I was sexually abused, so I was wondering will I only want to find someone who I'm going to stay with for sex?
Anyone who knows me or who knows anything about me usually knows that my pre-teen and teen years were incredibly difficult. I dealt with neglect and abuse in my family, starting from about the time I was 10. I was sexually assaulted twice before I even became a teenager. I was queer. I was suicidal and was a self-injurer. I struggled to find safe shelter sometimes. Few people seemed to notice, even though after I gave up trying to use my words, I still used my eyes to try and tell them constantly. The one adult I could count on over time to be unilaterally supportive of me had (still has) serious mental illness. I had to take more adult responsibility at the end of my teen years than anyone else I knew. Like many adolescents, I constantly heard directly or got indirect messages from adults who talked about how awful teenagers were, how awful I was, how difficult, how impossible, how loathesome. Four days after my sixteenth birthday, the first real-deal big-love-me-lover I had, who treated me with all the care, support and respect I could have asked for, very violently committed suicide, having scars of his own from a lifetime of his own sexual and emotional abuse. Four days after my sixteenth birthday, with just a few days of freedom under my belt, I looked at brain matter spread over a wall from someone I deeply cared about. And that was after things had started getting better. I'm 40 now, and in a whole lot of ways, I felt older at 16 than I feel now. Some days, I am truly gobsmacked that I survived at all, let alone with my heart and mind intact and rich.
A lot of why I survived is about having gotten support. Without it, I'm fairly sure I would not have, because the times I didn't have it are when I was so perilously close to either taking myself out or just numbing out; to staying alive, but not really being alive.
I can identify a few different lifelines I lucked into. That love affair was a biggie, despite the way it ended. I had a couple of good friends. My father did the best he could, even with contact made limited and his own limitations from his own traumas.I had a couple wonderful teachers who never really talked to me about what I suspect they knew, but who gave me some support and tools to help me value and care for myself. Having and knowing I had creative talents and being supported in those by some of the people around me was a godsend. I had also started seeing a counselor when I was 15, Barb, who was wonderful, sensitive and kind. However, she was so supportive of me, and so vocally nonsupportive of how I was being treated at home -- even though I'd only disclosed some of the picture -- that my stepparent axed her and wouldn't allow me to see her anymore. Unbenownst to him, she'd still kept seeing me pro-bono, and continued to do so for another two years. When my boyfriend died, she slept on the ratty couch in the ratty apartment my dad and I lived in to help get me through the night. She was the first adult to help me even get started on sorting out my sexual assaults, and was completely accepting of the person that I was and wanted to become.
But there was someone else very unexpected who made an incredible difference. I wish I knew his name. If I did, I'd send him a thank you note every day of my life in an envelope full of cupcakes and stars and love and guts; all the best tears of the joy and wonderful agony I've found in living and all the best sweat I've cultivated in surviving and thriving.
Throughout most of middle school and the start of high school, I was post-traumatic much of the time, holding hard secrets inside myself and deep in abusive dynamics, quite successfully abused and controlled. Not to the satisfaction of the person putting me there mind, because can you ever be controlled enough by someone who wants to control you? But I was mostly just not there: I checked out a whole lot. I sometimes playacted at what seemed like was supposed to be normal life, pantomiming what I observed my peers doing and saying, typing snippets of my own truth between the lines on the old typewriter that hurt my hands to use and which was missing two vowels I had to write in by hand. I often went to bed early so that I could wake up earlier still and leave the house unnoticed for a safe place where I could cry without worry of opening myself up to more abuses and write without fear of discovery. I'd then sort myself out, walk to school, and arrive with a manufactured calm that allowed me to at least be able to spend my days feeling like, and being treated like, I was living a completely different life.
Somewhere around the time I was 14 or 15, something inside of me spoke the truth of my own circumstances and the way that I felt. I was able to slowly stop internalizing the abuse and neglect, and know it wasn't about what was wrong with me. That change in my mindset, however small and seedling, and a few other changes started to give me some strength to resist, to try and survive, rather than trying to disappear, hide or check myself out altogether. This change did not go over well in my household, at all. The sad, suicidal, lost kid turning into the rebellious, resilient kid is not a change an abuser appreciates. But for a little while, I remember feeling strong, like I perhaps could go to battle in this, go to battle for myself, and just might be able to win.
