A Framework for the Unspeakable

The quote above was taken with permission from a post on Pandora's Aquarium. It was written in reply to a survivor who spoke up about her rape to specific friends online and received very few responses. Jessica shared with that poster that the same thing had happened to her and that she eventually reached the conclusion that many of her friends probably wanted to respond but had no idea what to say or do. That rape silences everyone, not just survivors and that "we have no framework for how to talk about the things society has made unspeakable."

That comment gave me the truth-chills.

The horrifying gang-rapes in Steubenville and New Delhi India have gotten the world talking about rape again. But just like the conversations dealing with gun rights after the horrifying deaths in Newtown, CT, we can't let this issue fade when the limelight has moved on. We need to create a framework for discussing the unspeakable all the time. Because the unspeakable happens ALL THE TIME.

There is a Twitter campaign happening right now using the hashtag #2013endrape, started by @wolfe321. While that's no doubt a lofty goal, I think we can make great strides toward achieving it this year and I want to be involved. I want to help create a framework for the discussion that will make it a possibility.

To accomplish all of my diverse goals for this year, I feel I need to make a fresh start online. My blog will likely remain, for a time at least, but will return to a "blogspot" address as I start a new self-hosted website with more interactive capabilities.

For my writerly-rambles I started a Tumblr over the holidays and very soon I will be partnering with Christa Desir on another Tumblr focused on sexual assault. (If you are on Tumblr, please share a link!)

Many more plans are still in the brainstorming phase, all of which make me excited and nervous and eager to share. My brain is turning and turning over the possibilities.  I hope you will share my excitement when all is revealed.

Until then, I'm wishing all of you a wonderful year of accomplishing all that you set out to do!

Empowerment Project--An Offer of Support

Photo credit: Mike Stenhouse

I've been thinking about how to broaden this Empowerment Project.  I love posting artistic contributions, like the glowing examples in the EP archives, but submissions aren't always brimming in my inbox. :) There has to be something else I can offer.

After being lucky enough to meet with a couple of therapy groups for survivors, I've realized that one of the best things I can provide is hope. And I'm qualified to provide that for the simple reason that I'm an example of someone living a happy life after being raped.

There are few things that can make a person feel more alone than surviving rape. Whether or not you tell people it happened, it's lonely. Whether or not they support you, it's lonely. Your relationships change--they can't help but change.  And it's hard to see that the aftermath won't always be your whole life.

When the aftermath was my life, I didn't know anyone who had gone through the same thing. Nobody who talked about it, anyway. I had nobody to ask questions. No positive examples to look to for hope that there might still be happiness for me, someday. It  all felt so impossible, sometimes.

I don't want it to feel that way for anyone else, if I can help it.

I want every survivor to know that everything is possible for you. Yes, YOU. You can have, be and accomplish anything you dream of.

I believe in being honest and open about what happened to me. I didn't always make the best choices on my road to recovery, but I'm here in one piece, with a wonderful family and friends, and I'm proud of the good choices I did make. If you have questions for me, I'd love to answer them here on my website so others might read them as well.

Just email alinabklein@gmail.com if there's anything I can help with.**  I will keep all names anonymous, unless you request otherwise.

We'll play this by ear and see if this is a viable way to add depth and further support to the Empowerment Project. I'd love to hear what you think.

**Please note: responses will be based on personal experience. I am not a licensed therapist or anything close to one. Therapy can offer you something else entirely and I urge you to consider it if you haven't already. My job, as I see it, is simply to relate because I can. We're all different, yet so many things are universal. You aren't alone.

Empowerment Project--Breaking Rape Culture

I just love this drawing by Eve Yl.

Her heroine should have a series of graphic novels, don't you think?  Including a feature film spinoff and other product tie-ins. That's my vote!

Thank you so much, Eve, for letting me post your gorgeous and empowering sketch!

Empowerment Project--A Call to Action

When I heard about the It Gets Better Project years ago, my first thought was: there should be something like this for rape survivors.  I even sent the group a message saying as much, but I imagine they have their hands very full doing the worthy work they're doing.

When I started my Empowerment Project I was hoping, in my own small way, to fill the void I'd noticed there. I wanted to provide a positive place to help survivors (of any sort of trauma) feel less alone, and a place for them to share their voices.  Still, in the back of my mind I thought there should be a project, with a specific, positive message like "It Gets Better" for rape and abuse survivors. And now, there is one. It's called the "Not At Fault Project".

They only started a few days ago and are trying their hardest to get it off the ground. But, friends, they have their work cut out for them. I know from personal experience that announcing you are a rape survivor holds the same sort of stigma and shame that announcing you're homosexual is known for. Maybe even more so, these days.

The tide, thankfully, is slowly turning for LGBT teens. The number of vocal supporters are growing, exactly as they should be. There are videos by the straightest of straight people on the "It Gets Better" youtube channel, offering support.  Most of us know what it feels like to be treated "less than" and we're capable of showing empathy even without firsthand experience.  THAT is the sort of support rape survivors need as well.

The following quote is from the brilliant TedTalk, "Listening to Shame"

Empathy is the key. Nothing more.

Please help promote this new project and do your part to douse the shame associated with being a rape-survivor. Survivors need champions too.

Submit a few words of support, a video, a kind note to the NAF project. If you're a survivor share a success story, a milestone, a happy moment you once thought would be impossible. I know I plan to. If you're not a survivor, reach out with empathy, anyway.  Take a video of yourself using some variation of this simple script if you'd like:

It was NOT your fault.  I won't judge you. I'm here to listen. I'm here to help. 

