Read in the way that feels right for you
Some stories may discuss domestic and family violence, child sexual abuse, sexual violence, coercive control, stalking, grooming, systemic failures or other experiences of harm.
Stories are presented without unnecessary graphic detail wherever possible.
You are always free to stop reading, leave a story or return another time.
Stories & Lived Experience | Safety From Violence Is A Right™
Lived experience can change what statistics cannotData can show us the scale of violence. Research can identify patterns. Laws and policies can describe what should happen.
Stories can show us what those realities feel like inside a life.
They can reveal the fear behind an ordinary decision, the calculation involved in staying safe, the impact of not being believed, the complexity of leaving, and the long process of rebuilding afterwards.
The stories shared here are not presented as evidence that every survivor's experience is the same.
They are individual perspectives that can help us listen differently, question assumptions and understand the human realities behind violence.
Lived experience adds something that statistics cannot
Statistics are essential. They help governments, organisations, researchers and communities understand prevalence, risk and patterns of harm.
But numbers cannot always show what it is like to live with coercive control that changes from day to day.
They cannot fully explain why someone may appear calm while frightened, why leaving may require months of planning, why a child may communicate distress through behaviour, or why a survivor may stop asking systems for help after repeatedly not being heard.
Lived experience can help make those realities visible.
It can challenge myths.
It can expose gaps between policy and practice.
It can show how violence affects people differently.
And it can remind us that behind every statistic is a person whose life cannot be reduced to a number.
Stories without exploitation
We do not believe anyone owes the public their trauma.
A survivor does not need to disclose the most painful parts of their life to be credible, useful or worthy of being heard.
Stories featured through Safety From Violence Is A Right™ are shared with respect for the storyteller's ownership, dignity and boundaries.
We do not seek graphic detail for impact.
We do not treat trauma as content.
We do not expect people to repeatedly retell experiences simply because another organisation, campaign or audience wants to hear them.
Where appropriate, Safety From Violence Is A Right™ links to stories already published through The Impactful Voice Project™ rather than asking someone to disclose again.
Consent applies to storytelling too
Sharing a story publicly should be a choice.
That includes choices about:
What is shared
A storyteller decides which parts of their experience belong in the story and which remain private.
How they are identified
Depending on the original publication and circumstances, stories may use a full name, first name, pseudonym or anonymity.
Where the story appears
Permission to share a story in one place should not automatically be treated as permission for unlimited reuse elsewhere.
How the story is framed
A person's experience should not be rewritten into a message they did not intend to convey.
Whether they share at all
Choosing privacy is equally valid.
Silence is not a failure to advocate.
A person is more than what happened to them
Stories about violence can easily become centred entirely on harm.
But survivors have identities, relationships, ambitions, humour, work, creativity, beliefs, contradictions and lives that extend far beyond what another person did to them.
Where stories include recovery, advocacy, resistance, rebuilding or change, these experiences are not presented as a required ending.
There is no single survivor journey.
Some people describe themselves as survivors. Others prefer victim, victim-survivor, lived-experience advocate or no label at all.
Some rebuild publicly.
Some rebuild quietly.
Some remain angry.
Some forgive.
Some never do.
None of these responses determines whether an experience was real or whether a person deserves safety and respect.
Real stories are rarely neat
A person may leave and return.
They may report violence and later withdraw.
They may love someone who harmed them.
They may remember some events clearly and others imperfectly.
They may minimise what happened before later recognising it as abuse.
They may cope in ways other people do not understand.
They may tell different parts of their story at different times.
None of these things transfers responsibility for violence to the person experiencing it.
Real lives are complicated.
Our understanding of survivors needs to be able to hold that complexity.
Explore stories
These stories and lived-experience perspectives explore violence, survival, recovery, systems and advocacy through the voices of people who have experienced or been closely affected by them.
Some stories are hosted by Safety From Violence Is A Right™.
Others may link to stories published through The Impactful Voice Project™ or another original source with permission.
Violence does not have one story
The experiences featured here may come from women, men, LGBTQIA+ people, parents, adult survivors of childhood abuse, young people, family members, advocates and others whose lives have been affected by violence.
No individual story represents an entire community.
Experiences can be shaped by gender, age, disability, sexuality, culture, geography, financial circumstances, family relationships, migration status and many other factors.
Sharing a range of perspectives helps us understand difference without turning one person's experience into a universal explanation.
Stories can reveal where systems are not working
Lived experience can show what happens between the policies.
A service may technically exist while remaining inaccessible.
A survivor may report one incident while the wider pattern of coercive control remains unseen.
A child may encounter several agencies without any one organisation understanding the whole picture.
A person may be required to repeat the same traumatic history to police, courts, health professionals, housing services and support organisations.
These experiences matter.
Listening to them can help identify where systems protect people — and where systems unintentionally create additional barriers, disbelief or harm.
Stories should not merely be collected.
They should help us ask what needs to change.
A story can be personal and still reveal something bigger
Lived experience can influence public understanding, professional practice, policy and reform.
A single story cannot establish how frequently something occurs.
But it can expose a question worth investigating.
It can reveal consequences that statistics may not capture.
It can challenge language that places responsibility on victims rather than perpetrators.
It can show the gap between what a system promises and what someone actually experiences.
When lived experience contributes to advocacy, the goal should never be to use someone's pain as proof.
The goal should be to listen to what their experience can teach us.
When reading or sharing lived-experience stories
Do not demand more detail
A storyteller decides what they want to disclose. Readers are not entitled to information that has been intentionally left out.
Do not investigate the storyteller
A personal account is not an invitation to search for family members, alleged perpetrators, court matters, addresses or other identifying information.
Do not blame
Questions such as “Why didn't you leave?” or “Why didn't you report?” can obscure the behaviour of the person who caused the harm.
Do not assume every survivor responds the same way
Trauma, safety decisions, disclosure and recovery vary enormously.
Share responsibly
If a story is publicly shareable, share the original link rather than copying substantial parts of someone's account out of context.
Respect anonymity
Never attempt to identify an anonymous or pseudonymous storyteller.
Two projects. Different roles
Safety From Violence Is A Right™ uses lived experience to deepen public understanding of violence, safety, systems and change.
The Impactful Voice Project™ is a broader consent-based storytelling initiative created to help people share lived experience in their own voice and on their own terms.
Keeping these roles separate matters.
Safety From Violence Is A Right™ does not need to build another storytelling submission system.
Instead, stories relevant to violence prevention, survivor safety and systemic change can be thoughtfully curated here, with links to their original publication whenever appropriate.
This also reduces the expectation that survivors continually retell experiences they have already chosen to share.
Have a story you want to share?
You do not have to share your story to make it valid.
But if you have a lived-experience story you want to tell publicly, story submissions are managed through The Impactful Voice Project™, a separate consent-based storytelling initiative founded by Rose Davidson.
Stories can explore experiences of adversity, survival, identity, change, recovery, advocacy and the moments that shape a life.
You decide what belongs in your story.
Listen without asking survivors to prove what they survived
When someone chooses to share lived experience, our responsibility is not to demand the most painful version of their story.
It is to listen.
To notice what their experience reveals.
To challenge the assumptions that allow violence to remain hidden.
And, where change is needed, to ensure that lived experience does more than fill another consultation document.
It should help shape what happens next.