Speak Up and Wait

Jennifer-61

When “Speak Up” Isn’t the Solution

Recently, Melania Trump encouraged victims connected to Jeffrey Epstein to come forward and testify.

And something in me didn’t just disagree. It tightened. Something about that lands hard.

Not because encouraging truth is inherently wrong. But it ignores a deeper, more painful reality. 

Many of the victims already have.

They have spoken. They have testified. They have told their stories. Often more than once.

And still…Accountability has been slow, incomplete, or absent altogether.

The Burden That Keeps Getting Passed Back

There’s a pattern here that feels impossible to ignore.

When harm happens, especially sexual violence, the responsibility somehow circles back to the victim.

Speak up.
Tell your story.
Come forward.
Be brave.

But what happens when they do and nothing changes?

What happens when names are known, files exist, testimonies are documented, and yet systems stall, deflect, or protect power?

At what point do we stop asking victims to do more and start asking institutions, leaders, and society why so little has been done?

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The Gap Between Allegation and Accountability

Yes, allegations are not convictions.
Yes, due process takes time. That matters.

And still, there is a growing tension between what is known, what is documented, and what is acted upon.

There are countless names associated with Epstein’s network. Some powerful. Some protected. Some are still in positions of influence, including political leadership.

And while legal processes move slowly, victims are often left in a kind of suspended reality. Having told the truth, but not seeing justice follow.

A Personal Truth

I’ll be honest. This isn’t just abstract for me.

I am a woman who was raped. And I didn’t tell the police the full story.

There were reasons, many of them.
At the time, they felt very real. Necessary, even.

Looking back, those reasons matter less than the reality they point to:

The system does not always feel safe enough, supportive enough, or effective enough for victims to fully step into it.

Maybe because April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I’m feeling called to speak up. Not because something told me I should. Maybe just because it feels like the right time. 

So, here’s my truth as I remember it.

I was raped in April, 43 years ago.

There is something strange about turning devastation into an awareness month. On one hand, I understand the importance of naming it. Of making room for the conversation. Of refusing silence.

And on the other hand, something is unsettling about the ritual of it. As if we set aside thirty days a year to acknowledge this violence and then return it to the shadows.

As if awareness has ever been the problem. Even the language feels telling.

Sexual assault.

I understand why we use it. I understand what it means.

And still, sometimes it feels like a softening.

It was rape.

And with children, we say molested, another word that often feels like a gentler substitute for what was actually done. I understand the language.

And still, much of it feels like a way of looking without fully looking. Naming without fully naming. A vocabulary that often lets us stand just far enough away from the truth to survive hearing it.

I was 18. I was working the overnight shift in a store.

Two men came in and held me hostage for hours. They raped me. Over and Over.

At one point, my heart stopped, and I was revived. The men that took my life were the very men that gave it back. Life is truly strange at times. And, for a long time, I wished they hadn’t. A hard truth to admit. But there it is.

So when I hear victims being asked to speak up, I am not listening from theory.

I am listening from inside it. And what tightens in me is not the call for truth.

It is the implication that truth has not already been offered.

Because many have spoken. We have spoken. Over and over. 

What I Know From Inside It

I did speak to the police.

And what I remember most is not only what happened that night, but what happened after.

One officer was gentler. More human.
The other was not.

His questions did not feel like they were looking for the truth. They felt sharp. Dismissive. At times, honestly insulting.

At one point, he asked me, “Why didn’t you just leave?”

And I remember something inside me turning inward.

Why didn’t I?
Could I have just left?

Left the store where they had locked me in.

Then he asked, “Did he threaten your life?”

I answered honestly. I felt like my life was in danger.

Then he asked, “Did he say he was going to kill you?”

No. I will never forget what came next.

The look. The slight smirk.

“Then, honey, your life wasn’t threatened.”

Something in me split in that moment.

Because I knew what I had felt. I knew the fear in my body.

And suddenly I did not know. That is what stayed with me.

Not just the anger. Not just the confusion.

But how quickly doubt moved in. How fast the questions turned on me.

