Marissa

There was no message from even my advisor.

When I met with UVU, my parents hadn't known yet about the assault.

I was trying to figure out what my options were and what I was going to do.

I've always been a person that wanted to have it all together.

I didn't want to hurt

hurt them in a sense like i didn't want them to think that i was this broken person i ended up telling them after the meeting with my college i should have told them first thing but you just don't know in the moment and it's hard like my mom is my person and so going to the emergency room and sitting in there without her and doing all those things without her was so hard but at the same time i felt like me telling her something like this would completely break her heart

When I did finally end up telling my mom, she just cried with me and it was really hard for her at first.

She had no idea what the process was like, who she needed to talk to, what she could do to help.

We did have a long night together.

I think it was almost the whole night where we stayed up and we cried together and talked about it.

The next day, she woke up and she started calling people and she started really advocating for me.

And honestly, I couldn't have gone through this process without her.

I know that not everyone gets that.

And that makes me really emotional to think about because of how big of a part she played in it.

And then my dad, I was a little bit worried about him because, you know, how dads feel about their daughters and how protective they are.

But

He was the exact same way.

He just stepped into gear.

He really kept his composure and put his anger towards helping me in the ways that I asked for.

And I feel really lucky that I have the family that I do because of how helpful they were throughout this process.