So, after a hiatus (it was needed, because I’ve really grown), I’m abandoning my fears and really moving forward with this. There are still some questions that are unanswered and that’s been part of the delay. Here are the things that have come up so far…

1. The reality is, it would take a really long time to publish this into a book. How do we keep the momentum going within the participants as well as ourselves? How about putting it online?!?! That’s what we’ve decided to do. We’re going to create an online gallery with snippets from the interviews and then when it’s feasible, turn it all into a coffee table book.

2. Traveling is a wee bit expensive. The expenses for something like this can really add up when you take traveling into consideration. It was really the goal to be able to go everywhere in the US. That will come in time, but for now, we’re really going to focus on the cities that I find myself in the most. They are DC, Atlanta and New York. Eventually we will add more cities, even if that means adding more photographers.

3. Should the name of this project stick? Originally, the idea was to call this project about CSA the “In the Light Project.” However, I realized there were many different issues that we could bring attention to. It only makes sense then to find something to call this specific thing. That’s the tricky part. It’s been really hard coming up with a name that sticks. Anyone have any ideas?

4. This website terribly needs to be updated and made to be more interactive. This is one of the things that I desperately want to work on. The only problem is that I need to figure out what to name the others before I go tinkering with this one! (See #3)

So there you have it.  Hopefully, everything will be figure out within the next week. If you have any ideas or questions, we would love to hear them.

http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/adult-survivors-of-childhood-sexual-abuse-faq.htm

http://books.google.com/books?q=child+sex+abuse&source=in&ei=gy1rSoGuIciltgfI-8THBQ&sa=X&oi=book_group&ct=title&cad=bottom-3results&resnum=16

In essence, “RapeLay” is a video game that allows the player to stalk , prey on, and rape victims. Once the player has the opportunity to rape a victim, they then have the option to rape the victim’s two virgin daughters, one of daughters is about 10 years of age. Obviously after looking at the content of this article describing the mission of this game I was truly taken aback. How could something so vulgar and distasteful be allowed.

Should the government step in here and regulate the types of items being put on the market? Should there be some sort of censorship? If not, what actions should be taken? What are your thoughts?

      I have since become the writer for the In the Light project. It is my responsibility to interview each survivor and write his or her story. I don’t go into these interviews with a pre-determined list of questions or looking for specific information. My intention is simply to offer survivors the time and space to talk about the parts of their life story that they feel they want to share. Every survivor has a story. And it is not necessarily a story about what happened to them but rather it is about how they have chosen to go on and live their life. 

      Despite wholeheartedly subscribing to this positive perspective, I approached my first set of In the Light interviews with a heavy heart and reluctant mind. As I walked the few blocks from my house to the studio the one thought that ran, on repeat, through my mind was: this is the last thing I want to be doing today. It was a raw, overcast Saturday in March and I was pre-occupied by my own life’s current tumult. It was not that I wasn’t interested in listening to other peoples’ experiences as survivors of child sexual assault; truthfully, I just didn’t think I had the emotional energy at that moment to do so. Emotions can be draining. The mere anticipation of facing someone else’s, and inevitably my own, felt like adding yet another heavy cloud on an already downtrodden day. 

      However, over the course of the ensuing afternoon, as I sat in the upstairs loft of The Carriage House studio (a space that we had been fortunate enough to get donated to us for the day) interviewing each survivor what I experienced in actuality was far from draining.

      The loft where I conducted the interviews resembled the living room of many urban apartments; a mixed match array of used furniture and common knick-knacks rested in various standard configurations around the room. The unassuming character of this room - with the one exception being the voice recorder conspicuously perched on the coffee table – mirrored the essence of the interviews.

      Amidst a string of very personal insights and experiences, there was much that was commonplace. I was struck by the unassuming way in which each individual spoke of offering his or her life – both the suffering and the healing – up for others to learn and gain strength from. Each person had felt at one point as though they were alone in their suffering; they were now in the midst of emerging from that feeling and wanted others to know that they could too. Each interview reminded me of the truly exceptional, and yet so often hidden, perspectives individuals carry within themselves.

      By the end of the day I realized that I had been so busy dreading the potentially difficult emotions that an interview would unearth that I had failed to remember how inspiring it is to listen as a story of survival unfolds. None of the stories were linear and very few of them followed a clear cause-and-effect trajectory, however each of them was ripe with insight, hope and strength – often times in ways that not even the survivor realized until after she or he had spoken.

      That afternoon I learned, yet again, that often when we confront difficult experiences good things can and do emerge.

Take a look at the article featured in Essence Magazine.

Interested to know your thoughts here, and what actions should or can be taken to help raise awareness in this area.