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Not Alone

It is unfortunate that many individuals who have been sexually abused are afraid to speak out and would choose rather to stay quiet. The reason for this is because as a society we have grown to be judgmental on things that we do not seem to understand and rather criticize people’s circumstances than to listen with open ears. Many people who have been abused find it hard within themselves to talk about their abuse and this is due to thinking that the cause of the abuse was that they allowed it to happen. You should never be ashamed or feel quilt for events that occur that you simply have no control over. The fear of judgment from society is almost as difficult to live with as the abuse itself. As a society we need to have more compassion and be sympathetic with these individuals and know that what happened to them was not their fault. That no matter if they made any different changes that what happened unfortunately happened, and now what is the healthiest way to move forward in life. It can seem almost impossible as to how one should move forward, and what direction do you even take. My suggestion to anyone who has experienced abuse is to not be afraid of peoples judgments as it matters little in comparison to the things that you have overcame. What matters is how you can find motivation and confidence to be the best individual that you can possibly be. Find motivation simply from what you overcame, and that you have already experienced one of life’s biggest brutalities. How could someone’s criticism even be of a concern to you? Once you overcome this fear of judgment from society you are free to enjoy all there is that life has to offer.

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Why Stay Quiet

It is unfortunate that many individuals who have been sexually abused are afraid to speak out and would choose rather to stay quiet. The reason for this is because as a society we have grown to be judgmental on things that we do not seem to understand and rather criticize people’s circumstances than to listen with open ears. Many people who have been abused find it hard within themselves to talk about their abuse and this is due to thinking that the cause of the abuse was that they allowed it to happen. You should never be ashamed or feel quilt for events that occur that you simply have no control over. The fear of judgment from society is almost as difficult to live with as the abuse itself. As a society we need to have more compassion and be sympathetic with these individuals and know that what happened to them was not their fault. That no matter if they made any different changes that what happened unfortunately happened, and now what is the healthiest way to move forward in life. It can seem almost impossible as to how one should move forward, and what direction do you even take. My suggestion to anyone who has experienced abuse is to not be afraid of peoples judgments as it matters little in comparison to the things that you have overcame. What matters is how you can find motivation and confidence to be the best individual that you can possibly be. Find motivation simply from what you overcame, and that you have already experienced one of life’s biggest brutalities. How could someone’s criticism even be of a concern to you? Once you overcome this fear of judgment from society you are free to enjoy all there is that life has to offer.

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Crawling In My Skin

Throughout my life there has been many artists in the music industry that have been inspiring and motivating, but probably one of the biggest for me was Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. A lot of people know and listen to Linkin Park, but a lot of people do not realize that the emotion and lyrical content in most of his music comes from that he was sexually abused. As a child I listened to his music which I was able to relate to so easily and it helped me get through my darkest times. Almost all of his lyrics relate to how he feels about his abuse. Songs like crawling, and a place for my head even as a young kid in the 2nd grade I remember listening to and knowing exactly what it was that he was trying to express in albums like Hybrid Theory and Meteora. These albums express almost perfectly what it is like for someone who is dealing with sexual abuse. I found a lot of formality with his music and during the time I was abused listening to his music really helped me get through the darkest times. Unfortunately, Chester Bennington passed away at the age of 41 on July 20th of this year by committing suicide. What this proves is even though he had great success as a very skilled, and talented musician he still had demons that he was facing. What this proves is that the effects of sexual abuse are everlasting, and that even though people who may appear to be doing perfectly fine on the outside you never know what it is that they may be facing internally. It was very saddening to me that he passed away as he had such a positive impact in my life by how I was able to connect to the raw emotion in his lyrics. RIP :(

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Music Saved My Life

My biggest passion is music. From as far back as I can remember music has been what has always been my main source of inspiration. I always wanted to create music as well, but did not think I had the required skills to be able to play an instrument. About two years ago I decided to purchase a dj controller having been to many different shows seeing a lot of different dj’s from all around the world perform, and I wanted to learn how to mix. Always on a daily basis I find myself trying to find different songs that match up and play well together. This ended up being one of the best decisions I have made in my life as it had such a positive effect on me. I have always felt that music can reach out to people sometimes more often than people can as the lyrics of songs can have such deep meanings that sometimes can be so easy to relate to. Not just lyrics themselves, but also just sounds can reflect the emotion that someone is trying to make the listener feel. Shortly after purchasing a dj controller I bought a keyboard and taught myself how to play the piano, and after learning how to compose melodies, chords, and studying a little music theory I am now beginning to learn how to produce music. This is what I am most passionate about, and what is best about music is it is a lifelong journey you can take to always try to master the content that you create. For people with ptsd music can be very therapeutic and I have found many times when I feel depressed or experience the night terrors associated with my post trauma I can use music as an outlet to express my feelings in the form of art.

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How To/Not Deal With Trauma

A lot of people with ptsd unfortunately also tend to develop a substance abuse problem or can become an alcoholic. People who have been abused can feel at many times that you are separated from the rest of the world feeling an overwhelming amount of negativity towards yourself and others. In the past I used to self-medicate myself with drugs to relieve myself of how terribly I was feeling. No matter how dark you may be feeling there are always more positive ways you can take to find ways to be happy in dealing with your problems. For anybody who lives with anxiety or depression or has any symptom that causes you to feel negativity with yourself and the rest of the world you need to make choices that are overall healthy and improve how you see yourself. I strongly recommend for anybody with or without a mental disorder you take great care of your body and exercise. You should try to keep a good balanced diet and also on a weekly basis have some sort of workout routine as regularly exercising can help boost your mental health and of course also help you boost your physicality. People who have been sexually abused tend to have a low self-esteem so making healthy positive choices and setting good routines can help that. Using drugs and alcohol will only make you feel good for a short while, but soon after only will add to the negative feelings you have towards yourself. There were many instances and times in the past where I found it easy for myself live a very destructive and dangerous lifestyle. What I did realize over the time I was abusing drugs was that I had allowed myself to feel sorry for myself for what I experienced. This only added to my negative feelings towards myself until I found something that I knew I was truly passionate about.

