I sat on the bench outside “Take Back the Night” and listened to the speakers tonight, April 16th 2019. Natalie Illham was the featured speaker and an alumni of UMW! She has many honors for her poetry, and a disability advocate who experienced sexual abuse. She made the point that creative writing and communities that facilitate it help give survivors a powerful voice and outlet to create social change. This made me think of our project, where we all used our own creative licenses to make something to facilitate controversial thought about disabled experience and needs. Additionally, this event advocated for normalization of therapy because of the truth that trauma is a part of a person’s identity. This does not mean that a survivor or disabled person has get better, or has to heal, but they should be given the resources to live the way they need to. This statement is a paraphrased idea that the keynote speaker presented, and I thought it was really important because it shows a sort of intersection or at least similarity between disability and traumatized persons such as sexual assault survivors–the piece of them that makes them deviate from society’s perceived “norm” does not make them less valuable or capable–they need not feel any shame or failure, they just must be provided resources and mechanisms to live according to their needs and experiences; embracing their identity, experiences, and abilities as valuable and strong.
