If I could see any change in this world it would be to uplift the voices and self-healing work of sexual trauma survivors.

I want to see our voices celebrated and honored for the wisdom they hold, not isolated or shamed by taboo.

I’m a rape-incest survivor, and I’ve spend most of my life too ashamed to say those words out loud. Which is to say, I’ve spent much of my life in hiding.

In 2020 I was diagnosed with C-PTSD which seems obvious in retrospect but was a major revelation for me. Giving it a name really helped me see myself separate from my trauma.

It also unlocked a huge amount of repressed material, and my creative process was what got me through. I was having frequent panic attacks from flashbacks and needed a way to stay grounded. I started with mapmaking, then sewing, then painting, then sculpture.

As I uncovered more traumatic material, I put it into the work. Those projects kept me grounded and clear during a really difficult time. They gave me back a sense of play, which made me want to explore.

I got curious about who I was, and I started to surprise myself.

Last year one of my best friends and I started a group for sexual trauma survivors, CO)OP.

In our first year we hosted over a dozen self-healing workshops, had our first in-person retreat, and in December we held a pop-up exhibiting mixed-media art by survivors to raise money for our micro grant program.

That exhibit was also the launch party for our partner group OP(CO, a commercial enterprise and way to support the work of survivors.

I want to do whatever I can to uplift the stories of survivors, no matter what form they take. I want to show the world exactly what we are capable of when we get the support we need.

Elizabeth