Ashley Judd opened up about being a survivor of both rape and incest in a heartfelt essay she penned this week as part of her overall ongoing crusade about violence against women.

In the essay, entitled "Forget Your Team: Your Online Violence Toward Girls and Women Is What Can Kiss My A**," the die-hard Kentucky Wildcats fan and alum said, "I am greatly blessed that in 2006, other thriving survivors introduced me to recovery. I seized it."

The firestorm came in response to a tweet Judd posted and has since deleted in which she was perceived by some to be being critical of one of the Wildcats' opponent in the SEC Basketball Tournament, the University of Arkansas. The post sparked the ire and indignation of several Razorback fans.

According to the BostonHerlad.com. Judd wrote, "tweets rolled in, calling me a c*nt, a whore or a b*tch, or telling me to suck a two-inch d*ck. Some even threatened rape, or 'anal, anal, anal.'" Judd hinted too she may seek legal action against her tormentors.

She later said, "I deleted my original tweet after the game, before all hell broke loose, to make amends for any genuine offense I may have committed by describing play as 'dirty.' Of course, other people, including my uncle who is a chaplain, also expressed fear that the athletes would be hurt badly. But my uncle wasn't told he was a smelly p*ssy. He wasn't spared because of his profession; being a male sports fan is his immunity from abuse."

Judd later branded the electronic abuse heaped on her as a "devastating social norm experienced by millions of girls and women on the Internet."

"Online harassers use the slightest excuse (or no excuse at all) to dismember our personhood. My tweet was simply the convenient delivery system for a rage toward women that lurks perpetually," she said

As for her own experiences, Judd said, "My own willingness, partnered with a simple kit of tools, has empowered me to take the essential odyssey from undefended and vulnerable victim to empowered survivor. Today, nine years into my recovery, I can go farther and say my 'story' is not 'my story.' It is something a Higher Power (spirituality, for me, has been vital in this healing) uses to allow me the grace and privilege of helping others who are still hurting, and perhaps to offer a piece of education, awareness and action to our world."

After more than 10 years of marriage, the 46-year-old Judd and retired race car driver husband Dario Franchitti divorced late last year.