Trigger Warning: This article is a compilation of interviews from a few amazing women touching on their stories of abuse while highlighting what has helped them heal. With this article, our team hopes to open an honest conversation about abuse and how people find healing in the midst of trauma.
Written and Designed by Grace Senior
Photographed by Ellie Hueneke and others
Photographed and Edited by Ellie Hueneke,
Drawing by Grace Senior
Kendall Polidori, 21 years old:
Tell me about your story.
“I wasn't dating this person. I moved to Chicago and I just started school. I'm from the suburbs but I wanted to live closer to the college so I wouldn't have to commute as far. I ended up staying with my best friend's family and it was a great situation. But her boyfriend was staying with her as well and out of the blue, I woke up in the middle of the night to her boyfriend in my room—I want to say it was like two in the morning—and I had to pack up all my things. My mom picked me up and I left. My whole life kind of changed after that. At the time I wasn't dating anybody. I want to say like a month later, I started to have a relationship with somebody. And it was hard for me to even be near them or be close to them. Every time somebody would sit next to me on the train, I would feel uncomfortable. So trying to open up and be close and even let somebody put their hand on me or hold my hand was really, really hard for me at first.”
“My whole life kind of changed
after that.”
-Kendall Polidori
What do you feel has helped you heal from that experience?
“I don't think I've fully moved on. I don't think anybody really does. It's a continuous, growing process. You really have to continue to find things to help you cope and move on and heal. But for me personally, I'm a writer. I love writing. And that was kind of when I was finding my niche, you could say. The week that happened, I actually covered Lollapalooza. And so I think right off the bat I was kind of forced to not think about what happened to me and I didn't really have a chance to deal with it, but I had this other part, my passion that I was like, ‘yeah, I'm at a huge festival, I'm able to cover music, I'm able to talk to people and write and do what I love.’ I've found I'm very grateful I was able to do that instantly after probably one of the most traumatic experiences that I've had because I was instantly able to feel safe and comfortable and do what I love. So writing was definitely, and still is, a huge thing that helps me.
“I've found I'm very grateful I was able to do that instantly after probably one of the most traumatic experiences that I've had because I was instantly able to feel safe and comfortable and do what I love.”
-Kendall Polidori
If you could speak to someone going through a similar situation, what would you say?
“I wish somebody said to me, it was just, ‘go at your own pace, take it slow.’ Because I was, and I have been, very vocal about it, which I think is important to not push it aside. Let people know what you're going through so other people can help themselves. I think I was pushed into handling the situation a certain way. I definitely wish I was able to have my own voice in that and take it slow, take a step back and really try and understand how I wanted to deal with it and how I wanted to understand it. Definitely just try and listen to what you feel is right and whatever will help you the best.”
Photographed by Britt Lapiska, Edited by Ellie Hueneke,
Drawing by Grace Senior
Britt Lapiska, 30:
Tell me about your story.
“It happened from when I was like two or three until I was like seven and it was with my uncle and my two cousins. My one cousin is like five or six years older than me and my other cousin is nine months older than me, which is the same age difference between [my daughter] Piper and her older cousin. I was the youngest and then I had the two older cousins and then my uncle. This was pretty much under wraps. Only I knew about it. My family knew about it because I started doing stuff at school and involving my other cousins and people were just like, ‘hmm, this is weird.’ So I started therapy and then stopped doing those things, like asking kids to do stuff to me. When I started bringing it up to other people they were just like, ‘Oh, that's not normal.’ So I ended up forgetting about it entirely. And then I remembered it when I started becoming sexually active, which I guess was when I was like 17. I started remembering everything, so I started therapy and actually it's something that I recently explained to my family now that everyone in my family knows what happened with my cousins and my uncle. Everyone's on the same page, which is good. It's definitely helped my process.”
“This was pretty much under wraps. Only I knew about it.”
-Britt Lapiska
What do you feel has helped you heal from that experience?
