Abigail Breslin Opened Up About Her Sexual Assault On Instagram

Abigail Breslin opened up about her sexual assault on Instagram. The actress shared an important message on sexual assault and why women don’t report them on Saturday, in the hope of helping others to break their silence.

Earlier this month the Scream Queens actress revealed she had been sexually assaulted at the hands of someone she knew. You’re not alone Abigail.

In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Even when important conversations should take place at any time, April is the month where we bring awareness and discuss a really important one.

In the 1980s the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault, NCASA, informally polled state sexual assault coalitions to determine the preferred date for a national Sexual Assault Awareness Week, and they choose April.

Then in 2009, President Obama proclaimed April as the Sexual Assault Awareness Month, SAAM.During April there’s an annual campaign to raise public awareness about sexual assault and educate communities and individuals on how to prevent sexual violence.

As SAAM runs, different private and public groups and organizations come together to highlight sexual violence as a public health human rights and social justice issue. This year SAAM’s campaign slogan is “Use your voice to change the culture,” and that’s what Abigail Breslin is doing.

The Scream Queens actress took her Instagram account earlier this month open up about her experience.On Tuesday, April 11, she posted a script showing a powerful message. The picture read, “Consent II: You are not obligated to have sex with someone that you’re in a relationship with. Dating is not consent. Marriage is not consent.”

She captioned it: “I knew my assailant.” The actress also included #SexualAssaultAwarenessMonth and #breakthesilence.

Abigail is raising her voice.

Two weeks after revealing she was sexually assaulted by someone she knew, the actress opened up about her experience.On Saturday, she took Instagram to share statistics from RAINN, an anti-sexual violence organization in the US, to highlight the rate at which rapists go free after committing their crimes.

The graphic shows how many rapists are incarcerated for their crime, only 6 out of every 1000. The coalition reveals that sexual assault within a relationship is still a bit of a taboo subject as many Americans don’t consider these type of rapes actual rapes.

Many people believe that being in a relationship with a person gives them the right to have sex whenever they want, and that’s totally wrong. Whenever two people engage in a sexual encounter is necessary the approval of both parts.

Victims who are sexually assaulted by a partner suffer severe physical and mental health problems just as other rape victims.

Which is what Abigail Breslin pointed out.

Abigail described her assault

Soon after sharing this graphic the Scream Queens actress decided to open up about her personal experience to help others raise their voices.After one user commented on her original image, “Reported rapes are the only rapes that count.” So she posted a two slide Instagram in which she detailed her harrowing experience.

In the post, she also revealed why she didn’t make a report to the police after she was assaulted.

“I did not report my rape. I didn’t report it because of many reasons. First off, I was in complete shock and total denial.”

“I didn’t want to view myself as a ‘victim,’ so I suppressed it and pretended that it never happened. Second, of all, I was in a relationship with my rapist and feared not being believed. I also feared that if my case didn’t lead anywhere, he would still find out and would hurt me even more,” she wrote.

“Thirdly, I knew how hurt my friends and family would be after finding out, and I didn’t want to put them through that.” She said.

The Scream Queens actress then confessed she has since been diagnosed with PTSD, which is common for people who has been sexually assaulted.

She revealed that she has been making progress and then went on to point out how incredibly wrong and unfair is to say that only reported rapes count.

“To say that reported rapes are the only rapes that count contributes to the ideology that survivors of unreported rape don’t matter. It’s unfair, untrue, and unhelpful. It’s like if you got a black eye from getting punched in the face, but because you didn’t call the police, you didn’t really get a black eye. Unreported rapes count. Reported rapes count. End of story.”

Abigail’s brave message is important to bring down that stigma over not only unreported rapes but also rapes within a relationship.Also, by speaking of the aftermath of her experience she’s helping other victims to do the same. Is necessary to come together to bring awareness to this issue and join our voices to fight it.