I’m a daddy’s girl. As the oldest of seven, I never quite got enough attention as a child, but whenever I was around my father, I always saw the effort he made to make me feel extra special. It was never big gestures but a little wink here and silly face there, a tickle here and a snuggle there, that always made me feel like he had his eye on me. In our family, my mother was the disciplinarian; she was strict and wasn’t one for reasoning with me as a child, but my father was soft spoken, more easily persuaded, and poured into my inquisitive nature.

My path to becoming a licensed psychologist wasn’t one that I chose growing up, despite being the therapist among my friends. People came to me when they needed advice or a shoulder to cry on, but I had no idea that a psychologist was even a career option because I was taught, ‘what happens in our house, stays in our house.’ My decision may seem serendipitous to some, but I truly believe that I was a called to this field.

I remember the first time I went to therapy. I was a sophomore in college, struggling with imposter syndrome, and feeling a lack of connection with family that I’d left back home. I was confused, frustrated, and anxious. And although I didn’t know what therapy was, I knew that it was something I got for “free” as a student, and I was trying to take advantage of every resource that the university offered. So I called the counseling center, booked the appointment, and went in.

My training at a rape and sexual abuse center lead me to commit much of my work to survivors of trauma. My passion comes from the fact that society puts much of the burden on women to protect themselves from assault (don’t drink, don’t wear revealing clothes, and don’t walk by yourself at night) rather than to train men not to take things they don’t have permission for. I know that men are victims of sexual assault. The focus of this post is the majority of sexual assaults that occur, when women are attacked by men.