Going to college is a solution that I’ve heard from so many people my age who want to escape from their situation. Whether they grew up in an unsafe environment, experienced bullying in their high school, or feel alienated due to an identity they hold, I’ve heard so many people say they’re just waiting to go to college to escape. Even Olivia Rodrigo’s song, “hope ur ok,” features a line that says, “She couldn’t wait to go to college,” referring to a girl who grew up in a familial environment that left her feeling more tired than loved.
Why is “just wait for college, then don’t look back” our primary option? It’s a clean solution. Leaving your family to pursue higher education carries no shame in comparison to calling out their faults or talking about a stigmatized issue like mental health or sexual violence. The latter was what pushed me to “wait for college.”
When I first experienced sexual violence, I was afraid that anyone I told would judge me. Receiving responses like “Why didn’t you fight back?” or “He wouldn’t do that” was even more discouraging. After becoming more and more worried that no one from my hometown would ever believe me, my solution became the same: “just wait for college, then don’t look back.”
While that was the plan for a while, I slowly realized how unfeasible that option was. My mental health was suffering now, and I wouldn’t be able to go to college at all without getting through high school first. While I desperately wanted to reach out and tell someone, the most difficult part for me was actually finding the words to articulate my experience. I couldn’t describe what happened. I simply did not have the vocabulary and had no idea how to start the conversation.
Telling my story was a months-long process, in addition to the years of complete silence as I built up my courage, but it was completely worth it in the end. While starting this conversation was a huge struggle in this area of my life, discussion was actually my expertise academically. Because of that, I was able to expand a school project focused on facilitating discussions about difficult topics and create The Tell Someone Project to help other survivors tell someone what they’ve been going through.
Tell Someone is a conversation packet that a survivor can hand (or send) to the person that they want to share their experiences with. It contains instructions for how to be supportive, as well as guide questions that the survivor can customize, so that you are in control of what you want to be asked and how much you want to share.
If you are experiencing or have experienced sexual violence, you should tell someone. If it is still happening or you are still in danger, tell someone today. If they are unable to help, tell someone else tomorrow, and the day after, and keep telling until you find someone who can help you find safety and begin to heal. If this happened in the past, it is okay if you don’t feel ready to talk about it yet, but know that getting support from someone else is an option when you are ready.
The three sections of the packet focus on what has happened in the past, what you are experiencing in the present, and how the other person can help and support you in the future. The entire packet is completely free for anyone to anonymously print out or download at www.tellsomeoneproject.org, and the language is completely gender neutral. Now that I’m finally on the verge of actually going to college, I’m incredibly grateful that I’m excited to run toward the amazing opportunities that I’ve found there rather than away from a bad situation.
My appeal to parents and adults everywhere is to create environments where kids and teenagers feel comfortable reaching out when they need help, so that they don’t need to wait for college before they can feel safe. To all the people waiting for college to get out, don’t. You deserve to receive the help you need now. You deserve to feel safe now. Tell someone and ask for help now.
- Philippines