I start that same night by turning the first part of my assault into a six-hundred-word blog post that takes the story up to the point where my assailants seized me and made it clear that rape was on their mind. I write it from the premise that a housebreaking is different for a woman than it is for a man. The threat of sexual assault is always present.

I tweet the link, I Facebook it, I share it on Instagram and Snapchat. I preface it with a thoughtful paragraph about how the only way to make sense of what happened to me is to raise awareness of how rape survivors (yes, for this cause, I can bring myself to use the term) need to reclaim their own stories. It is shared across all social media platforms, perhaps fifteen times.

The next day, I write the next instalment—taking the story as far as the moment my eyes locked with my father’s over the heaving shoulder of my assailant. This time, as well as sharing the link generally, I target it at specific media organisations and people of influence in the women’s rights arena—influencers, I believe they are called. Radio hosts, TV personalities, Twitter stars. It is shared about twenty times by ordinary mortals, and once by a radio-show host with a Twitter following of fifty thousand people.

On the third day, I write about how my attackers finally left, and how my father tried to get me into a bath. Then we realised that the house was on fire and barely escaped with our lives. This time I target the story at the True Confessions crowd—YOU magazine, Huisgenoot, Drum, and websites like AllAboutWomen.com. I call my piece “They raped me and burned my house down.” Today the shares and retweets reach over fifty. I get a direct message from a magazine asking if they can run my story in their next issue. There is a certain amount of hand-wringing online about how my father did the wrong thing by trying to get me into a bath, but also about how understandable it was that he wanted to clean and comfort me.

On the fourth day, I write about the secondary victimisation I experienced at the hands of the authorities—the tests and examinations, the questions. There is nothing new in this. It is in the very nature of rape that the evidence collection process will be intrusive and unpleasant. I make it new by writing with great physical immediacy.

I know it’s good even as I write it. You get that feeling sometimes. The words pour out of you in a gush of goodness. It feels adroit.

This time, I target the post at mildly feminist bloggers and websites. A blogger with a following of seventy-five thousand people tweets my link with an endorsement saying that it’s “an important read.” This causes my individual page views to sky-rocket.