thefullmonty

[thefullmonty]

“Before you give up, think of the reason why you held on for so long.”

— (via gedankenlyrik)

[thefullmonty]

“I am somebody. I am me. I like being me. And I need nobody to make me somebody.”

— Louis L'Amour

[thefullmonty]

“If you don’t go after what you want you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.”

— Nora Roberts (via nightlyquotes)

[thefullmonty]

“Not everyone you lose is a loss.”

— Unknown

[thefullmonty]

“If it hurts more than it makes you happy then take the lesson and leave. Listen, it’s going to be OK. Some people are only rehearsals for the real thing.”

— Beau Taplin

[thefullmonty]

[thefullmonty]

[thefullmonty]

i’ve been struggling with the idea of solidarity for the last couple of years. and reading your post has helped me feel better about my decision. i thought i was crazy for not wanting to believe in it. so thank you for taking the time to help unintentionally. you are wonderful!

Glad to help 🤍

[thefullmonty]

“The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It’s about what you’re made of, not the circumstances.”

— Unknown

[thefullmonty]

An agoraphobic princess is sick and tired of knights breaking into her tower and trying to slay her emotional support dragon.

[thefullmonty]

“I love you, that means I’m not just here for the pretty parts. I’m here no matter what.”

— Claudia Gray

[thefullmonty]

“Loving someone - even when it’s scary, even when tere are consequences - is never the wrong thing to do. Loving someone is the opposite of hurting her.”

— Cassandra Clare

[thefullmonty]

“I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.”

— Saul Bass

[thefullmonty]

[thefullmonty]

https://iww.org/membership/

[thefullmonty]

“Hello you”

[thefullmonty]

one of the things that helped me heal the most from being a survivor of multiple sexual assaults was getting introduced to the concept of prison abolition and transformative justice. I have always known that none of the people who harmed me would ever be taken to court, reported, arrested. because even when I was younger and desperately wished that they would go to jail, I knew that the system would not help me. I knew I wouldn’t be believed. and I also knew I would have gotten kicked out from my house if I admitted to being a sexual assault survivor. but living in a society where punitive justice is the norm and justice is defined as consequences under the law, I felt like my rapists would never face any type of justice because they would never make it into a courtroom. it felt so incredibly devastating as a young teen to believe that the legal system was the only place justice could be found, and yet know that I would never find it there.

prison abolition and transformative justice helped. thinking about justice as something that doesn’t have to be punitive, thinking about these difficult concepts of accountability and restorative practices, thinking about how people can be both victims and perpetrators-that helped. conceptualizing justice as a part of community helped me think about what i actually wanted my healing to look like, and empowered me to feel like my autonomy was important.

one of the hardest parts of rape recovery for me was accepting that there was nothing anyone could ever do that would give me back what was taken from me. I can’t go back to the day I was first raped, and have it suddenly never happen. I can’t take away any of the sexual violence I’ve experienced. and that’s terrifying to accept, but was simultaneously liberating. Once I realized that there was nothing my rapists could do for me that would take away the harm they caused me, I started to think about what I actually wanted for my future. I began to define my healing about me, instead of what I wanted to happen to my rapists.

and for me, the answer to that was not for any of them to waste away in prison. what I wanted was a future where I had space to build community with other survivors, and where sexual violence is not such a prevalent threat in me and my loved ones lives. And I don’t see how prison would help in any of that. there are concrete things I want--for my rapists to admit what they did, for them to go through an accountability process that is designed to make them aware of their abuse and how to stop being abusive, and for some of them to get treatment for their own trauma which I know was greatly influential to their assaults on me. I need sexual violence prevention to be an integral part of the spaces I exist in. And I want to be able to have joyful, intimate sex without being thrown into body-memories of the times when my wellbeing was not cared about.

in so many conversations about prison abolition, I see people asking “but what about the rapists??”. I so rarely see people asking “but what about the survivors?”.

I know I am not the only survivor who feels this way. Sexual assault is complex, and we do not often fit into convenient narratives of victimhood. there needs to be room for the diversity of experiences that we have and there needs to be space for us to express our desires for our own healing.

I believe that prison abolition is vital for sexual violence prevention and for community healing. and I wish people would listen to and believe survivors who support that, instead of using hypothetical survivors as a rhetorical tool to justify racist, oppressive politics that enable both the violence of the state and interpersonal violence. i wish that people would prioritize supporting our healing over maintaining the status quo.

okay to reblog.