Elizabeth Smart

Just because you made these other decisions doesn't

It is not your fault for being raped.

It is not your fault for being abused, for being hurt.

Those decisions, those crimes lie solely on the perpetrator, on the person that did these things to you.

And I just...

I wish people could understand that because the amount of shame and self-blaming and guilt that survivors have is crippling and devastating.

And I just wish that they could understand it's not their fault.

So now that I've gotten off that soapbox...

No, that's the biggest thing that I think that you can reiterate for people is the shame aspect.

And where I get so caught up in it, too, is it's so hard for me to get it through to someone that this had nothing to do with you.

To your point, I don't care that you were drunk at a party.

You...

that doesn't mean that doesn't give someone the right to take advantage of who you are.

And if they did, that doesn't make you any less.

Like I've been drunk at a party, like, but just because I didn't get raped, like somehow I have no, no shame in that.

You know what I mean?

Like, and I don't know the best way to be an advocate and a support system for people who have gone through that, because I just want, I just want to hug them and say like, this has nothing to do with you.

It kind of goes back to what my mom said, right?

Like it's,

It's not you.