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Deciding whether to share our experience after abuse is a deeply personal choice. Choosing if, how, and who to tell can be a significant step in the healing process. Talking about what happened can give us a sense of relief, a safe space to let our feelings out, can remind us we’re not alone, and help us reflect and take back control of our own story. This guide outlines some key factors to consider, helping us make the decision that feels right for us.
Reading about abuse can bring up difficult and triggering feelings, so go at your own pace while reading this. Take breaks if you need to. This guide is always here if and when you need it. If you need to ground in the present moment, we have lots of different grounding exercises over on Bloom.
We would like to give our thanks for use of the following resources in creating this guide:
RAINN: Telling Loved Ones About Sexual Assault
Why Many People Don't Talk About Traumatic Events Until Long After They Occur
Total time to read: 30 minutes
Last update: April 2025
It is okay not to tell someone.
We don’t owe anyone our story of assault or abuse. It’s completely valid to choose not to tell anyone—or to decide not to share with a particular person. There are many reasons we might make this choice. What matters most is prioritising our own healing journey in a way that feels right for us.
It is okay to tell someone.
A trusted friend, family member, counsellor, or an authority figure — it’s up to us who we choose to share our story with. Telling someone may be a good way to find release, can give us a safe place to cry, help us to feel less alone, or can be a step towards gaining more ownership over our story. The most important thing to consider is what makes us most comfortable and what will help us heal.
Journaling can be a powerful tool to reflect on why we want to share, who with, and what our hopes or fears are. It can also help us to organise our thoughts, process our emotions, and gain clarity. All you need to get started is a pen and paper or phone, laptop, or tablet.
Revisit your writing. Over time, looking back at our journals can help us understand our thoughts and decide how and if we want to share.
Choosing who to tell can be a difficult decision and there's no ‘one size fits all’ for who to tell about abuse. We all want and deserve to feel safe and understood when we share something so personal. We should consider what we want from sharing our story, and try to find someone who we feel will give us the support we need — whether that is a shoulder to cry on, or support within the reporting process.
Choosing who to tell requires reflecting on the networks of people around us and our relationships with them. Here are some prompt questions that might help:
If we’re feeling unsure about who to tell, we might find this Trust mapping exercise helpful. It’s a practical exercise that allows us to think about who we trust in our lives — and how trust is dynamic, and can change as we and our relationships with others change.
You can also find this exercise in the session ‘Telling someone about assault’, in our Society, patriarchy and sexual trauma course.
Sometimes our loved ones can react emotionally towards hearing our pain. These reactions are sometimes motivated by feelings of helplessness or guilt: they are angry that this trauma happened to us, and they may think they could have stopped it from happening. It is important to remember that we do not have an obligation to manage anyone else’s emotions. Choosing to tell someone is about what we need for ourselves.
Not everyone will react in the way we expect or want them to. Some people might not believe us, or they might disagree that what happened to us was abuse. If they know our abuser, they might even defend them or refuse to change how they interact with them. It’s crucial to remember that it’s not our fault if they don’t believe us. We can’t control people’s reactions to our trauma. It doesn’t mean we didn’t tell them in the right way, and it certainly doesn’t mean our experience isn’t real or valid.
That’s why it’s important to consider who we feel safe sharing with. We deserve to be supported and believed. Sometimes, we choose to tell certain people about our experience, not because we expect them to take action or even fully understand, but simply to unburden ourselves from the weight of carrying it alone. Other times, we might confide in people—like close friends, family, or community members—who we hope will actively support our healing. Setting realistic expectations about how someone might react can help protect us from further hurt and disappointment.
For many of us, cultural factors play a role in deciding who to tell. We understand that different cultures view abuse differently; in patriarchal societies, people can blame the survivor rather than the abuser(s). This fear of stigma or judgment can make speaking out even more challenging. But it’s important to remember that not everyone in our community holds these harmful beliefs. Finding someone we trust—someone whose values align with our safety and well-being—can make a huge difference, especially when navigating cultural pressures.
