The Project
One evening of last Fall, I was biking back home from a therapy session. It was sunset, a time I always cherished for the peaceful closure it brings to whatever happened during the day. As I’ve always enjoyed doing, I got intentionally lost in order to explore new paths and find myself new ways to come back home.
It gives my brain some time to reflect on the day, while my body is put in a simple, repetitive and yet entertaining action. For me, biking is an almost a meditative experience.
In my therapy session that day, we discussed the recurring memory of the door opening and closing up and how outraged, with reason, that made me feel. Once we figured why and also how to deal with it for my own sake, I told him I was still extremely upset society wouldn’t talk about it more since I’ve read an article reporting unbelievable numbers: 1 out of 5 (Badgley Report 1984).
And that’s when it happened, in my brain: if biking was making me feel so good and strong, if no one was deciding to talk about the issue, if it was happening to so many people, if I needed an empowering adventure, I will bike across Canada this summer to raise awareness on Survivors of child sex abuse.
I stopped the bike for a minute, to ground this decision in my body and my mind, also to seize all the implications it involved. I was in the middle of a residential area, and my brain started counting the houses: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5 it’s happening; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 it’s happening; 1, 2, 3…"
Every 5th house, a kid was living a nightmare or an adult was painfully stained by it. The silence in the street was stunning. Made me almost have a panic attack. But I didn’t let it take hold. I made my best to stay grounded, in the middle of this very silent street watching the sunset envelope the houses in a pink layer of light.
It was one of those crystallising moments in my memory. I knew instinctively how much this was needed and what amazing strength it would bring to me.
I knew in my core I would make it happen: I will bike through Canada to raise awareness for survivors of child sexual abuse, to tell them it will get better, they are not alone, we are together.
I want to claim that, even if you had a tough beginning in life, you can take it back and do whatever you want with your life: even biking through Canada (but you don’t have to).
I hope Break The Chain will provide inspiration to survivors, to families to talk, to heal and believe they can do it. I hope the videos and testimonies will help to smooth out a crisis and open a talk.
On my personal side, I want Break The Chain to be a shifting point in the path of healing: even if I know the abuse and its sequels will always be in me, I want to put it where it belongs, in the past. I want this trip to show me I am strong and determined. I want, when another panic attack or negative self-doubt thought will come, to be able to look back at it this trip and say “Oh, I’ve done so much already, the trauma will not win this time”.
And, time after time, I will heal and tame the past.
This is my statement of power!