Having a female member of Congress discuss a previously undisclosed sexual assault would typically be a jaw-dropping story, but when that Congresswoman was also a target of a group of insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol, that experience unfortunately becomes a subhead.

Democratic New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described during a terrifying Instagram Live her experiences during the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, the fear she felt as mobs roamed the halls looking for her, and the distrust she felt toward her Republican colleagues who were live-tweeting the locations of House leadership during the attack.

AOC said she and her staff heard the mob coming through the hallways, some yelling threats about her.  Someone pounded on her office door, so she hit in the office bathroom.  The man burst in the door shouting, “Where is she?  Where is she?” as she tried to hide behind the bathroom door.

The man was a plain clothes Capitol Police officer who failed to identify himself.  He warned the staff to hunker down.  Thinking that her presence endangered her staff, AOC left her office and sought refuge in the office of fellow Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter of California a floor below hers.

Porter and Ocasio-Cortez put on street clothes to try to blend in if the mob stormed the office.  AOC traded in her high heels for an aide’s sneakers.

The office got a call to have all members of Congress rally at a central point, the complex’s cafeteria, but AOC said she felt safe around some of the members of Congress who had rhetorically used her as a punching bag during the campaign.  She also knew some of them typically carried guns with them, and others were tweeting out live updates on the situation of the member of the House, including their locations.

“There’s a lot more details… about being barricaded,” she said, but wasn’t sure what she was allowed to share.

In her description, Ocasio-Cortez revealed that she had survived a sexual assault, and she related the trauma of that experience to what happened January 6th and how you recover.

“Sometimes you just say it a lot. That can be a tool for helping a person with healing,” she told her thousands of supportive followers on social media.