5. #OurBodiesOurMinds
Heads Up
• Mental health is personal – YOU are the expert on your own
experience, identity and needs
• Shared public space – can’t guarantee confidentiality
• It’s okay to feel, and it’s okay to be uncomfortable
•Uncomfortable vs. Unsafe
• Conversations and activities might be triggering
• Please take care of yourself however you need,
including asking for help (MH support is here!)
• Photos taken for AWI sites, let us know if you don’t want that
6. #OurBodiesOurMinds
Community Agreements -
What do you need to feel as brave and
supported as possible here today?
•Ask before you touch policy
•Listen to each other / active listening
•No interrupting
•Take excellent care of yourself and each other
•Be mindful of the space we take up (take space / make space)
•It’s ok to make mistakes - compassion and accountability
•Everyone gets the grace to speak in draft
•Be mindful of the open chair (who isn’t in the room?)
•No pressure to answer a question / “no” is always an option
•Be respectful of the weight of these topics (SV, MH)
7. #OurBodiesOurMinds
• Personal definition
• Has been through a potentially traumatic sexual/
intimate experience, or set of experiences
• Experience was against their wishes
and/or crossed a boundary that they had set
and/or left them feeling violated, used, scared, unsafe
or hurt
Sexual Violence Survivor
8. #OurBodiesOurMinds
• Personal definition
• Has been through a potentially traumatic sexual/
intimate experience, or set of experiences
• Experience was against their wishes
• and/or crossed a boundary that they had set
• and/or left them feeling violated, used, scared, unsafe
or hurt
• Focus on: mental health and mental wellness / impact
of traumatic events on ability to be full self
Sexual Violence Survivor
9. #OurBodiesOurMinds
What are ways that sexual violence
might impact survivors? MH? Other?
- Can develop mental illness if not supported (especially
in childhood)
- Trust issues
- Impact relationships with other people (i.e. group
dynamics, spaces you want to go to), social life
- Personal habits (eating, sleeping, etc)
- Change your relationship to sex and sexuality
- Personal space (hugging, touching) - everyday physical
interactions
- Communication with others about other experiences
- Erodes sense of self esteem and personal control
- Feelings of shame and guilt
12. #OurBodiesOurMinds
How does Naomi What might Naomi
seem to feel? be thinking?
•Invalidated
•Disconnected from her own
body
•Feeling the need to meet criteria
to identify with the role of ‘victim’
•Sense of inevitability
•Feeling not supported from
mother, level of disappointment
•Numbness or apathy
•So much shame
•Deflating - image of balloons,
and heart, joy was stolen
● Patriarchal Influences -
can’t be comfortable in
her house
● “I know it, but feeling it?”
- difficult to change how
you feel
● Family trauma and family
history - coming to
realization that
something similar
happened to her mother.
Passing on
intergenerational trauma
/ victim blaming
17. #OurBodiesOurMinds
Dane Patrice
Naomi
Feelings:
- Anger
- Invalidated
- Powerless
- Guilty
- Righteousness in
taking power back
Message:
- “You aren’t angry
or loud enough
about this!”
Message:
- “This isn’t
something we
talk about”
Feelings:
- Regretful
- Hopeful
- Not sure how to
communicate
w/Naomi (lost,
confused)
- Proud
Feelings:
- There’s nothing I
can do that’s right
- Confusion/Conflic
ting
- I don’t have
control over this
18. #OurBodiesOurMinds
Changing the Message
Naomi and Dane
How can Dane change the message she is giving Naomi, so that it’s
in line with her feelings and has a positive impact in supporting
Naomi?
- I have your back when you’re ready/ if you’re ready
- How can I support you?
- This isn’t your fault
21. #OurBodiesOurMinds
What can we do?
•Letting survivors decide what steps to take
•Asking - is this something you’d like to do? Sending messages
of support if they consent to it.
•Respecting physical and emotional space
•Vulnerability - “not sure how to support you, but I want to”
•Letting them know that whatever they’re feeling in the moment
is valid and real.
24. #OurBodiesOurMinds
Meet the Panel
Nina Faynshtayn (she/her)
Student, Voices of Brown, Brown University
Ha-Jung (Haj) Kim (she/her)
Student & Founder of ESV (End Sexual Violence), Brown University
Tanya Purdy (she/hers)
Director of BWell Health Promotion, Brown University
Heather Aliotta, CNP (she/her)
Nurse Practitioner/Clinical Education Coordinator - Brown
University Health Services
Angela Kemp (she/her)
Director of Prevention and Special Projects
Day One
