Rape

It’s an ugly topic, but I’m sick of the silence.

Let’s talk about who this is affecting. Far. Too. Many. People.

A woman I respect and love shared an experience of hers at some kind of a local gathering for women years ago. As one of the speakers started her presentation, she invited everyone to close their eyes and keep them closed. She then began to list forms of abuse, and she invited anyone who had one or more of these happen to them to stand and stay standing. The list was long, and this woman that I deeply revere has been harmed in many ways, at many times. She described, “As the list went on, I hated the speaker for asking this of us. I hated that it had happened to me and didn’t want to admit it. For some reason, near the end of the list, I suddenly jerked to a stand, deciding I needed to be honest, with myself. The woman speaking asked us to open our eyes and look around, and I was taken aback. The entire room of women were on their feet.”

This is heart-breaking.

And it goes without saying that women are not the only people who are victims of sexual assault. Many men are as well.

So what does this mean?

Well, for one thing, this means there is a whole lot of silence happening. I was, and still am, a big fan of the #metoo movement. Not to have some sort of sick bragging, but simply to begin taking the power away from perpetrators.

My first experiences with sexual assault were as a small child. An extended relative was harming me, as well as many other young girls in his life. As a child, this relative followed many of the grooming patterns, spending money on us, taking us fun places, visiting often even when distance was significant, etc.

As a child, there was a long break for me in the assault, and at age nine when it happened again, I felt very scared. The next morning, my mind latched onto what one of my older sisters had said a few years before. “I am too old to sleep in the same room as [____]”. I began to say that too.

Now, before I go further, please consider my parents with the deepest compassion. The thought of this person, that they trusted, going out of his way to harm us was unthinkable. When they learned what had been happening, it was a living nightmare for them. I share these things to communicate, even the very best parents can miss signs that become so clear in hindsight.

After that night, for the next 7 years, I lived with what I felt was a terrible secret. I have many times mulled over why I kept silent, why many people do. I feel this has many answers, and I will not pretend to fully understand each person’s unique experiences. One aspect for myself was related to a child’s inability to fully understand that a person can be two-faced, acting kind on the surface while having evil intentions on the inside.  I listened to my youngest daughter talk about the movie, Frozen, one day, and she reminded me of myself as a young kid. My daughter, though having watched the movie many times, would talk as if there had been two different characters named Hans. There was the good Hans, who loved Anna, and the bad Hans who tried to kill her. Of course, there had only ever been one Hans.

My daughter was 3 when she said this, but I can see traces of this thinking in myself even as a much older kid. My ability to see who he really was grew slowly over the years. I’m so grateful that someone spilled the beans, though on accident. Our perpetrator went to jail for a short time and my parents moved our family far away.

Interestingly, as abuse happened again in my life as an adult, I struggled constantly with feeling crazy. The issues felt like they were invisible to the world and it left me grappling with, “This person is not who they are presenting to everyone else that they are, and no one will believe me, no one can see it, and maybe, just maybe, I am struggling because there is something wrong with me…” The people who reached out when they saw things that were harmful, who prayed for me after seeing some of the situation I was in, and who stood by my side as I chose to walk away from abuse, these people absolutely mean the world to me.

So, what can I say about sexual abuse?

I once heard that there is "no wrong response to sexual abuse." I have come to see this statement as incredibly compassionate and understanding. No one knows quite how to react to being harmed and degraded this way. The "I should have" and "I wish I had" thoughts that come later may be normal, but they aren't fair. With the many unique and scary circumstances, a victim often cannot not know what to do. It is not the victim's fault.

Last, I wanted to mention how I was protected as a child by my sister. The reason the abuse ended quickly for me was because of a sister who first learned to protect herself. No one can be responsible for harm another person does, but occasionally we have opportunities to protect others, and it often starts by learning to protect ourselves.