But it quickly seemed I was going to get bested, in a really terrible way. My stepparent came up with a "last resort" of many abuses-disguised-as-therapies to deal with me; to have the control he clearly wanted, and the family he wanted, which did not include me. He was apparently going to utilize his counseling connections to get me institutionalized out of state. This threat, coupled with some escalating abuse, sapped my spirit, and made it feel like my idea I could get out of there and survive was a total delusion. It's always so hard to look back on how I felt then because in hindsight I can see that this person had very little power at all, over me, in the spheres he claimed to, save the power I and my mother gave him. In my adult eyes, I can see him as the pathetic pretender he was, and see that it was, in fact, my power he was so reactive to. But that's not how he looked and seemed then. Then, he looked and seemed, particularly with this new plan, like a very potent overlord with the capacity to make my whole life whatever he wanted.
In actuality, his connections were only so good and he still had to work within the system. To make an institutionalization like that happen, an outside counselor needed to recommend it. It was a given that my previous counselor would not make that recommendation. Before I'd started seeing that counselor, though, there was another counselor we'd met with, who I strongly disliked. My stepfather really liked him. I remember thinking he seemed cold, but the fact that my stepfather thought he was awesome was all I needed to know I wanted to stay the hell away from him. I can't remember how I managed to win the battle to not see that person and see Barb instead, but somehow I swung it.
So, of course, this was the counselor they wanted to try and get that recommendation so I could be sent away, sent away for good, I was told (which was a lie, obviously, but I didn't know that at the time). I figured I was doomed and defeated. All I saw in the few days before this appointment in the life ahead of me was no windows and no future. I saw myself losing the few good connections I had in the world, to my father, to my few friends, to my plans for my life which I'd only recently felt the desire to even have again, having stopped wanting to die. I saw myself doped up and locked up forever. I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night to say painful goodbyes. My boyfriend and my friends tried to help me come up with any possible out, but I felt so beat down that though I think there were things I could have done to make that happen, I believed in my stepparent's claimed omnipotence, I had started to believe that I was just nuts and broken, I believed again that I was powerless.
My stepfather, my mother and I drove a long way to see this guy. As ever, I had my giant bag I panhandled with packed with my own version of survival goods (loose change, some clothes, a couple pieces of fruit and bread, my journal, a mix tape or two, Sylvia Plath's Ariel, my teddy bear, eyeliner, sleeping pills, caffeine pills and an ever-present can of Aqua Net, extra-strength) in case I got the opportunity to run. But they seemed pretty prepared for that possibility by that point, and it didn't seem likely I'd get the chance. To boot, where we were heading was so far outside the city, I had no idea how I'd even get anywhere if I could get away.
I went in to be assessed. I held back a lot, not feeling safe to disclose, especially in a system where my stepparent had made himself seem like Napoleon. But I did disclose some of what was going on with me, some of what was going on in my house, some of how I felt, and certainly how powerless I felt. I voiced feeling my own life was being taken out of my hands, and a hard, tired acceptance of that. In spite of myself, I did share how awful it felt to live in a house where no one liked you, seemed to care about you, or recognized how much pain you were in and how badly you needed help, and how much I wanted to be with people who cared for me and where I could do all I knew I was capable of. Because I was madly in love and loved back in the same way for the first time, I of course couldn't keep from talking about that, too. I left his office, then, and went into the waiting room, silent and scared to death.
Then he took a turn seeing the two of them. They were in there for a long time: every minute felt like an hour. Then he called me back in again. I went back in. I sat down, awaiting doom. He was quiet, contained, and his face didn't give anything away. And then he said something like this:
"I talked to you. I talked to your mother and your stepfather. I do think there are mentally unwell people in your family. I do not think you are one of those people. I think it's amazing you're doing as well as you are, I'm so sorry you've had to go through what you have, and I'm sorry I didn't see what was going on the first time I saw you. I think if you are unwell or in trouble, it's not because of who you are or because something is wrong with you, but because you are living in a very unhealthy environment and there is something very wrong with that environment. I am not going to recommend you be sent to Kentucky. I am going to recommend you live with your father, or in some other placement, because if we want you to be and feel a lot better, it seems to me we need to get you out of that house. I am going to call them back in and tell them this, too, but I wanted to tell you alone first."
