New to her small-town South Dakota school when she was assaulted in the mid-1990s, the teenaged Lambert didn't say a word to anyone because "I didn't fully understand what had happened," she said. "I felt a lot of confusion and social pressures, very common with young rape victims. I just pretended it didn't happen."

During her 1998-99 freshman year at the University of Minnesota's campus in Morris, which she calls "very supportive of violence survivors, and women in general," she attended her first "Take Back the Night" event.

"The floodgates opened," she said. "That's when I realized I had to deal with it." Her first step was to contact RAINN, then let friends and relatives in on her awful secret. The same year, she decided to appear on the TV news program "20/20."

"It went from something I kept to myself for more than three years to a very public thing," she said. "I felt like I'd been silenced for so long and this was a powerful way to end that, a way to expand on what Tori has done for other survivors by talking about it."

To coincide with the "20/20" spotlight, she started a small online message board, which received thousands of e-mails.

"That's when I realized the power of peer support," she said. "We recommend therapy to all members, but people aren't always looking for an expert to tell them how to get better, especially at first. Sometimes they just want to share and hear that there's a way out and things can get better."

Via word of mouth and broadening Internet access, the message board eventually drew survivors worldwide, although 80 percent of members are from the United States. As for the danger of malicious fakers masquerading as survivors to foil the chats, "of course, we've had them, it's the Internet," Lambert said. "But our staff is very experienced and at any hour of the day or night at least one is probably online, so we can act quickly."

The chat room on www.pandys.org, which is open only to registered members, is filled with stories that are hard to read, but also with "that sense of hope you can only get from someone who's been there, which you can't really get from a professional," Lambert said. "Sixty to 70 percent of members have told us that this was their first step. After that, many of them go on to join live face-to-face support groups or start therapy."

Pandora's Project offers peer support to anyone who has been a victim of rape, sexual assault, or sexual abuse through our online support group, Pandora's Aquarium. We believe that connecting with other rape and sexual abuse survivors is an important part of healing. Our online support group includes a message board, chat room, and blogs. It is free to join and is safely moderated by a diverse group of survivors.

Pandora's Project is staffed by volunteers who are all sexual violence survivors themselves. They have been users and supporters of Pandy's and in this process they applied to become volunteers to support other survivors. All of our resources are free and we do not provide any professional counseling or other therapeutic services. We always recommend survivors have a counselor or therapist to support their healing. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Pandora's Project does not refer or recommend any specific medical or therapeutic resources to members. We have been dedicated to providing information, support, and resources to survivors of rape and sexual abuse and their friends and family. We have been devoted to recovery and healing since 1999.