I walked into a pub and came face to face with the person who raped me - a moment I’d feared for years, unsure whether it would undo the work it’s taken to get here. Remarkably, it didn’t break me.

This is a deeply personal account of what it means to seek justice - and what happens when the system cannot hold that weight. Georgie shares the reality of delay, trauma, and the lasting impact of being let down by the very process meant to protect.

Vicki shares a personal reflection shaped by lived experience of delay and systemic failure. What began as uncertainty around reform became a clearer understanding of what change could actually offer.

In Not the Perfect Victim, Anna Kahill reflects on how trauma, silence and a late autism diagnosis shaped her understanding of a rape that happened when she was nineteen. The piece challenges the narrow expectations placed on victims and the myth that there is such a thing as a “perfect victim.”

Reflections from a really special International Women’s Day weekend - from hosting our MYH x Victims’ Commissioner gathering to marching at Million Women Rise. A reminder of how powerful it is when people come together, share space, and make themselves heard.

This week has felt particularly meaningful for Make Yourself Heard. For the first time, a national feature has focused not only on my own experience, but on the campaign and the purpose behind Make Yourself Heard itself.

Thousands of trials pushed to 2028 and beyond. Rape cases listed years away.

As the debate focuses on jury trials and constitutional principle, the human cost of delay risks being sidelined. If reform doesn’t centre victims, it won’t fix what’s broken.

On the Construction Sport podcast, Jan speaks candidly about being assaulted at work, the isolation that followed, and why the construction industry must redefine safety to include dignity, accountability and protection from harm.

There is a growing recognition that lived experience matters. Survivors are invited into rooms that were once closed to them - police working groups, advisory panels, consultations, and roundtables. On paper, this looks like progress.

In practice, too often it isn’t.

When the Epstein files came out, people talked about them like they were a revelation. New details. New shock. New outrage. But if you’re someone who’s lived through abuse, it doesn’t feel new at all.

Women and girls have been saying what happened for years. They reported it. They spoke up. They tried to warn people. Most of the time, they weren’t believed, or they were quietly pushed aside.

Imposter syndrome is often treated as a private insecurity - something to overcome quietly before you show up publicly. But in advocacy, it isn’t a side issue. It’s part of the work.

It shows up not because you’re underqualified, but because the ground is unstable. Advocacy often asks people with lived experience to translate pain into policy language, to compress years of harm into a few minutes of “constructive contribution,” and to speak calmly about systems that failed them - repeatedly. That tension creates doubt.

A MYH x Journal submission - an Australian experience of process over protection, and harm that continued beyond the court.

This submission examines how decisions made by police, prosecutors, and the courts prioritised procedure over safety, allowing harm to continue long after sentencing.

We live in a culture that rewards constant availability. Being busy. Being responsive. Being visible. Being “on”.

For those of us who have had to fight to be heard, saying yes can feel necessary. If the opportunity is there, we take it. If the journalist reaches out, we respond. If the invite lands, we accept - even when our bodies are already asking us to slow down.

Because what if it doesn’t come back?

This feature documents a survivor’s experience of childhood sexual abuse and the wider pattern of harm surrounding it. Rather than focusing on one act of violence, it examines grooming, community complicity, and the cultural mechanisms that protect abusers. Shared as part of Make Yourself Heard, this testimony aims to raise awareness, support survivors, and challenge the systems that enable abuse to persist.

Five years ago, as I moved into 2021, I wrote this without knowing how long the road ahead would be. I knew I was angry. I knew I wanted change. I knew silence wasn’t an option anymore.

The rape happened in 2017. But 2020 was the worst year of my life.

As we head into 2026... I should be celebrating another year of freedom from horrific sexual abuse, voyeurism, and control, but instead I’m still waiting anxiously to discover if my abuser has been successful in  his appeal to reduce his sentence of 12 years (+3 on licence)

This is his fifth appeal attempt in the three years he’s been behind bars following seven guilty verdicts that include rape, voyeurism, control, and coercion, amongst others.

In communities across the UK, so many women carry the quiet, often invisible weight of sexual violence and abuse. It is a weight that can reshape lives, identities, and futures. Yet amid these difficult realities, projects like Conforto are creating tailored spaces where survivors can process, share, and rebuild their lives.

An anonymous submission from a rape survivor, shared with M.Y.H

When people talk about recovery after sexual violence, they usually focus on therapy, justice, or the long road back to “normal”. What rarely gets spoken about is the messier part - the nights you can’t sleep, the panic that doesn’t end, and the substances that slowly take over as the only thing that seems to make it stop.

This is about that part. The quiet, secret, often-hidden part of trauma that plays out behind closed doors

I’ve been putting off launching Make Yourself Heard (M.Y.H) for a long time. The idea has been with me for years - scribbled in notebooks, swirling in late-night thoughts, appearing in conversations with friends - but I hesitated. It wasn’t because I doubted the need. Quite the opposite: I knew how vital it was for survivors to have spaces that belong to us, not just about us. What held me back was fear. Fear of stepping into a role I didn’t feel qualified for. Fear of being judged. Fear that people would look at me and wonder: Who is she to start something like this?

That’s the grip of imposter syndrome. It tells you to shrink when you want to stand tall.

This submission shook me.

A woman reached out to Make Yourself Heard and described an experience that no one should ever have to endure. She was pregnant when her ex-partner attacked her. During the same violent incident, he beat and strangled his own 18-month-old son. The assault was recorded on her home security system. There is footage. He pleaded guilty.

And yet, today, he is seeking custody of the son, whom he strangled. And of the baby she was still carrying when he attacked her.