Therapy is the biggest thing. I don't think that it's something that I'll ever be able to get past. I think it's a shitty thing that happened. But I think that's part of it too, understanding that this is a sad thing that happened. But you're better, you're you, you're a badass. You're strong and you can get through everything. For example, when I say I'm not going to get past it, I mean— Piper—when she turned two, I had a whole wave of emotion because that was when stuff started happening to me. I thought I was going to be okay and then I got really sad and I was just like, ‘what the hell? Why did this happen? Why would Piper—so innocent, so sweet, and knows nothing—think anyone would take advantage?’ That was really hard for me, but instead of dwelling on it—I mean I was sad for a little bit, I got really angry—but I started going to therapy again for it. I feel like the biggest thing that's helped me is just kind of understanding that it's a process, and that's okay. Also a big motivation for me was Piper, my family, and myself, because it's not fair to be sad all the time. That’s a big waste of time. You gotta be happy, you got to work on yourself in order to be okay and be okay for your family.”
“Sometimes you need someone to just listen.”
-Britt Lapiska
If you could speak to someone going through a similar situation, what would you say?
Just that, it’s a process. It's constantly changing. It's kind of like a spider web. Everything's touching and sometimes everything kind of works out and it looks really beautiful. But then something might happen, like Piper turning two. I never thought that was gonna hurt me or make me remember. It impacted my web. It messed it up. It pulled down a part of it and so I had to go back, fix it, and make it stronger. I think that the more that you just keep working and understanding yourself and accepting what's going on, the better off you'll be. It also really helped that I was able to have [my husband] Derek, he's really understanding and a really good listener. I think that was really hard for Derek understanding that he can't fix it cause it is what it is. I can't fix it. I can't fix what happened. He can't take it away. Sometimes you need someone to just listen. I would also say, just be kind to yourself. Just know that you're going to be okay. You're going to get through it. Just love yourself and I'm sorry that happened to you.”
Photographed by Jacqueline Luttrell,
Edited by Ellie Hueneke, Drawing by Grace Senior
Jacqueline Luttrell, 55:
Tell me about your story.
“When I was 14 and in foster care, I went through four years of rape. And simultaneously, I was in a situation where another other person was more like a father figure. But looking back, he knew I had daddy issues, I had abandonment issues, and he played on it. It turned into sex and it was really screwed up. It screwed up my perception of love and sex. At the same time I'm battling the violence of it. I'm battling trying to figure out my words when I have one person telling me, ‘if you say anything, nobody would believe you. You're just the foster kid. You don't matter. You'll just get sent away and somebody else will be here.' So to go through all that during my high school years while being an overachiever and trying to prove that I was really worth something—It's taken me 30 plus years to be able to admit what happened to me. Because for the longest time the situation that I thought was “love,” was a really weird relationship where I didn't date anybody in high school because my first and only boyfriend was 45, which is bullshit. That wasn't a boyfriend. That was the abuse. It was a goat rodeo to be in two different types of sexual situations. That's batshit crazy. But no, I'll be damned if I'm a victim. Fuck that.”
What do you feel has helped you heal from that experience?
“It took a long time of psychoanalyzing myself. Initially I wanted to become a neurosurgeon and so I really understood the brain. I knew something in me was horribly, horribly broken. I mean, just broken beyond anything that I think could grow back together myself. So I started reading up on what happens to women going through rape. How do they get through it? How do they survive? How do they try to become normal? I focused on the violence aspect. Because also in my head, [the other] "relationship" was "love" to me. That was my definition of love, which again was so whacked out wrong and crazy. The rape was the only thing I could reconcile myself with and I think I felt I was responsible for this other relationship because I was in love with this man, or so I thought at 14, 15, 16. What the fuck did I know? I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground. To reconcile and try to pull myself together, I was trying to make sure that I did not fall into the pitfalls of what a rape victim would go through. Except I'm 55 now and I still have nightmares. I just haven't gotten past that. It's a part of me. It's part of my life. It's not so bad as it used to be, but I still do. That's the only thing that still haunts me. I spent my entire life proving I am something. I guess that feeling of worthlessness translated into my insane drive that I am someone. I do have a voice. I do have power, and if I don't like something I will change it. I am not going to let this shit take me down.”
“It's taken me 30 plus years to be able to admit what happened to me.”
-Jacqueline Luttrell
If you could speak to someone going through a similar situation, what would you say?
“Speak up. Tell someone, number one. Hindsight is 2020 because looking back, if my parents knew. I think they would've done something. They would have done something, they did love me. I was just too scared to say anything. Stand up for yourself. The people that knew me back then thought I was tough, that I didn't back down from anything. They remember me being vocal, outspoken, driven, all of the things that I am now. So why couldn't iI speak up? Why couldn't I just get past that? Why didn't I? I couldn't see who I really was. No matter what I had done or accomplished, I could not see it. Don't think killing yourself as a way out. 'Cause I tried it and failed miserably when I was 16. I would say something to somebody who can do anything and don’t suffer in silence, get some help.”
