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About Loud's Lost letters
Loud's Lost letters launched in April to raise awareness for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. We provide a space in which survivors of all genders can write a letter either to themselves, other survivors or their perpetrators in order to encourage voicing difficult feelings and encouraging survivors to take back control of their voices.
Dear...
..Say it loud.
I used to feel so ashamed to be a victim of sexual abuse because I partly felt like it was my fault and I could have stopped it. I have come to the realisation it was never my fault and sexual abuse is the fault of the perpetrators!!! I didn’t talk about what happened to me for 5 years but when I did, I felt so much better and empowered by all the people speaking out, talking about it felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders because I understood that it should never of happened to me and shouldn’t happen to anyone else. But unfortunately it does happen, which is why I want to share how I feel now I’ve spoken up about it. I am so proud of myself because I never ever thought I’d be able to talk to anyone about it. I told a few of my close friends a few months back and they have been my rocks the past couple of months. Something I have learnt from all of this is, there is always someone to speak to, whether it’s family, friends, say it Loud or even an anonymous crisis line.
Dear...
One of the hardest things about recovering and putting myself back together was the fact I felt like it was my fault for a while. The constant blame on myself that I went there, I kissed him and I didn’t fight, had me convinced it was my fault. I let this happen to myself. The comments from my family didn’t help either. I heard things like “at least he was good looking” and “did you not just do it and regret it”. Sometimes the comments from them overwhelmed me more than the experience. The worst part about that was the fact I agreed in the moment. I lied about my experience because I didn’t know what to argue back? They didn’t understand and I couldn’t bring myself to explain it, so I eventually started to believe what they said. I believed I was lucky he was good looking and that I just did it and regretted it. When that isn’t true. It took years of unpacking this and talking it through with myself to help me realise that I wasn’t to blame for what happened to me. I could have walked through that door and took every inch of my clothes off and it wouldn’t have gave him the right to do what he did to me. I said “we’re not having sex” I said it as soon as I walked into that room, I made that clear and he didn’t listen. I was in a situation where I felt unable to say no and I gave in. I felt stupid for doing this for so long but it felt like I had blinked and my clothes were off. I was half naked with a man bigger and older than me on top of me, I froze and that’s okay, it’s a valid response I have come to learn. I gave in. I felt unable to say no, I didn’t know what to do and so I allowed it to happen. A few seconds later I picked up my courage and I told him to stop. He ignored me; he didn’t even acknowledge my voice. I said it again and again and I was ignored again and again. So I lay there. Just because I didn’t fight or push or kick or scream it doesn’t make my experience any less valid. I was raped. I know that now and I want you to all know that just because you went there or you kissed or you didn’t run out screaming right after it doesn’t make you less valid. Your experience is yours and you decide what that is. No matter what anyone tells you, or what they gaslight you into believing isn’t true. Someone will believe you, you just have to find that person and I’m lucky enough to have done that. So to that person, thank you.
Dear...
..Myself E,
You are not to blame darling. I know love is something you have always craved. The feeling of worth and pure happiness and the amount of love someone can give you making your heart melt with butterflies in your tummy. You were young and naive, with the purest and most innocent of souls, seeing the good in everyone even if it was very little. You were an angel my dear still figuring out the world around you. He might of been your first love, the most unlikely pairing of the bad boy and good girl. You saw the good in him making him realise it too, but that bad always lurked. You loved him so much, more than you thought imaginable! But he never loved you as much as you loved him. He saw vulnerability, the fear of you losing him and used that to get what he wanted for pleasure and your innocence heart thought that was the duty of being his girlfriend. My dear he used you and sexually abused you all for his own power, just another trophy on his shelf. Your innocence and pureness slowly slipped away, all because you loved him too much. Blinded by love as they say. All the apologising he did believing he may change, that naive little heart of yours. You are too innocent for this world. Remembering the time you watched a shooting star with him and it being your happy place when you closed your eyes, you love to hard but please never stop loving. Look at you now darling, you are free. You have found love which is pure just like your heart, and have happiness beaming from your smile. Your body is your own, beautiful just like your mind. You have found the love you have always dreamt of, just like in fairytales. Soulmates do exist. Love you forever, myself E xxxx
Dear...
...Say it Loud
I feel as though SA eats at you with such guilty angry abrasion but building yourself back up from what happens to you is the hardest although most liberating sensation. I spoke out about it and never have I felt so empowered by the support I received- fuck them for what they did to u and say it as loud as u can.