Marlee Liss

Transcript

i sat face to face with the man who raped me just waiting to hear his words i'll never forget the feeling of looking him in the eye as he said i'm sorry i sexually assaulted you three years before that moment i had been raped by this stranger one moment my mouth was being covered my body violated and the next i was sitting in the hospital in a total state of shock telling a police officer that sure i guess i'll report in the year that followed my whole worlds became about survival i battled shame self-blame panic attacks depression i was let down by how false my

vision of the world was and i judged myself for being naive for having expected love three years passed before i was called for a criminal trial i considered dropping the charges court seemed so scary to me and i really didn't see how a potential prison sentence would change anything about the way that this man treats women desperate for closure i confided in a friend i told her if this was my world we wouldn't face this in a courtroom we'd handle it like actual human beings we'd sit down together and cry tears for what had happened i'd get to ask the questions that kept me up

at night like what happened between the time a baby was born and a perpetrator was made she responded with just four words so make it happen i had never considered that and it lit a fire within me i began researching and that's when i found restorative justice so i got real brave and real terrified and i marched into the prosecutor's office to ask for what i wanted i wanted my rapist in therapy not prison and i wanted my closure in a circle not a courtroom a month went by before i got a call from my lawyer telling me my ask had been answered my assailant

would begin therapy right away and eventually we'd meet in a circle that was one of the most healing moments of my life six months after that i sat down across from the man who raped me i took a deep breath to calm my shaken body this moment was for me and my healing the mediators asked us just one question what brought you here today it took us eight hours to answer that and i gave myself full permission to speak like i was getting every ounce of hurt and toxicity out of my body when he did look at me and say i'm sorry my whole world

shifted i let go of anger i didn't even know i was holding on to a knot untied in my belly and i cried a deep primal grief but it wasn't a moment of pain it was one of relief rape had taught me to judge myself for walking through this world with expectations of love but that circle showed me that i had never been wrong to hold that standard when i realized how powerful my expectations of love actually were turning something so horrible into healing i realized this sometimes we ourselves need to embody the hope we've been needing to become the compassion that we feared was

lost keeping our hearts soft in the face of pain is not a sign of weakness it's a powerful choice one that breaks cycles of harm and ignite ones of healing one that allows us to let go of those knots of resentment long held in our bodies and to create space for something so much more loving and free it's a choice that allows us to become the compassion that we've been needing all along you

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