#reclaim your voice

After seeing the impact @ReclaimYourVoice events were having on people’s lives, I became passionate about continuing the work. My fear of public speaking was still something I had to deal with and it was a challenge every time I had to stand in front of the room as the host. But not only did I keep doing it, I also found myself going to open mics around the city so that I could let people know about our events. I would perform my Firefly poem and then finish by speaking about Reclaim Your Voice. I must admit I surprised myself; I’d spent my entire life fiercely dreading ever being on stage and here I was taking the initiative to do so because I believed in this cause so much. I was doing things to raise awareness for the survivor community that I was never willing to do for myself with my photography business. I was now willing to try and fail. I was willing to face rejection. I was willing to face my greatest fears. And despite the fact that this meant constantly making myself uncomfortable, and despite the fact that I was doing all of this for free(dom), I had never felt more fulfilled in my life.

The Return of @ReclaimYourVoice || 2012 was the first time I stepped away from my photography work to simply enjoy life and my blissful relationship with Paul. Even the idea of @reclaimyourvoice had been shelved because although I felt like it was something I would attempt again at some point in the future, I didn’t have the drive to make it happen anytime soon due to the toll the first one had taken on me.⁣
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That summer, Paul introduced me to his friends and among these gifted, conscious poets I found my soul family. I met @freemase@missbrittab@_nattybynature@xvxyphoto@dream_manifestation_specialist@7am1r@lighthaus.i@morgan124875and@randelladjeiwho had coincidentally founded @rise_edt a mere four days after the first @reclaimyourvoiceevent.⁣
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I was so amazed by this group of people that I decided to host another Reclaim Your Voice event with two major changes: the first event had been for women only but after meeting these wonderful men I felt I needed to involve them. I strongly believed that women who’d been abused needed to know that kind, caring men like these existed. And this time around I would incorporate spoken word poetry as well because through the work of these artists I came to see what a powerful medium it could be for self expression.⁣
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Many more people showed up at the second Reclaim Your Voice event. I was concerned, however, that the women who would be sharing their personal stories of abuse might feel uncomfortable having men in the room. Instead they were overjoyed to see them there, these men who were willing to listen and learn and support. That in itself provided a sense of healing. The spoken word poetry added another level of depth to the event and I was so grateful for the way things were coming together.⁣
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Then@Randelladjei stood up to share his poem, but instead of doing so, and inspired by the women he’d just heard share their stories, he spoke for the first time about the abuse he had experienced in the past. In that moment @ReclaimYourVoice stopped being an event solely for women and became a place where all people who had experienced abuse or sexual violence could share their stories. ⁣

The First @ReclaimYourVoice Event || Planning the event was easy enough. I booked a room through the Toronto Public Library system and promoted it on Facebook. Most of the people I was connected to knew me only as a photographer so I’m sure they were surprised to see me promoting an event for people who’d been abused, but the response was incredible. 76 people not only confirmed their attendance but also left comments on the event page, applauding this initiative and saying how excited they were to attend. Their enthusiasm gave me another boost of confidence and I couldn’t wait for this to happen.⁣
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When the big day came, my friends and I set up the space, laid out an abundance of refreshments, opened the doors and waited…and waited…and waited. But none of those 76 people showed up. Painful. I felt deflated. For so many people to have promised their support and to have none of them keep their word really hurt. I delayed the start of the event as long as I could, thinking that perhaps those 76 people were just having trouble finding the place, but after 45 minutes went by it became clear that they weren’t coming. Despite the crushing disappointment I felt, I had to put on a brave face and start the event. ⁣
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I went to the front of the room to welcome the 20 people who were there, all friends of mine and the other speakers, when suddenly my lifelong, paralyzing fear of public speaking resurfaced with a vengeance. 

I hadn’t addressed a room since making presentations in high school and several years had passed since then so I simply assumed that I didn’t have stage fright anymore. I was completely wrong. Simply standing up to greet the small group filled me with absolute terror. After I welcomed everyone, I took my seat and one by one the other speakers shared their stories beautifully and gracefully while I sat waiting with my heart pounding, overcome with nerves. When it was my turn to tell my story, I went shakily to the front of the room and began to read from the speech I had prepared. When I got to the part about LO abusing his animals I started to cry and my whole body trembled. I paused to take a few deep breaths in an attempt to regain my composure but it didn’t help. As I fought my way through the torturous 15 minute speech, I repeatedly paused to breathe deeply hoping desperately that it would help calm me down, but it was of no use―I just had to power through. Interestingly, it was when I arrived at the part of my story where I finished speaking about the abuse itself and began talking about my healing that I finally calmed down. I stopped trembling and the tears ceased as well.⁣
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To be completely honest, I didn’t feel good when the event was done. I felt low and gloomy, partially due to all the uncomfortable feelings that had arisen when I spoke (which I later learned is common after revisiting and releasing painful memories and not necessarily a bad sign) but also because of all the people who said they would show up but didn’t. I felt that maybe hosting this event had been a mistake. But my friend Cher, who had also shared her story that day, gushed to me about how amazing it had been. She once again caught me off guard with her positive view of this event and showed me that despite the heaviness I was feeling, something powerful had happened that day.⁣

Around the three year mark of my relationship with David, my struggles with trust became too much to deal with on my own so I decided to talk to some friends about it. After a photo shoot one day I spoke to the make up team I worked with about my situation. My intention was to get insight on how to trust again after being betrayed, but I ended up providing further details about my experiences with LO, in order to give them context. That was the first time I ever told anyone my story.

The feeling of finally getting such heart rending feelings off my chest came with a sense of relief I hadn’t expected. I had no idea how much I’d been needing to speak it all out loud. Not only did my colleagues listen to me, but each of them then responded with similar stories of their own. I felt further relieved to know I wasn’t the only one who had been in this type of relationship, but it was also jarring to get a sense of how common it was and how no one really seemed to be speaking about it. Why had so many of us gone through this? And if it was so rampant why weren’t we educated about it in school? Why had there been nothing in place to prepare us for this?

In this moment a seed was planted which would eventually grow into ReclaimYourVoice.

Question: What is a word that no longer describes you?

Abuse and healing are complex journeys that can continually affect how we see ourselves. Whether your answer is a “negative” or a “positive” one, I invite you to share your truth in the comments below. #ReclaimYourVoice

Quote by Congresswoman Maxine Waters.