We will explore why so many of us struggle with self-care — including the belief that we are “bad at it,” the pressure to keep going, and the guilt that can come with resting or putting our own needs first.

I have to tell myself over and over that no one’s trauma is worse than another person’s trauma. The trauma may have occurred differently, or under different circumstances, but each person’s trauma is their own. We get to own our own stories and no one gets to tell us how to process that, what to feel or when we should be “over” it.

Sexual assault and violence do not affect everyone in the same way, but that does not make one person’s pain more valid than another’s. Too often, survivors feel pressured to measure their trauma against someone else’s story. The truth is simple: trauma is trauma. My story, your story, and our stories all deserve care, compassion, and healing without comparison.

Everyone is entitled to own their own trauma. We get to own our own stories. One person's experience is no more or less traumatic than someone else's.

While April is the time of year for anticipation of the joy and beauty that is to come with the approach of summer, it is also a time of year for reflection, meditation, and remembering the difficult journey of reaching this moment in the present.

Healing is not a linear journey. It is a constant back-and-forth, at least for me. There have been many moments in my life like this. In the early years, I thought those moments meant I was regressing—that I had somehow undone the healing I had worked so hard for. But over time, I came to understand something different.

Kenneth, Dawn and Neil are all survivors of sexual assault. Our experiences with the initial trauma and the recovery have all been different. Our journeys have one thing in common, however. Our paths to healing have been winding and unpredictable.

I grew up in a deeply unhealthy and dysfunctional household. From an early age, I remember saying to myself, “When I have kids, I will never…” Even as a child, I knew I wanted something different. I knew I wanted to be a mother.

As a child, fear [of ICE] lived quietly in the background of my life. It was present in ways that were easy to overlook from the outside but impossible to escape from within. It shaped how I paid attention to the world. It shaped how I understood safety.