Project Beautiful Survivors P. 1

I was taught to stand up for myself, never hold back, to reach for my dreams, to be the aggressive woman, to never apologize for being myself. I lost that all when I found myself in an abusive relationship. I was hundreds of miles away from home, college was scary and new and invigorating all at the same time, and he made it feel safe… at first. Or so I thought. I found myself in a rabbit hole of the crippling of my self identity, self worth, self love. I was stripped of my livelihood from someone who I thought loved me. Young, scared, heartbroken. And I am not the only one. Domestic violence affects 7.7 million people, of those people 4.8 million are women. “Unfortunately, violence is not uncommon on college campuses, and it can take many forms,” said Robert Buelow, Violence Prevention Coordinator of UCI’s Campus Assault Resources and Education (CARE), which focuses on sexual violence and relationship abuse. “Violence and abuse is not always physical, however.  Psychological, emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse occurs in many relationships even when physical violence is not present.”

I find this topic to be very relevant especially in this day and age. I want to share my story to hopefully capture an audience who was scared like me and in doubt. In doubt enough to not ask or get help. So maybe sharing my story will make others feel comfortable to break through the ‘love’ and see through their momentary blindness to seek out options.

I really like the idea of telling a story rather than just throwing out statistics. An interactive creative poem with illustrations and concepts and inspiration to influence a young female audience is my goal of the project.

I want my project to start with an introduction page where it takes you through my personal story to capture and make something tangible, more personal the going on to statistics with an interactive way to display factual information on domestic abuse then wrapping up the end with links to hotlines and help people through these situations.

As much as this topic is heavy, I want to capture it in a way where it makes the reader feel in a safe space and not alone.

I really loved the way this interactive site was set up: https://insidethehead.co

Beautiful, yet effortlessly simple that gets the point across.