I think I still have a bruise on my thighs from my jaw falling so hard unto them in that moment 25 years ago.
I had so not seen that coming, even though my existing counselor had voiced similar sentiments (which is why I wasn't supposed to be seeing her). I know and remember that I trusted and valued her words, and felt similarly relieved when she'd said them, but this was something different that had a much bigger impact on me. For starters, this guy had just effectively saved my life when it felt moments away from being a total loss: in some ways literally, since I no doubt would have gone back to trying to off myself in an institution, but it was bigger than that. He'd helped save and secure the possibility of my both having the life that I wanted, outside a lockdown, outside abuse, and helped me save my own sense of self, because I'd heard enough to squelch it that the lines had started to become blurry. I'd started to believe what I was told in abuse, and what I felt in neglect: that I was awful, worthless, ugly, defective, wrong and broken from birth, crazy and would always be all of those things at my very core.
In a string of words that didn't even take a minute for him to voice, he'd done so much. When my stepfather came back in the room, I got to watch his face twist and then hang defeated when this guy voiced similar words to him, and I got a whole new wave of feeling empowered and brave. For a minute, it seemed like even my mother wasn't convinced he had all the power anymore. Back in the car, as we drove to a friend's house of his, I was told, from between gritted teeth, that if I could manage to get myself back to the city alone AND gather whatever of mine I could out of the house AND be gone by the time they got back AND if I accepted that I "should never ask either of them for anything again" (a deal I had to think about for all of a nanosecond, since some of my most basic needs hadn't been met for years, so I couldn't figure what exactly it was I would have gotten from them if I did ask) THEN I would be left to live with my father IF he would take me. Long story short, I managed to do it with the one phone call I was allotted, some expertly nimble window-scrambling, a sympathetic taxi driver and a whole lot of courage and confidence that counselor had provided me. If that had been an Olympic sport, I'd probably still hold the world record. That day ended in my father's apartment, with my Dad on one side of me, my boyfriend on the other, a pizza, and all of us crying and laughing and hugging with relief and joy and gratitude for hours and being able to fall asleep in the company of two people who I knew loved me immensely. It wound up being one of the most happiest nights of my life.
This did not fix everything for me. Six days later, my boyfriend took too many ludes too near his idiot housemate's loaded rifle. My father and I lived in deep poverty over the next couple years. I still had years (and do still) to work on trauma from all my abuses and assaults, to accept myself, to repair deep wounds that usually feel pretty well healed, but sometimes still feel raw and seeping.But it's okay. I'm okay. I'm really excellent, when it all comes down to it. It's kind of a miracle, and no small amount of it has to do with an hour of time and an ounce of compassion someone who didn't even know me gave.
That guy supported me. He listened, and he trusted my words. He was clear, he was calm, he was centered when I couldn't be. He gave me information I needed and dismantled misinformation that was hurting me and would continue to hurt me. He validated my feelings. He showed me I had and could find more allies. He watered my strength and courage. He gave me hope. He believed in me and helped me get back to believing in myself. He showed me that however scary disclosing is, you have to risk it sometimes because you have to risk being supported, not just being unsupported. He did something and said things that would make it a million times easier for me to really start talking to other people about what I had been through, would still later go through, what I was feeling and how I needed to be helped. And he was one of the rare and wonderful adults during that time of my life who demonstrated that someone like him, who did for me what he did, even though it may have felt smaller to him than to me, is a vital lifesaver.
The older I get, the more my memories of all of those years get blurrier, but this particular moment is deeply etched. Every time I call it back up, I wind up weeping with a revisited relief and gratitude; not just because he helped save my life, my self, my goddamn soul, but because he modeled something for me that very clearly took root and has allowed me to be able to do something a little like what he did for me for many, many young people who, however different or similar their circumstances, need that now just as bad as I did then.
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Young people: my apologies for using "they" in the rest of this when I'm talking about you, which has got to feel like being talked about as if you weren't here when you are right in the room. I rarely use "they" like this, so I ask that you trust that today I'm doing it for good reason, and still acknowledge that you're here.
