 What's up everybody, it's Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. If you're new to my channel, my channel's all about mental health. So if you're like me, always trying to improve your mental health, have some introspection and all that, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And today, obviously, we are going to be talking about the very serious subject of sexual assault. And this is a topic that's very important to me, although I have never been a victim of this. I have countless, countless women in my life who have been a victim of sexual assault. And they are now survivors of sexual assault. And yes, this can happen to men as well, but it's sickened me throughout the years, like to this day, that just about, I don't know, almost every woman I know has been assaulted. And it's crazy, it's crazy. Like, it is so disproportionate that I know more women who have been assaulted than those who haven't. And something that has to change, that absolutely has to change, are these assumptions and expectations of sexual assault survivors. Whenever this happens, whenever a story breaks or anything like that, people are always saying how the victim should have acted and what they should have done. And then on top of that comes all of these just completely insensitive questions. So I am somebody who is always trying to learn and understand so I can better support people who are survivors of sexual assault. So what I ended up doing was over on my Instagram, I put up a question and I asked people, why would a woman not speak up after being sexually assaulted? So here are 30 reasons why someone wouldn't speak up after being sexually assaulted. And before we jump into this, I want you to notice that some of these, although from different people, are repetitive. And that leads to the fact that this is a major issue. Fear, shame, horror, disgust, embarrassment, social media. I'm FTM trans, but I was afraid that the law wouldn't do anything or believe me. I didn't believe I had the evidence to back up my claims, scared that they wouldn't believe me. The victim would have a hard time believing that anyone would actually help. People calling you a liar or being alienated by social circles. The person who assaulted the victim is a family member experiencing backlash in the workplace, reliving your trauma for months or years and having your rapist get off anyway. The attacker was a spouse, threats and fear of being more hurt or others being hurt. Society tends to victim blame. Victims can't afford a lawyer or had no witnesses to the assault. It's very traumatizing for victims to retell their story and it can be really triggering too. Police lacking empathy, compassionate and training on the matter. Because police don't believe you or they dismiss it entirely because they don't think it was that bad. Because after speaking up, the person might continue to be abused by their husband or boyfriend or whoever it is. When sharing her story with loved ones or even her abuser, she sometimes led to believe that she deserved it. It's possible that the person is still dealing with the shock and trauma of what happened and they're scared that they might not be believed. Speaking from experience, he threatened to kill my dad if I ever told on him. Fear that nothing will come out of it. They'll get away with it anyways. The fear of not being believed. They won't believe the victim. No one will believe them. Feeling ashamed, victim blaming, fear of not being believed. Those are all the reasons I didn't report mine. Fear of not being heard. Fear that the police or the judge won't believe them. They just wanna forget it and they don't wanna have to tell that story many times after it happened. Scared to be judged especially as that is what happens when she gets questioned by the police. So yeah, as you can see, there's a lot of people who there's a fear of not being believed. And imagine that. Imagine having to retell like one of the most horrible experiences of your life and not being believed. Like something that is extremely psychologically painful is feeling like you're not being heard. And like feeling like you're a crazy person and telling this story and people aren't believing you, right? And like the reason I make this video is because we need to understand and all of us need to be better at listening to victims. All right? Like when it's happened to people I know, like since I've met them, a lot of it, a lot of this stuff has happened when they were children, but I have been there for friends when it happened and I'm there to listen and hold space for them and see what they would like to do next. You know what I mean? Because sometimes they just need someone there for them. I mentioned this on the video on my other channel, but one of my friends was assaulted by a married man who had children. She didn't speak up because she was worried that it would affect the kids. You know what I mean? There's so, so, so many reasons. But as always, like what are the solutions, all right? So for the majority of us, like we need to be there and we need to listen. But if you are a victim, all right, just know that you don't have to be afraid to speak out. Like make sure you have a strong support group. But if you don't want to speak out, if you don't want to press charges, there is help available. There are support groups for survivors, all right? There's therapy. Therapy is great. If you're struggling with trauma, I know assault survivors who have done EMDR therapy, which is extremely, extremely beneficial for anybody who struggles with trauma. There are some medications that can help. I'm not a doctor, but from the research I've done and from the people I've talked to who have experienced trauma, sometimes antidepressant or anti-anxiety medications, I recommend non-narcotic, can help with that. Because if you experience a trauma and you are triggered and it heightens your anxiety, that's where medications can help. But I highly, highly, highly recommend some form of therapy because it's important to get down to the root of that issue. There are also plenty of books out there on the subject. One of the most popular books on this is The Body Keeps the Score. One of my favorite books on trauma and trauma responses and ways to heal from it is Unfuck Your Brain by Dr. Faith Harper. I'll link both those books down below. If any of you have any book recommendations, make sure you leave them down below. Or if you have any tips or advice, or if you just want to be there for someone, just feel free to leave a comment, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And again, follow me on Instagram at the Rewired Soul, same thing on Twitter, but I'm always trying to ask questions, get feedback from all of you for different videos on mental health subjects you want me to talk about, all right? Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.