One of the biggest fears in telling our story is losing control over it—it’s possible that word spreads in ways we didn’t intend. These risks can make sharing our experience feel overwhelming.
But we do have control—over when, how, and how much we share, even if we are asked directly. It’s okay to start small, to test trust, and to only share what feels safe. Taking it step by step can help us feel more in control and emotionally prepared.
When deciding who to share our experience with, it’s important to consider not only who feels safe to confide in but also why we are choosing to tell them and what kind of support we hope to receive. For example:
It is also important to understand that there might be legal implications to consider when deciding who to tell about our assault, especially if we are under 18 or over 65. In some countries, people in certain jobs have a duty to report any illegal and/or unsafe behaviour—even if it happened a long time ago. Some people, like teachers, doctors, or social workers, may be required by law to report what we share, especially if the abuser is still in a position where they could hurt someone else. This is sometimes called mandatory reporting.
If this is a concern, it might be helpful to understand what the legal requirements are before sharing with them.
Choosing who to tell is deeply personal. We deserve to share our story on our own terms, with people who will honor and respect our truth.
If we have decided that we want to share, we may wonder when the right time might be. Here are a few prompts that might help us to determine how we are feeling and if we feel prepared to share our story:
If we are feeling safe, in control, and like this is something we want to do, then we might be ready to talk with someone. However, if we don’t feel safe talking to someone, or feel that it would be re-traumatising to talk about our experience, then we might need more time before sharing our story. Remember, whatever our feelings, we might just not be ready yet and that’s totally fine.
Sometimes these conversations can come up organically, even if we don’t feel 100% ready. When that happens, we can use our best judgement to decide if we want to continue. There may also be moments where we feel pressured to share before we’re ready, or with someone we’re not comfortable with. It’s important to remember that we don’t owe anyone our story, and it’s okay to come back to it later when we feel more prepared. We might say something like: “This is something that I’m not comfortable discussing at the moment, can we please talk about something else?”.
If we’re unsure but think it might be the right time, we can try gently bringing it up and seeing how the other person responds. If their reaction doesn’t feel supportive or we feel uneasy, it’s okay to stop and revisit it another time. There’s no set timeline—we get to decide when, how, and with whom we share our story.
Unfortunately, there are situations where things are shared without our consent, like in a school, workplace, or religious setting. This can feel traumatic and overwhelming, especially if we’re not ready to talk or don’t feel safe with the person involved. If this happens, we can try and assert our boundaries—letting others know we didn’t choose to share and aren’t ready to talk or take action. If everything feels out of our control, it’s okay to step back and focus on taking care of ourselves. You can check our self-care section for support strategies.
What’s the right medium for our conversation?
Conversations can take place in lots of different ways. The most important thing is finding the right medium for us.
Sometimes, we want people to know our story, but we don’t want them to know that it is ours.
There are many ways survivors have found personal justice anonymously. In Mexico, survivors of violence have created “walls of shame” where they write their experiences with the name of the person or people responsible for harming them. In Pakistan, students of a preparatory school took to social media to share examples of abuse at the hands of teachers. Survivors around the world contact journalists to tell their stories, asking them to go public on their behalf.
Depending on our circumstances, remaining anonymous may be our safest option, but we need to be careful about protecting our anonymity. For more information on how to stay safe online, check out Chayn’s DIY online safety resource.
Staying anonymous may also be important if we are pursuing legal action. There have been cases where the practice of “naming and shaming” the abuser has complicated the legal process. If you have reported and feel comfortable, do check in with the institution you’ve reported to to make sure you are making an informed decision about sharing more widely.
Sharing in writing—whether by email, handwritten note, or message—can be a powerful way to share our story. It allows us to take our time, carefully choose our words, and express ourselves without the pressure of an immediate reaction.
It also creates a written record, which can be useful for our own reflection or as documentation if we ever need it in the future. If we’re reaching out to someone for support, a letter gives them the space to process what we’ve shared before responding.