Lately, there's been some growing awareness of, and attention given to, young people who have killed themselves or been killed due to isolation, harassment and other abuse; around or related to gender, sexual orientation, sexual abuse or assault, interpersonal or interfamilial abuse or assault. There are always the omnipresent news stories about kids who shoot other kids, kids who die from overdoses or drunk driving or kill or harm other kids that way. But these stories, however important they are to tell -- and they absolutely are -- are about when the absolute worst has happened: when some young person simply can't take living anymore, or decides no one else should; when young people implode or explode. This is already a limited scope, and who knows how long even this level of awareness that young people often have it very hard will last. Unless something in the world has radically changed around young people, and I'm not seeing any evidence that it has, this will likely be a moment in time that passes, as many have before.
What doesn't often make the news, and what most folks so rarely see, are the young people who have been traumatized, challenged, squashed, mistreated, neglected, dismissed or just have been poorly served who turn it around. They don't implode or explode, they survive, thrive, endure, inspire. Those who slog on and pull through, even if all they can manage at first is to just get from one day to the next. But I see these young people all the time at Scarleteen, in other work that I do and in other work and environments like this (which sadly remain few and far between). That's because the young people that pull through tend to because they get some ongoing, reliable and compassionate information, help and support. That's because one of the biggest and most important parts of what my work is to be a person that's there for them to get those things from.
At Scarleteen, we see the young person who comes in making sexual choices that are simply not at all right for them, that they don't feel good about, don't like, or where they're taking risks they don't need to be or don't want to be. We see the young person who knows or suspects -- and is usually deeply afraid -- that they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer, and/or that they are trans or otherwise gender nonconforming and has no one safe to talk to. We see the young person who's had an unintended pregnancy, and in all sorts of circumstances; who may need help finding or being supported in abortion, or being supported in pregnancy and parenting, including after they've given birth when the folks who were so invested in them making that choice stop giving a damn because them making that "right choice" was all they cared about. We see the young person who's been sexually assaulted or abused; we see the young person who is currently being abused, who feels trapped in abuse and does not know how to get out. We see the young person who's only ever had abusive models of relationships and so has no idea that the abuse they're in is not okay and is not healthy. We see the young person who wants so badly to connect to others, but who just does not know how or who has a disability that makes it even harder for them to connect than it is for abled teens. We see the religiously conservative young person who has so many questions, or has even had something terrible happen to them and isn't their fault, but who's gotten the clear message that they can't bring those questions or needs to their community without being scorned.
We see the young person who grew up with so much shame around their sexuality that the mere fact of its growing existence, whatever it's like, has them terrified and desperately trying to crush it any way they can. We see the young person whose hatred of their body is so profound they are asking how they can literally cut certain parts off or starve certain parts away. We see the young person who's being told, endlessly, everywhere they look, how incapable they are. We see the young person so desperate to try and redo their own lousy childhood that they're trying to get pregnant at 14 in the hopes that creating their own family will give them love they never found and still don't have. At Scarleteen and every time I do the in-person work via CONNECT (the in-person outreach I do at youth shelters which is now part of Scarleteen) we see young people who have been rejected and cast out by the adults who were supposed to be the ones they could trust and rely upon most, the young person who is, with myself and/or other volunteers and staff, having the very first supportive and caring exchange with an adult they have had in their whole lives. We see the young person whose esteem and self-worth is so low that they simply do not care that their sexual partners are treating them like garbage, or who welcome being treated like garbage because it at least gives them some momentary sense of worth. Some of these young people are in times in their lives like I was in mine. Some of them have different challenges, and some of them are far less or far more challenged than others. Our world as a whole is highly unsupportive of young people, even in the best of circumstances. Our world as a whole is highly fearful of sexuality. Those worlds collide for me and for the people I serve every day.
But what we see in all of these kinds of scenarios and more are young people who have identified a place to be supported and helped, a place to utilize to try and make things better for themselves; a place to try and get even a little of what they need to care for themselves. If and when we interact with them directly, as we do with around 20-50 of them each day, we also see young people who are willing to take a risk and ask for help directly, often fully expecting that they will be denied, teased or shut down. And what we also see every single day are young people who often have those terrible expectations and don't have them met: who DO get the help and support they are asking for. Who DO get the information they need and are asking for.
