We were all heartbroken for Bella Thorne when she revealed in January 2018 that she had been sexually and physically assaulted while she was growing up. Now, the Shake It Up actress just opened up about how it affected her and why she decided to speak up.

“It’s literally changed me as a human completely,” she shared on Logan Paul‘s “Impaulsive” podcast on Wednesday, July 10. “It just made me feel like I was encased in this, not a doll, but this thing. Like a Black Mirror episode, beating on the inside. It made me feel like I was completely drowning.”

The 21-year-old also also explained why she hasn’t pressed charges against her alleged abuser.

“The police make their victims feel like villains,” she continued. “I won’t put myself through the pain of describing every story in detail that I’ve spent so long trying to forget and have reworked my brain so I don’t have flashbacks all the time. To go back there again, over and over, and watch somebody look at you and … question if you’re lying at every point in time when you’re just trying to tell your story. That might really hurt me on in the inside. It might break me, in a sense.”

But talking about it has definitely helped Bella come to terms with it.

“The first time is always going to be the worst,” the former Disney star added. “So then, if you talk about it more, and more, and more and you almost normalize it in your mind, it starts to hurt less every single time.”

The “Walk With Me” singer has an important message for young women who are going through something similar.

“You can’t give advice on this scenario without knowing. There’s so many lines, you can’t really give advice because everything is so unique,” she said. “But what I will say is, you just have to literally keep fighting. There are too many times in my life where I thought maybe fighting isn’t worth it. But it just is. It is every single time. After you get beaten down again, and again, and again you have to just keep fighting even when you feel it might kill you.You hate yourself for it. You feel disgusting. But you are not a bruised fruit. You’re fruit is still beautiful.”

We are seriously so proud of her.

If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Youth Crisis Hotline at 1-800-448-4663.

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