I think you should go for it. We really need more SA advocates, globally. A friend recently realized after separating with her negative value soon to be ex husband that she'd experienced being drugged and raped repeatedly by her husband over a span of eleven years - and that revelation was traumatic and shocking to her. For years she thought of rape as something that happened to other people- while not acknowledging that there were nights she didn't remember after having drinks at a restaurant with her husband, or recalled what exactly happened when she awoke the next day, violently ill, sore, bruised, and confused. The realization hit her like a ton of bricks - similar to how I felt when I realized what had been done to me, and really came to grips with it in the aftermath.

The reason why I say this is - we really need to change the dialogue about rape. Rape is often talked about as something that happens to other people. It's a cautionary tale of what could happen - mentioned in pamphlets, training seminars, the stories of when it happened to someone else. But I know for myself and many of my friends in the wake of MeToo, we all found ourselves talking about it happening to us - and discovering that we were all sisters in a sorority we never wished to rush into. We were all united by what men think they are entitled to. - somehow they deserve unfettered access to our bodies, regardless of consent. Women somehow deserve to be used and discarded like takeaway boxes thrown in the trash. That we are a lump of flesh - not something with a heart, emotions, a conscience, a soul. So yes - I encourage you to be a SA with as much heart and gusto that I can send via the interwebs. You will be doing work that is critically needed

And, I will gladly accept your hug. I'm ok now - and I'm ok to say I wasn't for awhile. I've done a lot of therapy in the past several years. I remember after it happened, I was suddenly very motivated to try to get married.- that somehow if I was married, this wouldn't happen to me again. That blew up in my face, so I had to make peace with where I was in life, and embrace what had been presented. My probationary period was for oddly enough a job in law enforcement in an agency with the lowest percentages of women. If you made it in that agency, you were basically a dude. So, I took the experience of being roofied and raped, and used it for good. As a Christian, I clung to a verse in Genesis when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, and found years later when he has risen to a place and position to help the very people who harmed them. "what you meant for evil, God has used for good". I knew and acknowledged in the back of my head, in the depth of my soul, that what happened to me - that it wasn't my fault, that it was completely premeditated by a "friend", that even people in my church if they found out would blame me out of sheer subculture bias. But by going through that experience, I could be the best advocate for my victims and witnesses, many of whom were women who suffered abuse at the hands of men. Even after I would be reassigned from cases, they would still call me - because they trusted me. Being able to be in a position to truly help women - to listen to them, believe them, and help them get justice because I so intimately knew what it was like to be a victim - was a huge part of healing and making peace with it. I know as a Christian I am commanded to forgive, but I will never forget the actions of that "friend", and I know that the day is coming when it will catch up with him. I only hope to hear about it through mutual friends, or better yet see it on the news.

I also know a lot of people don't like cops on this sub - but women are needed in law enforcement. I went into law enforcement because I wanted to help people - and I wanted my community and my country to be a safer place while being paid what I was worth from my education and prior experience. I wanted my friend's children to be able to grow up seeing the world like I did in the 80's, where our biggest worry was trying to catch up with the ice cream truck and to not fall off your bike and get scraped up, taco tuesday, eating your favorite flavor of ice cream, playing outside in the sprinklers with your friends. A place where I knew that my family, my extended family, my grandparents - could live out the rest of their days in relative peace and get to enjoy the rest of their lives.

With my agency - I was always on arrest teams because they knew they needed women there on scene. The guys and the underlying subculture didn't like that women made the cut and had a badge - but they knew they needed us. There are some bad cops - but there are a lot of good ones. I can honestly name maybe 10-15 people I knew and had worked with who I would consider a bad cop - but there were hundreds more from local, state and federal levels that I worked with who were amazing men and women - and I still keep in contact with thanks to social media. These were not bare minimum men - these were men that I would consider HV because they would never dream of treating female friends or coworkers like the scrotes we roast - and when married, they treated their wives like queens. If their wife wanted to stay home, it was no problem. If she wanted to work, no problem there either. Too tired to clean the house? There's a housekeeper everyone used in the office that could be hired. They had the means and the ability to help - and 95% of the time they did. The ones that didn't - they were the insecure ones who trash talked about everyone that threatened them when you could take a slow stroll and still outrun the guy. Anyway... the divorced ones respected the mother of their children, worked to have a peaceful and successful coparenting situations, and never spoke badly about their ex wives - just said that it didn't work out. They always made time to be with their kids - were actively involved with their lives and were always hands-on. With the type of job we had, it was common for divorce, but the HV guys I worked with always worked to make whatever the situation that arose to be a win-win. There were LV men too, but if I knew one of my girlfriends had met him on a dating app, I always warned my girlfriends and they stayed away.

And don't worry - I did end up reporting the rape and the reason why I didn't report it when I got a medical retirement. In that report I named the names of the people that I believed would have tried to use the information against me. Once that information was received by the higher ups, my close sources told me that there were consequences that those people suffered. So at the end of the day, I did get some justice. But I know my rapist will probably drug the wrong person one day, and he'll get his. It will at some point all catch up to him one day, so don't drink the poison believing it will hurt the other person.

Sending you encouragement, boldness, tenacity, empathy, compassion and strength!