“Speak up. Tell someone, number one.”
-Jacqueline Luttrell
Photographed and Edited by Ellie Hueneke,
Drawing by Grace Senior
Bridget Ekis, 21:
Tell me about your story.
“Last fall, I went home to Michigan to visit my family for Thanksgiving. My dad, he gets very angry when he's drunk and he is a long time like whiskey drinker. That night, there were all these people in my basement and my boyfriend and I went to dinner. My mom told me that all the people went to my neighbor's house and my dad’s feelings were hurt, but even though he's sixty years old, he can't say that he's mad. So I was sitting at dinner with my boyfriend and all of a sudden, I got this text from my mom and it says, ‘dad hit me.' I tried to call her and she didn't answer. I got another text from my mom and it's a picture of her face all black and blue and swollen. So she left [the house]. I was just sitting there and I broke down in tears and we left [the restaurant]. I spent the night at [my boyfriend's]. I went back to my house and I saw my parents sitting right in the living room like nothing happened. I'm like, ‘what the fuck?’ After that I went back to Chicago and I didn't talk to my dad. Which was really hard for me because I grew up a daddy's girl and he was my best friend. I didn't know how to like react. I couldn't imagine that he actually did this to my mom. He threw something at her, and hit her, and then even when she was on the ground, he continuously threw things at her. I went a month without talking to him and I was like, ‘I don't want to go home. I don't even feel safe going home. I don't feel safe near my dad.’ I've never felt that my whole life. My dad was the most loving person ever. Who is this monster? I still can't wrap my head around like the fact that someone that's so important to me hurt someone else who is so important to me. I think that was the deepest level of heartbreak I've ever felt in my life. I don't hold like grudges. A month before I came back for Christmas my dad texted me and was like, ‘Hey, I just want to let you know I'm really sorry for what I did to mom. And it's not a true reflection of me.' It was just trying to reach out to me. I don't even think I responded the first couple times, which was really hard for me. I’m like- ghosting my dad. In the beginning I was just like, I cannot fathom that this happened to me and I kinda don't understand who my dad is anymore."
What do you feel has helped you heal from that experience?
“I think it's just time spent doing things that are making you better. I'm not saying ignoring the situation, but self care. For me, self care is recognizing things that will make you live happier and doing it actively every day. Sometimes you just need to be sad alone. You just have to sit with your sadness like a bath. You have to take a bath of sadness and then you have to get out and then towel dry yourself. Maybe you're still a little wet in places and that’s your sadness still hanging around, but eventually it dries. I just try to better myself because I ultimately know that the only person I have complete control over is me. I still don't feel like I have the same relationship I did with my dad. But I think as time went on, I tried to stop thinking of him as a monster and tried to understand him as a human. 'Cause at our core, we're all humans. I think we all want love, deserve it, and have this need to
feel wanted.”
“You have to take a bath of sadness and then you have to get out and then towel dry yourself. Maybe you're still a little wet in places … but eventually it dries.”
-Bridget Ekis
If you could speak to someone going through a similar situation, what would you say?
“I would say that you don't always need other people to feel better. They help. But I think take some time to learn about yourself and what makes you feel better. You know, everybody's got something. So I think maybe spend less time on Instagram and Twitter and spend less time Googling self care. Like you know yourself the best. Just write down in a notebook, 'what are things that make me happy.' Recognize what your top priorities are in the moment. Focus on that. And then when you do get a little space with yourself, then sit with yourself and ask, 'what's going to make me happy moving forward?' Ask yourself these really tough questions, 'what makes me angry or sad?' And sometimes you have to go back to elementary school and be like, 'what does it mean to be sad?' 'What does it mean to be angry?' I used to be angry at my dad. It was anger first and then it was sadness, and then it was misunderstanding. So I would say first recognize what your priorities are. Second, when you have time to sit with yourself, do things to make you feel better, truly make you feel better. And then take action upon them."
Photographed via Zoom and Edited by Ellie Hueneke, Drawing by Grace Senior
Grace Senior, 21:
Tell me about your story.
