Pocatello resident Lindsey Nye is no stranger to feeling alone. She is no stranger to navigating the emotions that come with feeling broken. And she is no stranger to understanding how child abuse can affect a person’s mental health, because it is an experience she went through herself. But she is also no a stranger to spreading empathy, love and support to others who have similarly struggled, which is why she plans to lead with love with the jumpstart of the Hope Objective, a nonprofit organization geared towards the prevention of child sexual abuse.
“I was abused for about 10 to 15 years and … in the past year, I’ve been kind of forced to face the reality of all that and realize kind of the severity of everything that happened,” Nye said. “Then I just knew that I had a choice. I could either let it destroy me or I could do something good with it. And so I put my head down and went to work, and this is what I built.”
Nye launched the 501©(3) nonprofit organization’s website on June 30. The website offers resources and space for individuals to seek empathy, compassion and support. This includes a tool titled Love Notes, which allows others to leave messages of hope on the site. “I’m a big believer in leading with love,” she said. “And so that’s how I’ve taken my approach with this foundation, is just creating that space where there’s unconditional love. And that I think leads to faith, healing, and power, and prevention and advocacy and all those things that we want to see in the world.”
The website’s launch date is also a sentimental one for Nye, which is the date of her late mother’s birthday. Her mother passed away when Nye was 4 years old. “(June 30) just has a lot of meaning to me,” she said. “To be able to take something that was so painful and awful and hard and turn it into something good. And so, that’s kind of my way of hopefully making my mom proud.”
The idea to launch an advocacy organization for child abuse came after Nye attended a retreat for abuse survivors in February.
“It was extremely powerful,” she said. “And that was kind of the point at which I decided to really take this on and that was just the end of February. And so in true Lindsey fashion, I just kind of went full force, and it’s been incredible how things have fallen into place.” Nye has collaborated with several others on creating material for the website, which includes a music video with Brittany Stock, a fellow survivor of child abuse. The video, which was performed by Stock and is a medley of “The Sound of Silence” and “Peace in Christ,” is something that Nye said encompasses the entire idea of the Hope Objective.
“(Stock) herself is also a survivor and as I was building the nonprofit, I contacted her and reached out, and her medium of healing and feeling that empowerment is through music,” Nye said, who choreographed and directed the video. “It’s part of my mission as a founder. I want to give a platform to people to have the space to heal themselves in whatever way works for them. Because healing doesn’t look the same for everyone. So I can’t just write a manual, but I can…create that space and give them that stage to be able to tell their stories and feel that empowerment and heal and help others.”
In addition to the Love Notes and music video, Nye also includes several links to resources for not just individuals looking for support but also those who wish to help others but don’t know where to start. This included a link to Darkness to Light, a 501©(3) organization that offers training classes to adults to help them recognize child abuse and help them prevent and respond to it in a responsible manner. These links provide resources that offer information, statistics and education on how parents and guardians can have conversations with their children about what to do if confronted with the threat of abuse.
“Those are other foundations and nonprofits of researchers who just have a lot more depth to the research they’ve done,” Nye said. “It helps parents, teachers, leaders, and people who are working with kids now about what kinds of things to look for, but then also how to handle the situation if it does arise...and then some of the other resources are some ways that parents can be a little more aware and how they can handle it.”
Nye’s main goal in creating the Hope Objective is creating a community where child abuse survivors can visit to receive support, understanding, empathy and compassion. And while she understands how large and serious of a conversation and issue it is to take on, she is prepared to tackle it if it means helping others out there who are struggling on their own. “The biggest thing is that people aren’t alone, but I think more so than anything, the message that I hoped to tell the world is just that love always wins,” she said. “And that … love is going to be more powerful than any (abuse).”
She added, “It’s a very overwhelming and daunting topic to take on. And a lot of people get uncomfortable, and in fact, it’s hard. I have gotten backlash from voicing … this awareness, but I think the thing to just always remember whether you are someone who’s supporting somebody else who has gone through this, whether you’ve gone through it yourself, or whether you’re somebody who just wants to help is that … the greatest thing you can do for a victim is just to be there and use love to help others.”
