The Press Conference.  

It has been a year and a half since I last spoke at a press conference, so I was a little bit nervous for this one. There were at least 4 camera's there recording footage to possibly show on the news, someone from the Idaho State Journal was there, but I am not sure if someone from the Idaho Statesman was there. There was also a gentleman from a radio station. Pretty good turnout.

After the press conference, where I spoke and a lady from SNAP spoke, Mary Grant, I was asked by channel 6 and another channel, to give an interview, which I did, of course. It's always nerve wracking giving interviews because they edit most of what you say and can edit you in such a way as to make you look bad, like an idiot, or who knows what else! Many of the questions were profound and issues I hadn't really formulated responses to. What I said on camera in those interviews was as raw as you can get. There were questions that forced me to reflect back on a period of my life that seems like eons ago. It's painful and troubling to bring yourself back to a place, a hell in every sense of the word, but it is, and was, necessary.

I have a responsibility to speak out. Not just for myself and my sister, for friends and family, but for the untold number of victims who not only suffered in silence, but now try to heal in silence-still handicapped by feelings of shame, embarrassment, fear, etc...

Getting to a place where you are comfortable talking about your own personal hell is not easy and it takes you on an emotional rollercoaster, but the main reason I am able to do it is because I MUST do it. I stated recently that one day I will have children and they will go to church and I don't ever want to look back at this period in my life and know, or think, I didn't do enough.

I've been debating with myself on whether or not I want to post what I said at the press conference. I haven't made up my mind yet. Though shared publicly with many cameras, microphones, legislators, and other audience members, somehow it still feels intensely personal and something I have only shared with those I love deeply. But maybe the words themselves isn't what is so personal, maybe it is the emotions I felt and feel...

With that said, I must attend to my studying as tomorrow morning I take my comprehensive exams. When you read this and if it is before 5pm on friday (though I hope to be done before 5), please say a prayer for me. I've been carrying the world on my shoulders and I am feeling a bit weak and terribly weary.