Kaleel Spooner said she was a victim of sexual assault shortly after high school. She shares her story on her blog, where she said she hopes she can open the door for conversations about mental health and increase awareness of how to provide support to sexual assault survivors.
On her blog, Spooner wrote, “Aloha everybody! ... I hope you can find some relief here. I want to share my story so those who have and are going through what I have gone through know that they are not alone.
“If you are one of these people, know you are loved, you are thought of, you are needed and you’ll get through this.
“I promise. This one’s for us. Everyone is still healing from things they don’t speak about and it’s scary what pain can do to a person. Come close. Show me your scars. Let us heal together.”
Spooner, a recent BYU–Hawaii alumna from New Zealand who majored in social work, said her journey to healing started at BYUH. “I feel like this is where I was meant to find myself again. I was meant to be here, to tell my story,” she said. “I feel like being here strengthened me spiritually, mentally and emotionally.”
Opening up
Before arriving to BYUH, Spooner said she moved from New Zealand to Australia and distanced herself from her family to cope with the trauma. Dealing with feelings of depression and PTSD, she said she didn’t share what happened to her with anybody for a long time.
“It’s just one of those things you wouldn’t wish on anyone. I tried to hide it for so long,” she said. “People would always say God is always there for you, but in that moment all I was thinking was, ‘Where are you now? Why are you letting this happen to me?’”
Spooner said she eventually came to BYUH. “I never told anyone what happened, and BYUH served as a diversion, a place where I went to occupy my mind. I attempted to conceal it for an extended period of time.” Spooner recalled how she felt compelled to come forward and speak with someone when others shared their life experiences with her.
She said she was having a particularly challenging day when she felt prompted to talk to her professor, Dr. Lin Kruse. “I knew if I didn’t talk to her, ...well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be sitting here.”
This was one of Spooner’s first experiences opening up to somebody, and she said Kruse has been vital to her healing journey. “She has been the greatest blessing during my time at school. She literally saved my life.”
Spooner said she decided to open up to her family about the assault. “After I had shared it with my family, understandably, all they wanted was to find help for me,” she shared. “I wasn’t comfortable with talking about my experiences, so, I started off just writing in a journal.”
Blog beginnings
“Everyone was preoccupied with resolving the issue,” she explained, emphasizing how it felt like nobody was listening to her as she needed them to. She said they assumed she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to make her own decisions. This was one of the main reasons she said she wanted to write a blog.
“I just wrote down all my thoughts. It was all over the place,” Spooner chuckled. “Nothing made sense.”
She said people from everywhere were reacting to and sharing her story on social media. “I was in New Zealand, and I was getting messages from people here in Hawaii, on the mainland and in Australia,” she shared. “They were sending me messages of hope, support and how they related to my writing.”
Some people even said her writing “saved them in a way,” shared Spooner, who said these comments helped dispel the feelings of loneliness she was previously struggling with.
Finding God
Looking back at her experience, Spooner said she can see God’s hand in her life. “I think it’s funny how the Lord can push you to a point of surrender and have you on your knees asking, ‘What do you want me to do?’
“At that point in my life, I knew I had to let him do it. To let him be in charge. I was too exhausted. I couldn’t carry it anymore. I just needed him to help me.”
Looking back, she said her perspective about the situation has changed. “When I thought [God] wasn’t there, he was there, but in ways I didn’t recognize. … The thing I was avoiding the most was funnily enough the thing that pulled me through it. It’s the gospel.”
Breaking the stigma
Spooner said she believes mental health issues should be normalized and more talked about. She said there is stigma, especially in Polynesian culture, surrounding mental health. “You don’t talk about it. And until people realize how damaging it is and how it breaks people and families, it’s not going to change.”
She shared how she wishes she viewed mental health issues in a different light much earlier in her life. “I wish I had talked to someone sooner. I didn’t want to bother anyone. I didn’t want people to look at me and think I was weak,” Spooner said. “I just tried to hold it all in and deal with it myself, and I think that was the biggest mistake.
“Strength is not measured by how much pain you can carry, but by how willing you are to let that pain go.”
Surviving and thriving
Spooner shared how the pain of the assault is something she will never forget, but she has hope through the help of others. “Being a survivor of it, it’s one of those things that never goes away,” she explained.
“As you continue going forward, you learn things to better cope with the hurt. And for me, that was through people who were placed in my life. They taught me what was healthy, what was good and what was right.”
Wherever you are in your journey, whatever scars you have, you are beautiful. We all are in the process of healing from emotional or physical scars. It is a process of becoming a stronger, more beautiful you and finding the beauty in challenges and in Christ as our Savior. This is defining yourself.
Growing up with a lot of strong female figures in her life helped her overcome her challenges and made her aware of her own strength, said Spooner.
“The women in my life and the women who raised me have all endured comparable agony, and they were not as lucky as I am to have an abundance of resources available to assist them,” she stated. “They had no choice but to pull and drag themselves out of the darkness, and I am aware that I possess the same strength.”
On her blog, Spooner shared her main goal of sharing her story online. “My ultimate hope is to help others evolve as I have from victim to survivor to thriver, from fractured to healed to whole.
“As someone who has been a victim or survivor of abuse, I hope that sharing my sorrow may provide you with the motivation to continue moving forward.
“If you are not a victim, you may know someone who is, and by knowing the process of transformation they must undergo, you may offer them hope and any assistance they require to cope, heal and prosper.”
United in strength
The people around her have also found healing in sharing their stories. Judy Soloai, a BYUH alumna from New Zealand, expressed the importance of Spooner opening up about her story. “Kaleel’s story and her resilience can teach other women how to stand up for themselves and become stronger.”
Heslina Moimoi, also a BYUH alumna from New Zealand, said Spooner’s story helped her gain confidence in her own trials. “Her story inspired me to always push to succeed through hardship. I’ve learned it’s okay to not be okay as long as you work through what you’re going through.”
Soloai added, “This issue is real and can happen to anyone. Kaleel is a strong, outspoken and resilient woman who will speak and share truth where it is needed. She is one of the bravest, most selfless people I know. She gives hope to so many people out there.”
Spooner emphasized, “All these bad things might have happened to me, but I got to choose how I let it affect me.
“Wherever you are in your journey, whatever scars you have, you are beautiful. We all are in the process of healing from emotional or physical scars. It is a process of becoming a stronger, more beautiful you and finding the beauty in challenges and in Christ as our Savior. This is defining yourself.”
Discover Spooner’s poems on Instagram: @leels_diary •