"Take Back the Night is an annual march held across the world protesting violence, including sexual assault and domestic violence."

I normally avoid Take Back the Night like the plague.  When the event comes along, I purposefully distract myself with friends and fun as far from campus as possible. Hearing testimonies from survivors is like suffocating inside one's own mind, reliving multiple nightmares. Tonight, however, I am going to wander into Kay and listen  to the voices that have lived through the haunting memories. God is bringing me to a place where I feel like He wants me to begin to get comfortable sharing my story- our family's story- of perpetual violence and abuse. When reflecting on this event, I felt Him leading me to write out my own testimony. So, through tears and disbelief, I did. I wrote three pages of truth encapsulating the ghosts of our past. I am unsure if I am meant to share it tonight, but I do know that it is meant to be shared.

“It takes two people to speak the truth: One to speak and another to hear.”– Henry David Thoreau

If the story is never shared, the truth is never revealed. The truth is that more people experience violence and pain than we could even imagine. The truth is that many people think that they are the only one who has lived through a nightmare. The truth is that we are all in this together, and when we share, we begin to heal and to prevent the bad dreams from haunting others.

I am not going to claim that my story is comparable to many. I was never raped, I was never assaulted, and I never have felt the pain of being dehumanized into an object of sexual attraction. I, however, have felt the pain of supporting someone who has, the pain of seeing another's nightmare first hand and not knowing how to help, and the pain of remembering what it is like to live in constant fear of abuse.  Tonight, I am going to take back the night for myself by listening and learning how to reopen my ears, my eyes and my heart to the truth and the pain and most importantly the beauty of the healing that comes when one can safely dream again.