Alyssia Dietrich

Transcript

i was 12 years old when i sat in that class chap cadet harassment and abuse prevention program i didn't take it seriously started my peers we were all giggly and immature or acting our age rather the last time i ever got to do that my instructor wasn't comfortable teaching the material and he didn't take it seriously so how could i take it seriously eight months later and i wish i would have listened a little more intently that day i was 13 and at summer camp basic training at the trenton air cadet summer training center i didn't know what to do when he hurt me an

older cadet in a supervisory role that is i just knew that my safe place and the activities i once enjoyed would no longer be and i was lost no one to turn to no one to talk to just a child who was 13 going on 30 all because of one boy i quit the cadet program after that year and to this day i still regret it but i didn't know what else to do i was too busy trying to survive and to this day my heart still aches and i am still upset when i think of the opportunities that i was robbed of in my

childhood but not a lot being allowed to finish what i started because the truth is i really did have fond memories of my time before that happened i enjoyed everything about being an air cadet doing drill wearing the uniform flying a glider we even got to go to montreal one winter we watched imax movies and blue jays games and of course we got stuck watching my commanding officer's favorite movie top gun about 74 times and before i was hurt even summer camp was fun despite the 6 a.m wake ups and the expectation to make my bed with complete precision all of those wonderful memories shattered

with shards of glass forever ingrained in my body like the smell of his clothes and the taste of his breath is ingrained in my mind air cadets meant so much to me and so when i decided decided to leave after that year a piece of my heart was left there too and to this day i feel that same longing desire wishing that things would have been different because things should have been different for many years of my youth i tried to make sense of what had happened to me and why and i pondered how i'd ever move past it but like those children activity books

you know the ones where you connect the dots i drew lines forwards and backwards trying to make sense of it all but i just couldn't make out the picture until one day about a decade later i solved the puzzle i had to go back back to one of the toughest places of my childhood except this time as a mentor to the next generation in 2017 i enrolled in the canadian armed forces cadet instructor scheduler because while i realized that i can't change my past i can change the future generation for the youth of today and not only did i decide to return to the same

cadet unit where i was hurt but i also chose to sign up to be a facilitator for that exact abuse prevention program i am now a lieutenant and it is my job to teach teenagers the meaning of consent what warning signs to look out for and what to do in the case of a disclosure and while some like my instructor as a child would find these discussions uncomfortable i am the exact opposite i want to dive into these topics i enjoy teaching youth and showing them what a safe adult looks like i want them to know that i'm an approachable leader who will be there

to celebrate their successes but also to support them throughout their adversities i have become the officer that i needed as a child trauma is life altering it is the lump in my throat that will never fully be able to be swallowed and it's the flashbacks that i'm still working through even when consent exists between my partner and i and it's the distorted thinking that i experience when i see a little girl and my first thought is to wonder if she is okay or if someone is going to hurt her too trauma is also a strong desire for change it can give us the intuition beyond

explanation and the courage to take action to make a difference in someone else's life so the next little boy or girl will have a fighting chance trauma like a puzzle of connecting the dots can have a scrambling all over the place to understand the picture with lines and erase the debris all over but when we are able to do the work and embark on our journey of healing we will see that we are exactly where we are supposed to be

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.