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Effects of Sexual Abuse PTSD

The effects of sexual abuse are lifelong and everlasting. As for myself I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. I do not see myself as a disabled individual but rather see myself as an individual who is human. PTSD is when someone has experienced a traumatic event in their life and can experience flashbacks of the traumatic event from things that remind them of the initial trauma. A lot of people think that it is only associated with people who have experienced the brutalities of war, but can actually be associated with anybody who has experienced trauma and from a lot of different things. People with PTSD have triggers, or things that can set off the symptoms and gives them feelings that they are reliving the traumatic event from the past. Some associated symptoms are anxiety and depression which both I deal with on a daily basis. People with post-traumatic stress disorder also tend to have sleep disturbances or night terrors which for me are one of the hardest symptoms to deal with as my sleep schedule is basically all over the place. The severity of this disorder depends on how traumatic the event was. My symptoms are not as bad in comparison to many other individuals with PTSD. With time and living a healthy lifestyle the mind can mend itself, but only if you make the right choices. A lot of people with PTSD develop a substance abuse problem, and self-medicating with drugs and alcohol is not the way to go about dealing with this disorder and will only create more problems for oneself. It may seem easy to find a substance that can help you deal with reality momentarily, but I assure you that there are much better and healthy ways to help alleviate whatever difficulties life has thrown at you.

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Broken Judicial System

How the judicial system handles cases of sexual abuse is currently not working. It is basically failing for the victims, and it is because of a lot of different reasons. First you need to have enough circumstantial evidence against the accused and the victim has to testify to a lot of the things that happened. Which you can imagine could be very difficult as the victim has to explain in detail basically forcing them to have to relive the incriminating acts against them. A lot of people who have been sexually abused choose to not go through this grueling process because it takes a lot out of them. Also law enforcers who handle and question the victim’s accusations have to be skeptical at first, because the accusations they are making are very should have very serious consequences. What angers me is that too many times people are taking these individuals who have committed crimes of sexual abuse and the sentencing is not matching what they did. Brock Turner a Stanford student who was convicted of raping a fellow student is a prime example of a case that there was without a doubt enough evidence for him to be put in prison for a long time and the judge due to reasons that I truly do not understand gave him such a lenient sentence which angers me greatly. I feel his sentence should anger anybody that values human life. He was sentenced to go to jail for only 6 months. How could that be possible? This makes absolute no sense and proves that our judicial system is failing victims of sexual abuse. Even though there was an outcry from across the world on the sentence he still only served 6 months of time. This simply to me cannot be a reality and for anybody who has been abused is almost a slap in the face. Our current judicial system seems to almost allow individuals to get away with these crimes and it is not fair to the victim or anybody who has been abused. There needs to be change.

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Relevance

I chose to do this article mainly because I felt it is so relevant to current times as what you see on the news on a daily basis there seems to be another case or allegation in regards to sexual abuse. It seems that many individuals are speaking out on their abuse. It started with Harvey Weinstein which created almost like a domino effect of other individuals coming out that they have been sexually abused by an individual who seems to be in a position of power or is very wealthy. I find it sickening that these individuals are able to get away with what they were doing simply because they have money and know how to cover up and keep the people they have abused silent. A lot of individuals who are even politicians, the same people who are elected to make laws that we are supposed to follow are the ones who seem to be breaking them at the highest offense, and a lot seem to be getting away with it. If you sexually abuse another human being regardless of your wealth, or social status you should be held accountable for the crimes that you have committed. We have a very broken judicial system in our country that needs to be fixed. We cannot allow for these individuals to get away with what it is that they are doing and as a society come together and express to our governing officials that this cannot happen and that it simply will not happen. What our judicial system is currently showing is that if you have the money you can get away with anything even if that means violating another humans wellbeing and putting almost a dollar sign and a price value on someone else’s life. Almost on a daily basis you see a government official getting elected or seated into a position of power who has some type of allegation against them that they have sexually abused someone.

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About

My name is Anthony Ferrisi and I am a 22 year old student attending Farmingdale University who has post tramatic stress disorder. What I desire from this blog post is to increase the awareness of sexual abuse which to my understanding is a difficult topic for many to discuss, but having been someone who was sexually abused growing up I feel it is of great importance that this topic is discussed on a deeper level. In regards to this topic I feel that there are many issues within society that need to be addressed, and there needs to be a growing demand for change especially in our judicial system by how the people who are abused thier cases are being handled, and also the sentencing. You can see that this topic is very relevant to today as there has been many celebrities, politicians, and people who are in positions of power that are being accused of committing acts of sexual abuse. What I want overall is for people who have been sexually abused to understand that they are not alone as unfortunately these crimes occur more frequently than you would think and as a society for us to come together to help these individuals not make the same mistakes I made and to make sure the people who commit these crimes are held fully accountable.