This podcast is POWERFUL. My guest and dear friend, Katie, is as raw and vulnerable as one can be when telling a story of extreme injustice and sexual violence. It took me hours of processing and reading her story over and over again to truly be able to settle with her words. Her story stings my heart and mind in all my deep rescuer, justice seeker, truth speaker, and kindness crusader places. And yet, her story NEEDS to be told. Her voice deserves a place to land and cultivate goodness for herself and others.

The edited version of the full story below was read by my guest Katie on the podcast. Beware, it’s raw and disruptive. There is cussing. There is anger. There is real cries of heartbreak. ALL of her words are appropriate for her wounds and her longing for justice. If you are a sexual violence survivor, please be cautious reading this story and listening to the podcast as the content may be triggering.

By Katie Karakourtis posted to her social media on Sep 29, 2018:so, i’m at work yesterday morning, as i am most mornings of my life.its 5:45 ish, i’m on bar- making drinks, talking to some of my regulars, joking around with the early morning crew that i love so much,and i glance over to the stack of newspapers by the front register that get delivered every morning,and the cover photo is two pictures:that iconic photo of dr. christine blasey ford with her hand in the air,swearing to tell the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth – so help her god.and the other of brett kavanaugh,looking angry, his brow furrowed.and i instantly feel that cold sweat, feel like i might throw up or pass out.i pour a green tea latte and entirely miss the cup, my hands shaky and unsteady.i’ve followed this story from a distance since it started appearing in the headlines…but specifically, intentionally from a distance. because i knew if i stepped any closer, i’d end up typing out these words and it’s so much easier to stay removed.but how can i stay fucking removed, when i have the story that i have?every time i sit down to write about this, my hands shake and i can feel my heartbeat in the back of my throat. i am freezing. but sweaty. my chest is so tight, i haven’t taken a full breath in days.exactly like it was when i was the one who sat there with my hand in the air and swore to tell the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth, so fucking help me please, god, if You’re even here with me in this damned room of men in suits.i look back at the last few years of my life and i want to shake the naive 20 year old who thought that the hard part was going to be reporting the abuse, who thought that something would actually be done.i thought that – if i tell the Truth, if i tell what actually happened to me my entire childhood, if i am finally honest – naturally, justice will ensue and this nightmare can be over.however, in reality, it doesn’t really work like that.you tell the truth,you meet your lawyer,you cry and cry and cry,you numb,you fall deep into your vices and addictions to survive,you throw up in the bushes outside a few lawyer’s offices,you type and retype and retype and retype and retype your statement,you ask your people to practice testifying with you only to freak out and never actually practice anything ever,you read hundreds of legal documents that make no damn sense only to sign them because your lawyer tells you to,you don’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time,you try to figure out what the fuck is appropriate to wear to court when your entire wardrobe is jeans and t shirts and high tops,you contemplate suicide a few hundred times a day knowing you’ll never do it because it’ll just make everything worse for the people who love you,you wonder why this process has to take so. fucking. long. because every day that its drawn out is a day you’re losing more of your sanity,you get calls from every therapist you’ve ever seen, all of them saying the same thing –  “your abuser’s lawyers are requesting your therapy notes, should we disclose them?” fuck no, you shouldn’t disclose them.you get the court date. you freak out. court date is almost here. court date gets changed. you meltdown. court date is reassigned. court date is changed again. you don’t fucking care anymore.court date finally comes. you don’t sleep the entire night before, just lay there, terrified.your alarm goes off,you begin weeping, knowing that when you put your feet on the floor this morning, its going to be one of the worst days of your life.you somehow get dressed, somehow survive the drive downtown, somehow haven’t died yet,you see your abuser across the room,you immediately dissolve into tears,your lawyer steers you into a room and asks you if you can hold it together enough to do this,you steel yourself- impossibly enraged at her, at everyone, at the fact that you’re in this godforsaken situation,you sit down, you swear to tell the truth to a room full of men.and they fucking destroy you.every word, every detail, every moment you’ve lived up until that moment is on display. picked apart. mocked. dismissed.you can’t explain yourself, they cut you off any time you try to say anything beyond yes or no.they paint you into a unstable liar.they take the most horrific moments of your existence and ask “you know you could have walked away at any point, right?”and in the end:its he vs she. (who do you think wins that one –  no matter the circumstance.)its theres not enough significant evidence.its why did you wait so long to report.its theres nothing we can do.and the wealthy, white, christian doctor walks away from that summer with every single one of his rights intact,and i crawl back to colorado and have spent the last two years, fighting to grow beyond this story.and i have grown because i’m typing this out right now,because i don’t give a fuck anymore who knows,because i’m posting this and it has the word fuck in it. multiple times.i dare you to ask me why women don’t report.i dare you to talk to me about false reporting.i dare you to casually say to me – well, it if it really happened, why don’t women say anything until years later?i don’t know what to say from here.i just know that i watch dr. blasey ford be decimated for telling the truth and i know that i can’t pretend like that isn’t my experience too. i can’t pretend like it isn’t so many of yours as well.i know that mostly women & my friends will support me and my story- and that’s why i’m still here, why my addictions and trauma haven’t ended my life. because i have THE BEST, kindest, most loving humans in my life.i know that men will either ridicule me, be sympathetic but largely silent in the ways that matter, or are just entirely indifferent. that’s just quite honestly the way it goes. (with the exception of a very small few)i know that this particular news story will die down eventually and the discussion about violence against women will pause until the next time this happens. because theres always a next time.but we live in those pauses, too.the violence done to us doesn’t go away when the conversation is no longer in the news.we carry this shit with us every day of our lives –while we work our full time jobs, do our schoolwork & write our papers, while we try to have meaningful relationships with people, while we grocery shop & sit in traffic & go to therapy.most, if not every, woman in your life has stories of sexual violence.there is no scale of what is worse or more traumatic.i guess this is just a reminder that we’re still here.that i’m still here. (i am so beyond thankful that i am still here.)that we grow more & more weary of this bullshit.