The Mad Search for A Name

My Experiences with Every Voice through the Looking Glass
By Bella Fong, National Communications Director

Content Warning: sexual assault, trauma 

Year after year, I’d search for “what is sexual assault,” scrolling through the results as if something would change. And each time, I felt simultaneous hope and dread– hope that my experiences might be validated but dread that they’d become “real”. At the heart of it all, I wasn’t simply looking for a definition or some acknowledgement of my experience; I was searching for what I am. 
​
For nearly four years, I refused to involve myself with sexual assault organizations. You see, trauma can be a tricky little thing. It comes and goes as it pleases with little warning and, occasionally, with little reason. For some, healing can be achieved through advocacy, outreach, speaking, or action; for others, compartmentalization, brief acknowledgement, and forward motion. I stubbornly attempted the latter, but life presented me with a rabbit hole my imagination and emotions could not resist.
 
“Navigating through trauma, for me, was and is like walking through Lewis Caroll’s Wonderland– beautiful yet ugly, safe yet dangerous, sweet yet vile. The only consistency is “inconsistency”, and the allure of disillusionment, the allure of continued isolation, was as attractive and thirst-quenching as the Mad Hatter’s tea. I met the flowers that sang beautiful songs but saw me as a weed, the Bandersnatch that manifested as a vision of the perpetrator, and the cards and guards that held the Queen’s law, taking the heads and hearts of all who question what is, was, and will be.” (Fong)

One day, I began to feel the land quake and the blood-rose walls rise as my physical isolation increased. My online inquiries were met with nonsensical names and letters, leaving me smaller and more frustrated...until I decided to try legislative advocacy. This is not to say that my qualms magically disappeared or that the road suddenly cleared. The path was as winding and treacherous, but an end could be seen...or, at the very least, a respite. 

Joining Every Voice this fall as a National Development Fellow, I was not sure what to expect. I recall hesitantly writing my application and anxiously conducting my interview. Was I really doing this? Was I going to go down that rabbit hole? Ultimately, this would forge a clearer path for healing, but healing, much like trauma and much like the confusion surrounding my experience, is filled with paradoxes. Receiving my acceptance letter, I was immediately filled with excitement and a tinge of disappointment. Now, I can’t ignore this.  

Thankfully, the transition into survivor advocacy at EVC was not at all jarring or intimidating. EVC created a supportive and flexible environment in acknowledgement of the myriad methods for coping, and the unique feelings held by each individual. As one of seven fellows, I connected with amazing activists, professionals, students, and survivors through outreach, workshops, and mentorship. While speaking and writing swept the dirt away, revealing an increasingly apparent path, EVC’s deep-seeded definition of success catalyzed my growth and writing. Success is not only measured by the number of students and survivors served or the bills passed into law; success is measured by the lives changed, the lives affected. Success is a shifted mind from what I am to who I am and who I will decide to be. 

Fong, Bella T. “POV: Governor Baker Signs Much Needed Campus Sexual Assault Bill.” BU Today, 3 Mar. 2021, www.bu.edu/articles/2021/pov-governor-baker-signs-much-needed-campus-sexual-assault-bill