Aurora's Blog

If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.

Picking up from yesterday –

• 3) “How Are You Feeling/Dealing With This?” (etc.) is the question that comes first, full stop.
  
  Or, at least, that’s what I think, in my opinion. That’s what felt best.I never knew how much I wanted someone to ask this, until someone did.I haven’t been super shy about the details. I’ve blogged many of them for the world to see. It’s not like it’s top secret.

  So, it’s fine when someone asks me about them. I’ve answered the questions (publicly and privately) of if I went to the police (yes), if I went to a lawyer (yes), if I went back to school (yes, finally (eventually)), what was I wearing? (a black dress I loved), had I been drinking? (no).

  So, I don’t necessarily mind answering all those questions that come up. And especially at the beginning, when I was still processing everything, I even wanted to walk through the details sometimes (like I thought that would help for some reason).

  But of all the many times that I have told someone in a one-on-one conversation what was happening/what happened in my life (and why I was struggling at that moment), one that really stuck out to me was the person whose first question was, “How are you doing? Are you okay?” in a sea of people asking, “Did you report him? What exactly happened?” and on and on.

  (Just because I’m comfortable sharing my details doesn’t mean everyone is. And even of those who are, not everyone wants to share them/relive them at a moment’s notice.)

  I mean, it’s awesome that people want to take an interest in what happened to me. It’s awesome that they want me to get “justice,” and for him to see consequences. But it was so much more awesome, under the weight of a million questions that I’d been dealing with, to have someone ask about me. Yes, the perpetrator should get the shame, but the survivor should get the support. And that felt very supportive and nice. So, my best advice would be to ask about the survivor – how are they doing? What do they need?

Thanks for reading!