So simple. So powerful.

You guys, the statistics are staggering. 1  of every 4 girls will be raped in their lifetime and 1 of every 6 boys. Think about that for a moment, consider the magnitude

These survivors need you. They need kind words and support to come out of their own dark closets.  They need to realize, when they feel most alone, that there are people out there who care, and that they are capable and worthy of a bright and happy future.

Please don't wait to add your voice. This is way too important and entirely overdue.

Empowerment Project--"This is Me"

This post is reprinted from Carrie Cuinn's blog with her permission (edited slightly for venue).

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This Is Me (a post about rape, silence, and standing up)

Warning: This post is personal, sad, possibly triggering, and true. If you don’t want to know any more, stop reading now. There’s one picture past the jump, safe for work.


A few months ago I allowed Project Unbreakable to post a picture of me. If you’re not familiar with the site, it’s a tumblr of photographs, some taken by the site’s organizer, Grace. Most are self-portraits like mine. All of us, all of the people (men and women) on the site, are holding up signs. What each of us has written are the words that were said to us by the person who attacked us.

The point is to show that we are not broken by our experiences. It’s also to show, in another context, the words that the people who spoke them thought were so logical, so natural. When you look through the photos you see horrible, awful things that were said to people in a position of powerlessness, and you realize two things:

1. The people who victimize others often think they are completely justified in doing so.
2. We don’t forget. Not the words, not the actions, not the way it made us feel. Not ever.

It took me 20 years to finally finish putting myself back together from this thing that happened to me when I was 16. Twenty years of my life, colored and affected and twisted around by this. I am better now, and happy, and loved, and while I know that most people’s reaction is to say that they’re sorry, I’m ok. Thank you, in advance, for your concern. It took me a long time to be able to see it as caring, when it used to feel like pity (and so I didn’t tell people). Now I can see that what happened to me was sad, and it’s natural for other people to feel something when they think about it, and it doesn’t mean that I am not strong, or that I am not well, or that you’ll all look at me like I’m somebody’s lost puppy.

When this image appeared on the Unbreakable site, only one of my friends knew about it. I didn’t do it so that other people would know it was me. I wanted to be just another nameless person, standing up, letting people know that it’s ok to say something. (You should say something. You don’t have to live with this kind of secret, even though, far too often, we do.) The people who commented on and re-blogged that post were kind. I was nervous before it went up, though my friend told me I was a badass for doing it (she says that kind of thing to me a lot; we all need those kind of friends). I didn’t actually find out it was live until a few days later, and it felt like breathing out again. It was done, it was there, and nothing terrible happened because of it. I’d told the Internet my big secret, and everything was fine.

I decided to say something here, to put my name on that face, on that post, because another friend told me today that she wished she knew someone who’d spoken out, when she was younger, because then maybe she would have too. In that case, how can I not?

I know that I’m risking being known for this instead of my writing. I know that I’m risking being noticed by Internet trolls. But if one person sees this and says something they were afraid to say, then it’s worth it.

Project Unbreakable

Please, if you have something to say – tell someone. Don’t let someone else’s actions eat up any more of your life. You deserve a lot better than that, no matter what anyone else has said.

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I related to this post on so many levels, and agree with every word.  I think that the more people speak out, especially when it's most difficult, the more strength and voice others find in themselves.  Thanks so much for letting me share this, here, Carrie!

Empowerment Project--This Smile's a Mask

The following poem is by Arielle.  I think this is one that everyone can relate to on some level. So beautifully stated.





This Smile's a Mask

This smile’s a mask
To cover the
Splinters of my heart

Shards of fear and pain
Define me now
Run so deep
My bones are filled with it

Distorted reflections of myself
Are reality now
Never ending judgement
Turns me against myself

I fake so much
Pretend the ugliness
Doesn't exist
Doesn't burrow deeper everyday

A parasite lives in me
Everyone would turn away if they could see
So I built walls
Closed off my heart

Masks I wear
A safety net
Against the cruel world
Against the tsunami inside me

So alone, adrift in silence
Words bursting to rush out
Stifled, locked away
I want to scream them all

Suddenly, a hand slides into mine
Breaks through all my barriers
Guides me to warmth
Sees all the darkest parts of me
Shows me the light
Bright and strong

It hurts
It heals

A flood of tears
Pieces of me slowly
Finding their way
Back together

This parasite so strong
Was weak after all
Truth destroying distorted perceptions
Of reality, of myself

My reflection’s clear
Bright and hopeful
For the first time
My smile’s not a mask



I feel a lump in my throat again, re-reading that. In our exchanges about the poem, Arielle said the following and I asked to share it with you:

"This poem kind of spilled out of me a couple days ago while I was laying in bed (I always get inspired right before I want to go to sleep, of course) and I had to type it out on my iPod. I usually write darker stuff but this time I wanted to show the light at the end of tunnel, that healing can happen, that healing hurts sometimes but it's worth it. After awhile it's like the mask takes over who you are, and you forget that there's something wonderful underneath, just waiting to shine again. It's hard to describe everything I wanted to express through my poem but I guess it's really kind of the journey I went through, and that I'm still going through"

We're all at various stages of that journey, aren't we? And the writers (and other creative types) here can all relate to the random grip of inspiration when your drifting off to sleep, I'm sure. 

Arielle also let me know that she's been inspired to try to put together "a book for survivors by survivors", similar to the Empowerment Project, as a way to help others.  I'd love to see that happen! For now she is focusing on school and just mulling it over, which makes me very proud. :)

Thank you so much for sharing your evocative and wonderful poem with me and with the world, Arielle!