(I'm reposting this from my own blog. Here is the original post.)
I was reading PostSecret and one of the postcards really struck me. As I read it, I realized that it was my secret, something that has been at the back of my mind, always lurking and nagging, for a very long time now.
I was molested once, when I was 12. I didn't tell anyone until I was a bit older -- just before turning 17 actually. By that point, it was too late. The person who should have believed me didn't. I've learned to live with what happened, and draw strength and wisdom from it. Maybe one day I'll feel strong enough to write about it in a public forum. For now, I want to discuss something else.
What the postcard got me thinking about was how I felt after he denied ever touching me. I felt humiliated. Just as I had felt after it happened. I felt ashamed, like I shouldn't have opened my mouth and talked about it. Because it made people uncomfortable.
I've talked about it with a handful of people. Only once did I truly feel empathy -- it was just after it had happened and I was talking with a school-friend who was being physically abused at home. I don't remember our conversation well and we were children, but I truly felt like she got it. She knew the hopelessness and the feeling that you just had to keep quiet. Every other time, I would stumble over my words and wish I'd never started talking, because of how visibly-uncomfortable the other person would become.
It has affected the way I deal with it. Sometimes, like after reading the postcard, all I want to do is talk about it. I want someone else to understand. To understand me. But I can't, because I feel like I should be ashamed and anything else would make people uncomfortable.
The thing is, inside of me, I don't feel ashamed. I feel strong and confident. I don't blame myself, I don't hate myself. I'm constantly on guard, but I'm slowly learning to relax. I'm not afraid anymore.
And yet, I just can't get it out. Can't get past the barrier.
People want survivors of sexual abuse and assault to be ashamed. It's expected. I've been thinking a lot about it lately. Sexual assault exposes the worst of patriarchal power relations. It is the dehumanization of one person by another. It's taking agency away from another person and turning them into an object of one's control and power. And talking about it makes people uncomfortable, because if they hear too many personal accounts of sexual assault, maybe they'll have to revise their beliefs that sexual violence can be blamed on the victim, that there is no patriarchy at work.
Now, it's pretty easy to shut up perpetrators of sexual assault. They have the law to worry about. They wouldn't get anything out of talking about it.
But survivors have a reason to talk. Whether it's to get justice, get the pain off their chests, or just gain some kind of closure or higher understanding, survivors can benefit from talking about it. But that would make people uncomfortable. It would make people think, and question, and reconceptualize. They might know the perpetrator. It's easier to pretend not to listen, or to put it out of mind, or deny it, but it's more effective to just shut up the survivors before they start talking at all.
So, there is a general, un-spoken dictum that tells us that survivors should be ashamed, and therefore shouldn't want to talk about it.
But why should we feel ashamed? Why should we feel as if something's wrong with us? We don't conceptualize perpetrators as ashamed, or at least not in the same way as we do survivors. Perpetrators have actually done something to be ashamed of.
And part of me feels like the stigma of being a survivor of sexual assault would begin to be lifted if survivors started rejecting the shame and speaking up about their experiences. It's easy to make sexual assault invisible when it's just a bunch of stats. Now, imagine rape apologists or deniers saying the things they say if they knew their neighbour had been raped. Or their mother. Or a friend.
And I know that in the current atmosphere, they would go on denying the reality of sexual assault and feel safe doing it, but imagine a world where survivors felt safe talking about their experiences. Where the stigma of sexual assault no longer fell on their shoulders.
That is why part of me just wants to tell the world exactly what happened to me. Every detail, exactly how it made me feel afterwards. I want to make people uncomfortable and force them out of their safety zones. Because that comfort is exactly what allows people to do nothing, or to deny the importance of sexual assault. And yet, another part of me is still too ashamed to do it.
******
Since writing the original post, I was actually raped. This time around, I was much quicker about sharing my feelings and experience with friends, because clearly keeping it to myself didn't work so well last time. The people I have told have, for the most part, been supportive, but part of me is still dissatisfied with the responses I'm getting.
I'm not holding it against them, as I think they're doing the best they can. Nevertheless, this recent experience has affirmed my desire to be more open about my experiences. I have vowed to not let the sexual assault control me this time around, so instead I will find a way to draw strength from it for myself.
What I have found, personally, is that my history of sexual abuse has actually helped me deal. I have given so much thought to the sexual abuse, analysed it so many times, dissected it, cried over it, and been furious with it so many times, that dealing with my sexual assault had somehow become routine, a continuation of what I was already doing. I'm not saying that this is, or should be, the experience of all survivors, but that's the way it's worked for me thusfar.
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Thank you for telling your story here on Feministing. I really, really hope that those around you will be decent listeners and supportive friends this time around. It is the very least they should do.
Thank you for sharing your story.
As a sexual abuse survivor myself, I can tell you that when I first started talking about it a lot, I had people attack me for it. Telling me they couldn't believe that someone would share something so "personal" and blah blah blah...
However, what I also got were a lot more people telling me how glad they were to know they weren't alone, men and women, and that it made them feel better about what had happened to them just knowing that someone else had gone through it too.
I've written a couple of blog posts myself about the fact that when people tell survivors they want them to "get over it" what they really mean is they want us to shut the hell up so they can go on pretending. This is particularly true if the person who assaulted/abused you is a friend or family member, I find.
I've written a couple of blog posts myself about the fact that when people tell survivors they want them to "get over it" what they really mean is they want us to shut the hell up so they can go on pretending. This is particularly true if the person who assaulted/abused you is a friend or family member, I find.
This is exactly right.
Thank you so much for writing this, it is so powerful. And hugs, you are very brave.
I wasn't believed when I broke the silence at age 9 about being molested. I was told never to speak of it again. When my boyfriend raped me at age 18, I was silent. I knew no one would believe me, so why bother talking?
I'm only open about it to people who are really close to me. Actually, the double-take I got from one of my male friends when I admitted to being raped made me laugh. I'm guarded about everything still, though I'm much more likely to open up about the rape than the molestation. I've allowed myself to process that more fully.
I still struggle with the molestation. My parents would rather believe that I lied. I wish they had decided to help me instead. They lost me. I rarely speak to them.