I've been working on a project, #WhenIBecameFree - The Heartland Project. The goal was to interview survivors of abuse who have used their life experiences to better their rural community. At first I had a lot of survivors willing to share their story, myself included. Then something happened. As it became time for those interviews to occur these strong people, except for one, backed out while saying they weren't ready to tell their story. That is how painful surviving abuse can be - the residual effects last decades. Far longer than any of us would ever want. I have my notes scattered about and a lot of research that has been collected by a team of students I had been working with - now comes the task of putting it all together while continuing my search for survivors. I truly understand the hesitation. It is one thing for a survivor to purge their soul while they are going through an initial healing process, and quite another thing to ask them to do that when they a