“It's kind of classic: the guy comes along that shows you affection in the ways that you feel like you can't do for yourself and you want to be able to give them whatever they want to keep that affection going. It was my first relationship. It started as like simple manipulation. He also had a porn addiction which really influenced how he treated me, especially physically. I felt small and stupid and I know it's because he wanted to feel big and smart. I gave him no reason to not do whatever he wanted with me. I would try to stop situations, but when you get a response ‘well just just leave, just go then,’ it makes you want to do whatever they want to get them to stay. I think that I legitimately believed that if I tried hard enough, I could have made him happy enough to want to stick around. So it turned into a lot of physical things that I didn't want to do, but he did. I think eventually he became scared though—because of his position in the church—that people would figure it out, or maybe he was actually remorseful, who knows? He actually ended up breaking things off after over a year and then we spent a summer apart. After that summer, he wanted to be friends again, and I didn't want to live without him. He had become one of the only people outside of my family that I had as a constant. My family, they're crazy, but they love me, are so loyal and would have done anything to help. They just didn't fully know, you know, and if someone doesn't know, what can they do? When we got back from spending the summer apart, it fell back into him taking advantage and he could still do whatever he wanted and had no real repercussions. A lot of people had told me that was the guy who I was going to marry. I thought this was the guy who I was going to marry. It was never as perfect as people wanted to believe it was. I wanted to believe that it was as perfect as it seemed to be. But I was so unaware. It seems like I was legitimately blind to the entire thing. Like I absolutely had no sense. All I knew was that I wanted to make this person happy and doing whatever he wanted was what did that enough to keep him there.”
What gave you hope through this?
“I think understanding that I’ll never fully get past it, and that’s OK. Bad things, hurtful things can happen. But I’m still a Christian and he was part of the church and I know that a lot of people wonder how I can still be Christian. But it’s the relationship that has perfect love, with God, and that's pretty cool, it models the love that is actually pure and right. As women we're so f-ing powerful and we have so much worth and better things to hope for and we need to realize that. So that's helped a lot. And then honestly, just knowing that I can use hard things to help people. I have a lot of anxiety, depression, and chronic illnesses, those are huge things for me. And this abuse is kind of just adding to my list of shitty things that happen in life that you can use to show people regardless of how shitty things can get, life is still pretty cool in a lot of ways, and it’s helpful to make myself see that. Even though I act super happy all the time, it's hard to be happy, but knowing that I can help make someone else feel better and heard gives me hope.”
“The repetitive motion of lifting a heavy
object is what makes you stronger. ”
-Grace Senior
What advice would you give to someone who is currently going through that?
“Everything about these kinds of situations is so difficult and loaded and time-consuming. I think the basis is help yourself to understand you don’t deserve that and use that to grow. It’s really hard and time-consuming. Especially feeling comfortable in your own skin and understanding what you like about yourself, regardless of what other people have said. Just love your damn self. Just do it. I feel like we have to brutalize that to an extent. Sometimes we can't be soft about these things. We just have to say ‘just do it.’ And it'll become such a routine that you can't help but love yourself, like screaming at yourself in the mirror that you're so damn lovable that you deserve to be loved correctly. Once you repeat that, however many times it takes, you might actually believe it, but push yourself a little bit. They're not easy things to get away from. And it's not easy to go through them, but it gets easier when you get stronger. The repetitive motion of lifting a heavy object is what makes you stronger. So when your brain is heavy or your emotions feel heavy, repeatedly lifting them—regardless of how much you want to, or don’t want to—will make you stronger. It’s not always going to be comfortable or easy, but it's going to work.”
What led you to want to write this article?
“I think a lot of it is that I'm still processing what happened. We have such a half-open conversation: people talk about the horror stories of what's happened, but then when it comes to how people get over it, no one really talks about that part. But when you hear what helps other people, it gives you ideas how to help yourself. And so I just kind of had this hope that these things don't have to be giant horror stories. They can be redemption stories. They can be things that have shaped our lives in ways that we don't even realize. And that can show other people that the important part of the conversation is that horrible things happen, but how we deal with them shows our true self and how we grow from them. And we can help others through that as well. And that's my big thing in life: I just want to help people. I just want to make people happier and healthier. And I think that's a community event—we can all help each other and think about it in that way.”
“…so I just kind of had this hope that these things don't have to be giant horror stories. They can be redemption stories.”
-Grace Senior