Why didn’t I leave?
Why didn’t I do something different?
Why didn’t I tell the full truth?

The simplest truth is this.

I was traumatized. I was injured. I had been raped. I was still in shock, honestly. 

And in that moment, sitting across from someone who was supposed to help, I felt that trauma deepen.

What Healing Asked of Me

I have done an enormous amount of work around what happened.

I have healed. Healing, at least for me, was never a straight line.

I found memories long buried.

I found my anger. My rage. My grief. And, then I found all of that over and over again.

And somewhere inside all of that, I found myself, too.

Over and over again.

And, I also found forgiveness.

I forgave myself for not telling the full story.

I forgave my family for not knowing how to ask harder questions.

And eventually, I forgave them. The men.

People often misunderstand forgiveness.

They hear it as permission.
As absolution.
As some soft spiritual bypass around harm.

That is not what I mean.

Forgiveness was never about excusing what they did.

It was about refusing to remain trapped there with them.

A dear teacher once said to me, “You were trapped in that room with them for hours. But part of you has stayed there alone for years. It is time to walk out of that room.”

So I did. With support. With love. With years of work.

With the spiritual path I follow now. With Tantra. With the White Lions.

And slowly, I left that room.

Not because what happened became acceptable.

But because I no longer wanted to live there.

Not even a little.

There is a quote from Stephen Colbert about grief that stayed with me the first time I heard it.

“I had to learn to love the thing I wish didn’t happen the most.”

The first time I heard that, it took my breath away. I was fascinated by it and also confused. 

Now I understand it.

I brought love to the thing I wished had never happened.

Not because it was good. Not because it was deserved.

But because bringing love to that room was the only way I was ever going to leave it.

I brought love to myself.

To the 18 year old.

To the 61 year old.

To every age in between.

And somehow, in doing that, I found my way back to myself.

What Goes Unspoken

Speaking up is not just about words. It is about what happens after the words are spoken.

It is about whether the system can actually hold what is revealed. Whether it can respond without turning the weight back onto the person who was harmed.

And too often, it cannot.

That was true 43 years ago.

And too often, it is still true now.

Which is why Melania’s call does not land as an invitation.

It lands as judgment. It does not sound like support.

It sounds like the burden is being handed back, once again, to the people who have already carried too much.

A Call for Integrity

Melania asks victims to come forward.

But many already have. So what does it mean to ask that again?

If victims are willing to speak under oath yet again, are you willing to do the same?

Not just to stand with them, but to stand as one of the voices willing to be examined.

Are you willing to put your own statements into the record?

Are you willing to speak under oath about your relationship, or lack of one, to Epstein?

Are you willing to stand beside the victims you are asking to speak and support them while they do?

And after that, what then? Are you going to guarantee justice?

Are the perpetrators the ones you will call out in your next press conference?

Are you willing to ask the men named in the files to do the same, to speak under oath and clear their names?

Because if no one has done anything illegal, then there should be nothing to fear in being asked to answer plainly.

Accountability does not begin with those who have the least power.

It begins with those who have the most.

Leadership is not about what we ask others to do.

It is about what we are willing to do first.

So Here I Am

So here I am. Speaking up.

In some ways, and in some details, for the first time publicly.

Not because I owe anyone proof. Not because I need permission.

But because now, it feels important.

And because there is something worth naming in saying it plainly.

I brought love to the thing I wished didn’t happen the most.

And that love changed me. Not into someone untouched by what happened.

But into someone no longer ruled by it.I would never call what happened to me good.

Does all of this mean it does not hurt anymore? No.

Sometimes it still catches in my throat.
Sometimes the memory still takes my breath away.

But it no longer owns me.

It is part of me.
It is not all of me.

I would never soften what they did. But I can say this with honesty now.

I would not be the woman I am today without that being part of my story.

And I love the woman I am today. I not only love the woman I am, I like who I am. That love is not for them.

It is for me.

For the 18 year old.

For the 61 year old.

And for every version of me that had to survive everything in between.