It all started with “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and a moment of laughter.

That was how the healing began for Indiana University Northwest alumnus Ron Blake in November of 2015. He had been the victim of a violent sexual assault and afterwards had slipped into the grips of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

He was thinking about ending his life around the time something on the show made him chuckle. In that moment, he realized that he didn’t have to live in darkness and despair and that his life was worth living.

What happened next, and continues to happen each day since then, is an extraordinary story of trauma and recovery that sheds light on a troubling reality.  

According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, one out of every six American women have been the victim of an attempted rape in her lifetime. And, about three percent of American men, or one in 33, have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. It’s especially rare for males to talk about their experiences with sexual assault.

Blake is certainly talking about it. The day after his late-show laughter shook him into a new outlook, he set out to meet new people. People who would rally around him and support his new goal of living. He ventured out of his Phoenix apartment with a handful of Sharpie markers and giant foam boards and started gathering messages of support, hope, and inspiration. As of late February, he had “met 24,481 strangers and collected 366 giant foam boards filled with tens of thousands of poems, signatures, bible verses, messages, and artwork.”

Those words have become his therapy. For Blake, it’s a unique and very personal mission taken on purely for the purpose of his own healing. He wants to be invited to be a guest on the Steven Colbert Show, so that he can personally thank the TV personality for saving his life.

Remarkably, through his own recovery, he has unwittingly become a voice for others. The Hobart native, and Phoenix resident, has become a hometown advocate for sexual assault awareness, for which April is designated.

When Blake tells the story about his very personal reasons for doing what does every day, and how it has saved his life, it’s apparent that he doesn’t even realize that what he’s doing could be a source of inspiration for others.

“It’s almost as if YOU are the Steven Colbert for someone else,” an acquaintance once suggested.

Blake hadn’t thought about it quite that way before.

The thousands of signatures and messages of strength and courage to carry on also serve to show all other victims that they too have someone in their corner.

“I have now met 1,300 of those 25,000 people that have shared their personal stories of their own sexual assault with me,” Blake said. “In dozens of those cases, those people have never shared with another person, ever, that they were sexually assaulted.”

Hearing those people admit their sexual assault to him for the first time is astounding, he says.

“It’s like watching someone get treatment for the first time and you know they are going to have hope now.”

Although he started this journey to heal himself, Blake’s message of hope has touched even more survivors and others via the conferences and events he regularly participates in, media coverage of his journey, and a Tedx Talk he recorded last year.

The importance of talking about it

Although their methods are vastly different, Beth Tyler, vice chancellor for student affairs and dean of students at IU Northwest, and Blake have a parallel mission—to educate people about sexual misconduct.

As chair of IU Northwest’s Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Task Force, and member of the Lake County Sexual Assault Response Team, Tyler aims to keep the realities of sexual assault top of mind for the student body.

Tyler’s expertise is campus sexual misconduct prevention efforts, campus policies and procedures for responding to reports of sexual misconduct, and IU’s sexual misconduct policy.

She is the campus resource and authority on IU’s policies for reporting and responding and dealing with a sexual assault. As the primary administrator of the IU Code of Conduct and the chairperson of the Behavior Consultation Team, she plays a key role in ensuring that student behavior does not interfere with the educational mission of the university.

Throughout April, designated at Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Tyler and the task force have stepped up efforts to educate the campus and community through various programs.

Tyler says that while reports of sexual assault are relatively low at IU Northwest, students do report experiencing sexual harassment, domestic and dating violence, and stalking in their lives after enrolling. A recent survey administered to IU Northwest students in 2016 revealed that more than half of undergraduate men and women have never talked about issues of consent with anyone, and that undergraduate women are the least likely to understand how to follow-up with campus officials after a sexual assault.

“We are focused on helping our students understand that no form of sexual misconduct is acceptable,” Tyler said, “and providing them with tools and resources to recognize and prevent it on- and off-campus, so they can be part of the solution.”

Photos provided

Ron Blake, IU Northwest alumnus and Hobart native, meets new people daily and asks for messages of support to help him deal with the aftermath of a sexual assault. He wants to be invited to be a guest on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," the show that made him laugh and set him on a road to recovery.