Speak Up and Fight

For as long as I can remember I've been a fighter.<br /><br />Before she reached her eighteenth birthday Taekwondo champion Kaylynne Venn had experienced 23 emergency room visits 11 nights in hospital beds and over 10 attempts to escape the pain of her post-traumatic stress disorder. Raped by a classmate in her first year of high school she spent her five years in survival mode fighting to keep afloat in a sea of shame and silence. <br /><br />In her powerful memoir Speak Up and Fight she shows how she broke through that silence to reclaim her voice diving into the challenges she faced within the mental health system and in her legal battle against her rapist. From self-harm to suicide attempts and her family's suffering The long-lasting effects of her assault expand far beyond the start of the horror she experience-revealing a deep personal struggle to survive in a world that too often refused to listen. <br /><br />Yet in sharing her journey from victimhood to survivorship she aims to encourage others to speak up support one another and work fighting all together toward healing and justice.