What is it we do for them? It's often both as small and as potentially big as what that guy did for me. We give them information: information they ask for within the scope of what we do and what we know. We give them compassion and care. We listen. We respond to what they say and ask for, not what we want to hear and say. We support them. We always try and tell them the truth and to do so with kindness and care. We have and demonstrate faith in them. We work hard not to judge or project our own stuff on them. We treat them with respect, accept and embrace who they uniquely are and encourage them to do the same. We connect them with other systems of support and coach them in reaching out. We help them in steps that can improve their lives over time -- sometimes immediately, but more often it takes some time -- but we don't blow off that if we're they're at right now hurts like hell, it's painful and uncomfortable. We sit with them in that. We give them hope. We create and hold a space where we work to make it as safe as possible to take a risk and open up, and where they can also learn how to interact with others in safe, supportive ways, even when voicing things that hurt or are scary or uncomfortable.
For millions of young people around the world for around twelve years now, we are and have been that guy. We're not the only place to find that, but for many of teens and twentysomethings we are the only place at first, or the first place. Some have voiced that at a given time, we are, literally, the only place they feel able to talk and ask questions and the only place or people they know they can count on to be available for that, year after year.
I rarely get letters from a person we helped with taking a pill on time or working through a standard-issue breakup. Who I do get letters from, often years later, are the young people in places a lot more like I was. Usually, there's a lovely thank you, but the very best part is that they'll usually fill me in on how they're doing, what they're doing, and on how wonderful their lives are becoming, which is all the thanks I need, and what I always hope I'll hear in time, especially when I go to bed some nights having sat with someone through something terribly painful. I can let them go, both for my sake and for theirs, but some part of me always wonders and worries and hopes and hopes and hopes. Knowing that when I hoped for the best for them that the best is what happened is an incredible gift. And I'm very certain that there are many letters we don't get but would otherwise, because a lot like me, those now-adults remember the help they got and the impact it had on them, but for the life of them they can't even remember the name of the person who helped them. (Which is maybe how it should be when we do it right.)
Obviously, not every young person who comes to Scarleteen is dealing with the toughest-of-the-tough-stuff. I don't highlight our toughest interactions all the time because to do that paints an unrealistic picture of young people's diverse lives and the work that we do, which sometimes is about work that's much easier and less meaty than this. I do believe that a lot of what we do helps prevent the a lot of tough stuff in the first place; whether it's teaching someone about healthy and unhealthy relationship models, helping someone avoid infection or an unwanted pregnancy, or helping people set up a healthy sexuality before they can get solidified in typical, unhealthy and unhappy patterns. But I think it's important to also give visibility to young people's lives and stories like mine, and to make clear that one of the biggest things we do is to help some of the most vulnerable people, for whom good support and information -- often a challenge to even find -- really can be the difference between life and death, or between living and barely being alive at all.
* * *
I'm directly asking for your support right now, like I do once each year. Scarleteen is very undersupported financially. We always need more financial support and I would very much appreciate having yours. I think we do a fantastic, important job, think we have for many years, and I intend to do all I can for us to keep doing that job for many more to come so we can remain a place young people know they can come back to, and don't have to worry about passing in the night when a media or cultural tide shifts. I think Scarleteen and all that happens at Scarleteen is very worthy of being supported and sustained. To make that happen, we need more than just my own stubborn and dogged commitment and that of our volunteers: it also takes some dollars (and possibly a can or of Aqua Net, a mix tape and most certainly a teddy bear). In the last month we have been fundraising, and unfortunately, it's been very unsuccessful this year, even though we've provided the same level, quality and scope of service we have for the last twelve years, and the young people who need us keep on coming in droves. From today through the 18th, a small team will be matching funds raised up to $1,000 (see below), so if you haven't given yet this year, now would be a great time, and your gift would be deeply appreciated.
I felt a little strange that when I went to write a blog entry asking for support, this story is what came out. I wondered if it was appropriate or gauche to ask for financial support while also telling this story. But then I realized not only was it okay, it was actually ideal.
