Jen Pastiloff first posted this essay, titled “Shame to Love:  Learning to Live Again After Rape” on TheManifestStation.net, leaving the writer’s name out.  She’s posting it again after receiving this note:

”Dear Jen, Can you re-post the rape essay I wrote and change it from “Anonymous” to my name? It’s his shame to carry, not mine. I’m ready to be brave.”

It took Angela Marchesani 6 years to speak out and say, “This happened to me” and reclaim her power and personhood.  Read her gripping essay here, on TheManifestStation.

Trigger warning: rape/stalking. 

Also, look for a post from me, Suzannah Gilman, in the near future titled “I Did Not Change His Name to Protect Him; He is Not Innocent.”  After thinking about those two sentences for the better half of today and then reading here that another sister fully realized that the shame is his, not hers, I decided to make those sentences my title.

That truth is too important to bury in a paragraph.