In Lindsay Ell's bittersweet new ballad "Make You," she reveals a lot. Of herself, of her trauma, of her shame, and of her healing. Now we know why.

"I have never shared this with you guys... but through healing we reach new levels of honesty with ourselves and what made us who we are. Our stories can help create hope and change for other survivors," she shared on Twitter on Tuesday (July 7), which is Global Forgiveness Day.

Ell wrote the song with Brandy Clark because, as she said, she was the only one she could think of who could help her share her truth. “Once I decided it was time to share my story, there was specifically one co-writer who came to mind. I called Brandy, an absolute wordsmith and songwriter genius, and asked her if she would write this song with me. She fearlessly and immediately said yes," Ell said in a press release. "The day we wrote ‘Make You’ I knew we had written something special that will hopefully help others to not feel alone in their survival. And more personally, it was finally the moment in my life where I got to validate that little girl inside -- letting her know that ‘I see her and I love her.’”

And she's doing more than just sharing her story. Ell recently established the Make You Movement to support causes that help disenfranchised youth and survivors of sexual trauma and domestic abuse. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) will be among the first groups to receive proceeds from "Make You."

"I decided that I want to be a place of comfort and empathy for younger girls and boys who have experienced sexual abuse or trauma in their childhoods. I want to be able to talk to disenfranchised youth and help them become more aware of themselves so that they can avoid putting themselves or their friends in situations that would lead to these types of abuse. I want to be able to speak to adults who have been through something similar to my story, to let them know that it is not our past that defines our future, but it is what we decide to do with it that does," Ell says on her Make You Movement website. "Difficult times in our life don’t make us who we are, but how we learn and act from them does."

And in a new People story, Ell explains that she wasn't just raped once. It happened when she was 13 and again when she was 21.

"I was raped when I was 13, and it happened again when I was 21. The song only talks about the first time. It's just a difficult thing to talk about, and it's something that I process every day still," she said. "Part of me talking about it now is liberating the little 13-year-old Lindsay and the 21-year-old Lindsay.

"Pain is something we can let control us if we don't deal with it, but the minute you put a voice to your story the shame has no power."

The first rape when she was 13 was by a man in her church when she was growing up in Calgary, Canada. She kept the rape to herself for seven years, and then she finally told her parents. "They had no idea it happened, and they were absolutely horrified. I'm so grateful towards both of them because they helped me not go into any unhealthy mechanisms to cope," she said.

The second rape when she was 21, she said, was more violent. It's unclear if that rape took place in Calgary or in Nashville, because it happened the same year she moved to Tennessee.

"I still carry shame and guilt, but I'm taking the hand of my 13-year-old self and my 21-year-old self and fighting every day together," she added. "I felt so alone for so long, like 'This only happened to me.' But it's not true. If I would've known that when I was 13, I would have felt such a deep feeling of relief."