tudents walked away from Van Meter Hall Tuesday with a greater understanding of the suffering associated with sexual abuse and an inspirational message.

Filmmaker and former model Angela Shelton presented her documentary on sexual abuse that discussed the importance of "breaking the silence" and wrapped up Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

In "Searching for Angela Shelton," the filmmaker travels in a rented recreational vehicle in search of women with whom she can identify.

The sampling method she used was to meet with only women named Angela Shelton, figuring that a significant percentage of them would have a sexually abusive past similar to her own.

She was right: 24 out of the 40 Angela Sheltons had been molested or raped.

Shelton edited the movie against the advisement of professional movie-makers, capturing the joys of helping the women as well as the painful moments of coming to grips with her own past.

"I ended up deciding to edit the movie myself because it needed to be done," Shelton said. "It was my life. I was piecing myself together."

Shelton was faced with her own self-mutilation issues while making the film. By overcoming those obstacles, she was able to strengthen other survivors.

She didn't mutilate herself in the typical way of cutting; she literally beat herself up. The desperate rationale was that if her father wanted to abuse her, she could just do it for him.

With the film under production, she made an agreement with herself to stop.

"I was faced with all the things I'd done to myself because of what happened," Shelton said.

Following the viewing, while many audience members wiped away tears, Shelton took the stage to talk about her road to mental recovery.

Details of her childhood were told in a trembling but resilient voice while her success stories about setting people's lives in the right direction conveyed senses of humor and spiritual satisfaction. She compared speaking about her life on stage to sitting on the middle of a see-saw.

Shelton also talked about the Babylonian myth of Inanna, the queen of heaven and earth who was lured into the underworld where her insides were torn out. The god of wisdom and water sent human beings to repair her corpse.

"Whenever I think about going to the belly of hell, like the underworld, I think of all the Angela Sheltons out there - the survivors," said Shelton.

To demonstrate the release of inner rage, she brought a chair up on a stage and beat it with a baseball bat.

"It's really empowering to be a female and express rage because we don't do it," she said.

The documentary stirred national interest when she appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" and "48 Hours." She said it was then that the e-mails from survivors started to come by the thousands.

"It was like an avalanche," she said. "I got hit with an avalanche of information and horror."

Madisonville senior Maggie Bell had an above-average understanding of sexual abuse before attending.

"I came because, while I'm not a survivor, my best friend is," Bell said. "It's very difficult."

The emotional intensity of the event left Columbia freshman Joe Warren a bit surprised.

"I expected it to be a feminism movement or advocation, but it wasn't about feminism at all," Warren said. "A lot of the things that were revealed in there were unexpected and shocking, actually."

Angela Shelton promised to do a comedy next year.



Reach Scott Hamilton at features@wkuherald.com.