00:00Thank you so much to Variety and Purina for this honor, genuinely.
00:05I thought a lot about what it means to be someone who is courageous.
00:11For me, courage isn't necessarily being fearless.
00:15Sometimes it's being very, very afraid, being unsure of what will happen next, and choosing to be honest anyway.
00:24Sometimes it's deciding that something you've carried alone for years might be worth sharing if it could help someone else
00:33feel less alone.
00:35But I could have never imagined that sitting down to record an episode of Giggly Squad two years ago would
00:43lead me to standing here tonight.
00:45That episode wasn't even supposed to be about my experience as a survivor of abuse.
00:51I was just talking to my friend, the way I do twice a week, now I'm serious, when I decided
01:00it was time to share a piece of me that I'd been holding back for almost a decade.
01:05I shared that when I was 19 years old, I was in a relationship that was physically and mentally abusive.
01:12And I remember saying that I was fully brainwashed, because that's honestly what it felt like.
01:18I couldn't even legally drink.
01:21I had never been exposed to anything like that before.
01:25I never thought that that could be me.
01:28When you're that young and in your situation like that, you don't necessarily have the perspective or the language to
01:37understand what's happening.
01:38You just know that something is wrong, but you're living inside of it, so it becomes normal.
01:44I think a lot of us walking around assume that abuse looks a certain life.
01:51A kind of person, a kind of relationship, but that's simply not true.
01:56It doesn't ask for permission.
01:59It doesn't care how polished, confident, or put together you seem.
02:04It can happen to anyone.
02:06And it does.
02:07Each year, more than 12 million people, one in three women, and one in four men, will experience abuse.
02:16But we don't often hear their stories due to the stigma associated with being a survivor.
02:23I felt that stigma.
02:25For a long time, I was very ashamed of that relationship.
02:29I think I felt like it said something about me, like I should have known better.
02:35I should have somehow been able to see it more clearly.
02:39But I don't feel that way anymore.
02:42When I look back, I'm actually extremely proud.
02:46I'm proud of that 19-year-old girl who got herself out, and I'm proud of the woman it turned
02:53me into.
02:54But because of how I choose to move through it, I also know that my story is not unique.
03:01That was actually one of the reasons I decided to talk about it on my podcast.
03:06I remember thinking, I don't even know if I've ever even said this before, but I'm going to say it
03:13now.
03:13I'm going to say it now.
