My hero’s journey after surviving rape
My recent visit to Washington, D.C. was timely for October’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It was an exhilarating opportunity to speak out as more than a domestic violence victim.
I too wanted people to see me as more than an expendable Dixie cup. More than just an LGBT throwaway. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America brought me to the District from Arizona to put this proud, resilient gay man’s uplifting PTSD and domestic violence recovery adventure into a film.
After filming wrapped, I visited Georgetown and the University of Maryland and randomly engaged scores upon scores of students using a social interaction therapy that’s been effectively helping me overcome a brutal incident of domestic violence and the LGBT discrimination that accompanied it.
Those D.C.-area students warmly embraced me and my therapy of engaging strangers and creating social practice artwork on large foam boards, adding to what’s become kind of a modern-day AIDS quilt now at more than 4,200 square feet.
