#TUEmpower by @gabriellafebiola

Original video and dialog from @seributujuan x @reprodukasi

Gabriella Febiola, Sexual Abuse Survivor — I had a driver when I was in elementary school until I was in my last year in junior high. During my puberty times since I was in the 5th grade until at least junior high, he started touching me inappropriately. My parents were kind of busy working when I was growing up.

Even up to this day, you can still hear the crack in my voice because it still affects me.

I never really talked about it until last year to public. I feel like I needed the help and I feel like it’s important for people to know that it’s okay to tell your story, and it’s okay to be hurting still about the past that haunts you. Obviously, it’s a nightmare. But I told my parents about it when I was feeling super down and I didn’t know what to do.

Obviously as a child, you didn’t know you needed to seek for help.

So you just thought, It’s gonna go away if I keep repressing whatever happened to me. Maybe it’d feel like it never happened.

How did you manage to find support and overcome the incident afterwards?

There was a time when I was in denial. I felt like I needed to blame everybody else for what happened to me, instead of blaming the person who actually did it to me. So I was really angry at my parents and I thought to myself, If you guys weren’t that busy working, then maybe I shouldn’t have experienced all of that things that happened to me. But then again, it’s just a phase of really looking for answers, I guess.

After that, I just went for a family counselling with my parents. Everything that we could do to stick together as a family. We went to church obviously, I know that it sounds really cliche, like you go to church and you pray. But I think that’s what our parents understand about the whole situation—like you just need to go back to God, when actually you need real support from therapists or psychologists to make sure your mental health is okay. But yeah that’s how I managed to push through, until last year that I actually saw a psychiatrist when I was still back in New Zealand.

How does your family feel about the incident?

At first, they were really shocked that it could happen to their family member. They never thought that something like that could happen to me because the driver had been working for my mom even before I was born. So he was like more like a family friend and they didn’t think he could do something like that. Other than shock, I feel like it’s really shaking them to the core as much as it shook me. It also shook them to receive that kind of news. Now that I’m grown up, they didn’t know what to do either. They were trying to help me but they just didn’t know how. And I was just a big bag of exploding emotions because I didn’t know how to take it as well.

What would you like to say to people that say, ‘Why don’t sexual abuse victims come forward sooner?’

For people who say that, I wish you knew how much strength that it takes us to even be able to speak out. Cause it’s obviously something really personal and you just don’t want to tell people, Hey I’m just abused or I’m just assaulted by this man. I think people really need to get an understanding of why we keep it to ourselves.

Because when we speak up, I could probably say that there’d be 4/10 people who would actually believe you and try to help you. The 6 other would probably say something really negative about it.

Oh she’s not a virgin anymore because she’s been assaulted or abused. That kind of negative stigma. Or, Oh she just does it to seek for attention, or she just wants us to pay more attention to her, and whatnot. That’s something you should probably keep aside if you want us to speak up. Because the girls in our generation are legitimately thought to keep everything to yourself until unless it’s comfortable for your family or your closed ones.

Do you think sex education is important to prevent sexual abuse?

I do believe so, because sex ed isn’t gonna encourage others to have sex. I think it does quite the opposite. I feel like when you actually understand what sex is and the consequences you’re willing to make to actually have intimate moments with the person you choose, you would be able to see the bigger picture: If I choose to have sex with my partner, what if she gets pregnant? What are the consequences if she gets pregnant at a really young age? Obviously as teenagers, we are very curious about the whole puberty stuff.

But if you have that education, you will know exactly what sex is.

Obviously you would wanna know how it feels like. And I think that’s why if you don’t have that education, you would actually try it on someone without their consent because you don’t understand the meaning of consent itself. You don’t understand the difference between having sex when someone actually wants it as well, or if you’re raping them, you know.

How do you feel about RUU PKS not being discosted?

I think I don’t know what’s taking so long because I don’t understand the legal side of it. Obviously it’s something that needs to be officially agreed by the government or whatnot. But I think it’s just been long overdue. It’s something that could protect the survivors, but right now there’s really nothing that makes them feel safe to speak up. And those predators out there, they feel like they could do something like that and not receive any consequences towards their actions. It’s something really important for women, for men, for kids. Because let’s face it, sexual abuse or assault can happen to anyone and anytime. And if there’s any witness included, I don’t think there would be sexual abuse or assault; it usually happens at a time where its very quite or if theres no one. And the only person that this authority can trust is Us VS. Them. And with no certain law, it’s just floating somewhere. Like, Do I trust the survivor? Do I trust the perpetrator? I don’t know because there’s no law about it.

So it’s such a shame that something big like this—which could really break someone from their very core—can just be something that’s normal or common, and that there’s nothing that we as a society could do to help this survivor.

That’s just such a shame.

Do you have anything you would like to say for other sexual assault survivors to know?

I want them to know that they’re not alone, and they’ve been really strong. I know that it probably feels like the end of the world, or you feel like you have no hope anymore. But trust me, talking about it may sound like the most terrifying thing to do—but as soon as you talk about your problem and the more you talk about it, it’s just gonna be a little bit relieving. It’s not gonna get better like that, but it’s gonna make you feel a lot less burdened. And just find your support system. it doesn’t have to be a lot of people, you can just choose one or two that you really trust. And until you are ready to tell your story, just take your time and it’s really okay not to be okay. And being vulnerable is really brave, so thank you for being strong.

I hope you know that sexual abuse/assault is never okay and it’s okay to actually talk about it. Cause’ there’s people like us who actually relate with you.

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