Sexual Assault Awareness Month... ARCHIVED? Good people, unite to claim justice and reclaim yourselves!
- Pamela Ruiter -Feenstra
- Apr 9
- 4 min read
In 2001, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center established April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. In 2024, President Biden reaffirmed the commitment to Sexual Assault Awareness Month. He said,
“Freedom from sexual assault is a basic human right. Yet tens of millions of Americans—our family and friends, colleagues, neighbors, and classmates—carry the trauma of sexual assault with them. National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month is an important time to speak out, stand with courageous survivors, and finally change the culture that has allowed sexual violence to exist for far too long" (see archive).
Sometime during the past year, the Sexual Assault Awareness Month description and resources were quietly archived. Twenty-five years of progress… covertly archived. And meanwhile, the Epstein files languish in bureaucratic black holes, leaving survivors suffering and raw from repeated institutional betrayals.
This is all the more reason for us to carry the torch forward. I encourage you to
download, share, and save these resources before they disappear altogether.
Read and save the History of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and reignite it in your community.
Check out and preserve the Culturally Specific Sexual Assault Capacity Centers’ sites (CSSAC)–culturally affirming work from reputable non-profit organizations:
And keep coming back to Healing Bells. We’re posting new resources on our blog and website each week. We are building solidarity globally, and we need you. We will not let these issues die. We will not let the perpetrators win.
At Healing Bells, we have developed a way to circumvent censorship about social injustices of sexual violence, forced migration, and much more. We show the human sides of the story, countering racist and misogynist tropes. And when we lean into our shared humanity, we make discoveries together.
In my March 10 blog, I told you nearly every survivor is conditioned to believe that what a perpetrator did to them was their fault. We flipped that narrative by creating an empowering chorus, “It’s Not My Fault!”
Along with that sense of blame, many survivors feel shame and ask themselves how they could have loved someone who was capable of harming them so much (see more about shame and blame in our 5 Stages of Healing from Trauma). One day, journalist María Arce told me that she came to realize that if you are a good person, you can’t imagine that someone would harm you because you would never do that to anyone else. María’s statement was another “aha!” moment for me, and I knew I had to compose a song to share the human emotions that survivors feel, and to flip that narrative into empowerment.
The result is the duet, “If You Are A Good Person.”
Sadly, there are people who choose to exert power and control over others through various types of violence and abuse. Often, perpetrators prey on good people. Good people don’t want to believe that someone would hurt them, even after it happens. I know, because for decades I didn’t want to believe that people I love could hurt me, even though they deliberately and repeatedly caused verbal, psychological, emotional, and physical harm. I didn’t want to see their cruelty or hostility because I can’t imagine being cruel or hostile toward them. I held out hope that they would love me in the respectful and tender way I loved them. When they didn’t, I frequently blamed myself. “If only I had …” (the self-blaming belief that they wouldn’t have hurt me if only I had done something more perfectly); “I shouldn’t have said anything …” (I bought into their silencing tactics); “I shouldn’t have done …” (they eventually immobilized me). What I didn’t realize is that I was trapped in long-standing patterns of trauma bonds, and they kept tightening those bonds by baiting and conditioning me to blame myself for their abuse and their unwillingness to hold themselves accountable for their behavior.
Finally, the cumulative harm reached a tipping point and I woke up. Waking up to the realization that people whom you love routinely and intentionally harm you is devastating. It’s a deep, soul-crushing grief to mourn the loss of people who are still alive, people whom you’ve invested in for decades, but who refuse to let you thrive. I’ve come to learn that the only way to break the abusive cycle is by leaning into that painful realization, and developing the courage to work oh-so-hard to rewrite my narrative to the truth instead of the gaslit conditioning that kept me trauma-bound. Step-by-step, I’ve learned how to transform my trauma into empowerment. For me, some of that empowerment comes from healing myself (with support from a great therapist and some cherished and trusted friends). And a lot of empowerment comes from naming the pain to tame the pain through poetry and music–mediums through which I heal and can offer a healing pathway to other survivors. It comes from fighting forward with purpose and passion.
In “If You Are A Good Person,” I created a dialogue between an Advocate (sung here by Sasha Gusikhin) and a Survivor (sung by Mahi Ruiter-Feenstra) to flip false narratives of gaslighting back to the truth, putting blame where it belongs (with the perpetrators) and offering support for survivors. The Survivor asks, “Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?” (Notice how the question itself contains self-blame?) As the Advocate repeats, “You did nothing wrong,” the Survivor starts slowly, first doubtfully asking, “I did nothing wrong?” Over the course of the duet, the Survivor gradually begins to own those words, embody that truth, and believe that indeed, they did nothing wrong, that they are a good person.
Empowerment happens gradually. With a lot of practice. And believe me, it’s so worth investing in the practice of healing empowerment for yourself.
I invite you to
Listen to and reflect on “If You Are A Good Person” often.
Believe in yourself.
Know that you deserve to be treated with respect.
Break the silence.
Reclaim your power.
Keep fighting for the cause.
Write to your congresspeople.
Foster solidarity among supportive communities.
And remember, you’re not alone. We’re stronger together.
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