traffic will exist whether you stress or not. People will act how they want whether you worry or not. Focus on what you can change. Let go of what you can't.

The majority of sexual harassment cases involve some kind of complication.

Maybe you dated the person, flirted with them, or had sex with them before. 

Maybe you knew or suspected that they had a history of being inappropriate with others. 

Maybe you’ve always looked up to this person, considered them a friend, a mentor, or someone who’s helped you a lot in the past. 

Maybe it’s happened more than once. 

Maybe when it happened you didn’t know how to react so you didn’t say anything. 

Maybe after it happened you acted overly nice to the person or reassured them it wasn’t a big deal. 

Maybe the person isn’t the kind of person we think a harasser is: they’re someone really respected in society or more attractive than you or physically smaller or female. So you or others have a hard time believing that person could hurt you. 

Maybe you really like the person for other reasons and feel torn about seeing them as someone who’s hurt you. 

It’s important to know that it’s not unusual if your situation feels more complicated.

In fact, that is the more common situation. 

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Some people won’t believe you until you break. Break anyway, if you need to. You don’t owe anyone your composure.