However, there are a few things to consider:
If talking face-to-face feels overwhelming, a phone call can be a good middle ground. It allows us to have a private conversation while maintaining some distance, which can help us feel safer and more in control. We can choose when and where to make the call, giving ourselves the space to feel as comfortable as possible.
Here are some things we can consider before we make a call:
We may decide that speaking face-to-face feels like the best option. It allows for deep connection, helps the other person understand our emotions, and gives us the opportunity to gauge their reaction in real time. Here are some things to consider before having a face-to-face conversation:
Once we’ve chosen the right person and place, we can ask them to meet without sharing details upfront. A simple message like, “There’s something important I’d like to talk to you about. Are you free tomorrow evening?” is enough. Choosing a time and place that feels best for us is key—we deserve to have this conversation on our terms.
If we’ve made the decision to share our story with someone — or if we’re just thinking about doing so — it can be helpful to prepare for the conversation in advance. Figuring out what we hope to achieve by disclosing our story and how we’d like to feel about it afterwards can guide what we decide to say to a specific person.
For instance, if we’re telling a romantic partner, we may prefer to focus on the impacts of our experience on our ability and desire to be intimate. We also don’t have to disclose all the details of what happened. We can try something like: “I am not ready to talk about it in too much detail, but I want to let you know that I don’t like to do ____ and prefer instead ____.” There is a session on navigating sex after assault in our Bloom course Healing from sexual trauma that you can find here.
If we’re speaking with our colleagues at work because they have been using triggering language, we might want to express how we feel based on our experiences and let them know the impact their language has.
When telling our stories, we might have an idea on how we want things to go. This is understandable—we want to be believed and supported by the people in our lives. We can’t always predict exactly what will happen, but we can try and prepare beforehand.
Some people might ask us lots of questions, or have comments and opinions they want to share with us. It’s important to remember that questions do not always mean disrespect—sometimes people might not know how to react or ask lots of questions. If they ask us something that feels uncomfortable or difficult, we can let them know.
For example, we might say: “The question you asked is upsetting/makes me feel uncomfortable” or “I’m not sure how to respond to that, can you give me a moment?”.
The person we are telling might have an unsupportive response. For example, they might become angry, or begin to blame us for what happened to us. If this happens, it is not our fault: it is not our job to manage the reactions of the people we tell. If we receive this kind of unsupportive response, we might want to end the conversation.
Telling our stories isn’t always easy and sometimes we might want to change our original plan. It is okay to change our minds. We can ask ourselves about what to do if, in the moment, we no longer want to discuss what has happened. We can practice saying a simple phrase — “I’ve changed my mind and no longer want to discuss this”.
We might also want a break, a moment to gather our thoughts before continuing again. Saying things like “I need a moment, do you want to tell me about your day?” could help make the situation more comfortable. Whenever we are ready to discuss again we can communicate that.
We can also consider an exit strategy: how to end the discussion and what to do next. We might want to think about whether we would want to spend time with the person we disclosed to after the conversation or if we want to be alone afterwards. The self-care section of this guide gives more details on this. Of course, it’s always possible we have changed our minds about what to do during or after the conversation. For example, we might say: “I don’t think I have it in me to go out today, would you mind staying in with me/letting me be alone for a while?”.
Close the conversation on our terms. If needed, redirect the discussion or ask for help leaving the situation. For example: “I can’t talk about this anymore, but I need your support to leave this space.”
After having our conversation, we might need some time to process the feelings that came from sharing. We might feel relief, validation, exhaustion, or uncertainty. Whatever we feel is okay. Healing isn’t linear, and taking care of ourselves after sharing is just as important as the decision to share itself.
Here are some ways we might be able to take care of ourselves afterwards. We might need these things hours, days, or months after we have shared with someone. Whatever we need is okay.
Above all, putting ourselves first is not selfish. Taking care of our well-being isn’t just about healing from the past; it’s about making space for ourselves in the present and the future. By actively nourishing our spirit and well-being, we create more space in our lives for others and their support, and most importantly—for ourselves.