The congresswoman Cortez opened up about her trauma relating to the ongoing blame game of Capitol Riot.
"I'm a survivor of sexual assault," she said, holding back her tears. "And I haven't told many people that in my life."
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a high profile democratic leader who represents the 14th district in New York City, is also often a target of conservatives.
In an Instagram Live on Monday night, the 31-year-old disclosed little about her sexual assault ordeal, but said: "When we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other."
She roasted conservative Republicans like Texas Senator Ted Cruz for deflecting the blame of their responsibility for the storming of the Capitol, which killed five people.
After Mr. Cruz last week agreed with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on a policy matter, she tweeted: "You almost had me murdered three weeks ago so you can sit this one out."
"These are the tactics of abusers," she said during the broadcast to 150,000 or so viewers. "Or rather, these are the tactics that abusers use."
"And so when I see this happen, how I feel, how I felt was: 'Not again.' I'm not going to let this happen again. I'm not going to let it happen to me again. I'm not going to let it happen to the other people who've been victimized by this situation again. And I'm not going to let this happen to our country. We're not going to let it happen," she commented.
She also called out Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, who joined Mr. Cruz in challenging the results of November's presidential election amid baseless claims of election fraud of former President Donald Trump. During her Instagram Live, she emphasized for accountability of one's action.
She stated, "The folks who are saying, "We should move on, 'We shouldn't have accountability,' et cetera, are saying: 'Can you just forget about this so we can, you know, do it again?"
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez described hiding in her bathroom at her congressional office during the chaos of the Capitol riot last month. "I thought I was going to die," she said.
She continued: "For so many people out there if you have experienced any sort of trauma, like just the fact of recognizing that and admitting it is already a huge step. Especially in a world where people are constantly trying to tell you that you didn't experience what you experienced or that you're lying."
"Or that, you know, those are additional traumas on top of what you've already experienced, right, if you're a survivor of abuse, or neglect, of verbal abuse, of sexual assault, you know, et cetera, there's the trauma of going through what you went through. And then there's the trauma afterward of people not believing you, or trying to publicly humiliate you, or trying to embarrass you. And that also gets internalized, too, because a lot of times you don't want to believe it either." Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she was prepared for criticism after sharing her sexual assault story because it was not directly related to the Capitol riot.
"People are going to say that, 'Oh, she's just trying to make it about her,'" she said.
"And, like, all of those normal, nagging thoughts. And, as I said, all of your traumas can intersect and interact."
She continued, "That man who touched you inappropriately at work, telling you to move on. Are they going to believe you? Or the adult who, you know, if they hurt you when you were a child and you grow up and you confront them about it and they try to tell you that what happened never happened." She said Congress had made counselors available for lawmakers, especially those who had encountered rioters, to help them process the ordeal.
