Me too.

Seeing the "Me Too"campaign happening on Facebook made me stop dead in my tracks.

  So many people.

 I thought back through my life and thought "Those poor people. I'm so grateful I haven't gone through that." But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I'm pretty sure most women have experienced at least sexual harassment. 

I have not (to my knowledge) been sexually abused. 

However, there have been times where I too have been sexually harassed. Where I was asked out on  a date only to be yelled at for me refusing to do sexual things to him. That because he paid for dinner, I should do him a "favor." (Not his exact words, I refuse to repeat the exact words.) 

There have been times I was walking back to my car only to be yelled at from guys saying things about me and my body and what they would like to do with it (my body). As well as I have received explicit messages from men also saying things they would like to do to my body.

 I had an authoritative figure when I was younger who would put his hand on my upper thigh when he called me in to his office where at first, I was too scared to say anything to him about how his behavior was not appropriate. The same man, wiped sweat from my upper lip one day. He just swooped in, wiped the sweat slowly, and then rested his finger on my upper lip for a moment before I had the courage to turn and walk away from him. I was 17.

I've been groped at concerts, walking in a store, and once during cheerleading pictures where a  football player walked past me and grabbed my butt.

I have felt fear hundreds of times by the way a man looked at me. I have walked in different directions to feel safer then walking past a group of men. I have been creeped out by comments made to me and stares directed towards me.

I am always highly aware of my surroundings and walk with a sharp object in between my fingers out of fear of being attacked.

I slept over (actually slept) at a guys house who in the morning told people that we did all sorts of sexual acts even though they didn't occur what so ever.

This is the society that we live in and it is not okay and it needs to stop. 

My body is MY body. No means NO.

This isn't just happening to women either. It can happen to anyone.

One night I was walking to my car on campus. It was dark. I was scared. I saw a group of men standing around that made me feel very uncomfortable, when all of a sudden, a group of my guy friends happened to be around and they walked me to my car so I wouldn't feel afraid. I'm grateful for men like that.

I'm grateful for the men in my life who do not treat women as objects. 

I'm grateful for men who protect instead of intimidate. 

I'm grateful for men who don't expect that because they are a man, that it is my responsibility to pleasure them just for being in their presence because I'm a woman.

I'm grateful for men that don't put their hands wherever they want on my body without asking me first.

I'm grateful for men who speak to me as a human being and not as a sexual object.

I'm grateful for men who respect my boundaries and don't try to force through them.

There needs to be more men like that.

To those who have experienced sexual trauma, speaking out does not make you weak. There is an army of people here to love you and help you through your pain. What happened to you is not your fault and you did not deserve it.