I grew up having plenty of things and people I wanted to be when I was grownup. I wanted to be the musician and artist I had all those talents for. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a lawyer, a doctor, a firefighter, an activist, a muckracker, a lion tamer. I wanted to be Emma Goldman, Patti Smith, Jane Addams, Judy Blume and the doctor who worked with my Mom I called Dr. Harry, who had webbed feet (he was really nice, but also, unlike the nurses who gossiped about it, I thought webbed feet must be the most awesome thing to have in the world, especially in the pool at the Y).
But most days, I wake up and jump energetically into my work even if the day before wiped me out, and I realize that who and what I most wanted to be, and clearly still want to be, was that guy who kind of gave me my whole life back in but one hour and a short string of words. For someone. For anyone who needs me to be and for whom I can be. I don't even remember that guy's name, but I know that most days, most of the time, he's who I want to be; he's who I try to be. He's better than my hero: he gave me access to what I needed to be able to be my own hero, and gave me something core I needed to keep trying to do the same turn for others every day, probably for the rest of my life.
When I ask for support for Scarleteen, one of the things I'm doing is taking some of what this guy gave to me and trying to keep it going. Because so much of Scarleteen is made of my personal time and effort, I'm asking for your help and support for my own aspirations to be like that guy, and for our staff and volunteers to do the same. But I'm also asking for help and support for a kind of intention, service and sustained space that I think, in the biggest of all possible big pictures, helps and supports every single person we help and support to be that guy, if not for a whole bunch of people, for at least one or two other people and most certainly for themselves.
That's a different end result to aim for than a reduction in unwanted pregnancy, lower rates of STIs, less abuse and more love and pleasure, better body image or people just being more informed so that their sexuality and sex life can be as good for them and any partners they have as it can be. You won't find a grant to fund sex education that wants a logic model for way bigger pictures than those, and I don't know that we can build something evidence-based on the grandest goals. You won't tend to hear people presenting this much-bigger-picture as part of sex education, even though I think it's implicit in all quality sex education, and some part of what every thoughtful sex educator is doing and aims to do. Teaching and modeling compassion, care, responsiveness and support, in everything, but especially in the stuff that's most loaded, is no small part of any good sex education because it's such a large part of any good sexual life and healthy sexuality and relationships.
I think -- and that's hopefully obvious -- that all of those kinds of less lofty goals are crucially important, but at the end of my day, what I want to have seen and done is this bigger stuff that lies underneath it all. I want to go to bed knowing it was at the heart of everything I did, that in ways great or small, I was able to teach or model something for everyone I interacted with that's all about being that guy for yourself and that guy for others, which I believe would be world-changing and also believe is absolutely attainable and should be as supported by all of us in all of the ways that we can.
UPDATE A generous ongoing donor has just agreed to throw an extra $1,000 in the kitty for matching through the 20th! So, up to $2,000 in donations will now be matched for donations made from today until Saturday!
Beginning in September, I am going to be employed as Residence Don for an all girls floor at a university. I am pretty exited about the job and really would like to make residence life a positive experience for the students I will be living with (about 170 guys and gals in total). However, there is one MAJOR issue I have with the residence, they offered no sexual assault awareness education for the students. In the 2008-09 school year, there were 3 sexual assaults reported, which lead to criminal charges, and almost all I have talked to who have lived in this residence for multiple years have either been sexually assaulted themselves or had a friend who was while living there. So, clearly, something is needed to change this residence culture that seems to be conducive to sexual violence.
My plans for last weekend were pretty mellow: I was going to work on my taxes, do a little housecleaning, maybe get started on my garden now that the sun is back out, hang out with my sweetheart, finish some writing, practice piano and play some Scrabble. I was going to tend to myself, for the most part.
The weekend I would up having was quite a bit different.
Last Wednesday, I raced against the clock -- I had to go work at the clinic the next day -- to get everything up for our focus this month on sexual assault and abuse as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. That included getting together a page and other materials for the "I Was Raped" shirts which months back, I'd agreed to help Jennifer Baumgardner distribute as part of a project to increase rape awareness, both through these t-shirts and the conversation we'd hoped they'd start, as well as through her developing film of the same name, which will focus on first-person stories from survivors.
The New York Times first covered the project, using a photo of Jennifer -- which was appropriate, since this is her project. Then Gawker and Jezebel hit on it, using a photo of me in the shirt without my permission or even a request for it (and still have yet to respond to my requests to remove a copyrighted image they have no permission to use). A few more sites followed suit. Later on Friday, KOMO-4 news contacted me, telling me they were doing a story on it that night and asking for my participation. As is my general practice with television, I declined to be filmed, but did accept to have a phone interview.
Before that interview, the reporter and I had a discussion about using my image where I explained why I was not comfortable with my face being put on the television as a survivor. I explained that when I went to get coffee this weekend, I needed it to be up to me if I was "that woman who is dairy allergic, so don't forget, soy only," or "that woman who was raped." I explained that as a counselor for an abortion clinic half the week, I didn't want to make anything of my personal life so broadly visible that any of my clients might recognize me and doubt that it was their issues which were of the utmost importance in my office. I explained that choosing to show my face with this in one context is not permission for anyone to make that choice for me in others, and that I'm the expert on how much exposure I can handle and want. I was told they don't show rape "victims" faces on television, anyway (and then wondered, if that was so, why we were even having that conversation in the first place).
Apparently, they do, because my face was indeed shown on the news, coupled with the reporter saying I'd requested they did not show it. My words were edited massively -- as is to be expected -- and no information on the project was even given. The "I Was Raped" t-shirt was compared to t-shirts reading "Yankees Suck," and "Boys are stupid -- throw rocks at them." The story spread -- the tone of it intact -- and the video made its way to other stations, and then CNN. The story has spread very largely through the blogosphere, and with some notable exceptions, an awful lot of what's out there is full of a lot of misinformation about me and the project, and in some cases, some really inflammatory accusations. As of today, I'm about one for one between positive emails and negative ones, and while the positives are very positive, the negatives are really negative and many have been incredibly threatening and disturbing.
I've been accused of exploiting myself and other assault survivors just to make money, which would almost be comical if it weren't so vile. Scarleteen gets five dollars from any shirt sold. Five dollars, which to make, means not only my processing the order, packing it to ship, walking to ship them as well as doing all I've done to set things up to sell them, the crazy amount of extra bandwidth all the press has brought on (none of which I courted or chose), and all of this causing technical problems with the site, but also includes putting up with all of the crap which I have over the last handful of days. You'd think it'd be pretty easy for a person of any intelligence to realize that if it was about the money, I could do better by setting up a lemonade stand on the sidewalk, make the same dough, and do so without any sort of emotional stress or difficulty. And flatly, if someone doesn't want $5 to go to Scarleteen, I have no trouble sending it to a different organization which helps with rape prevention, awareness and healing. But since I'm also the one paying the bandwidth bills for all of this, doing a lot of the work, taking care of all the orders and shipping AND being the whipping boy of choice AND since Scarleteen does advocacy work in this area, I'm not sure what the big problem is.
I've gotten letters in my email box from those who came to Scarleteen and read some of our rape content, and felt the need to write me and explain to me all of the ways in which any given kind of sexual abuse was not actually sexual abuse at all, be it because the victim asked for it, because the victim apparently really wanted it but was just ashamed of their own desires, because when the victim is male they always really want it; how for "horny" teenage boys, raping is just something they do naturally, how all survivors need to do is find out what we did to get raped, make sure we don't do that thing again and move on, how in doing what we do at Scarleteen in the first place, we're setting girls up to be raped by encouraging them to be promiscuous sluts, or enabling rape somehow by educating youth on homosexuality.
I've had the great privilege of being patronized, with other victims, by non-survivors, "experts" on rape, or even other survivors letting us know what they think we need to be doing "for our own good," how they think we don't know how to protect ourselves, physically or emotionally, how much more it would scar us to take something "private" and make it in any way public...and how all of these concerns are OF COURSE about us, not about them. I have been told what my personal problems are, by people who know nothing about me, and about how I could do a lot more good if I did more meaningful things with my life than I do, or how, if I stopped doing the work I do now, went and took a corporate job, was able to buy a house and car, and then give money to an organization like...oh, the one I run, I could do more for other "victims." I have been told outright that while a given letter-writer cares for all other rape survivors, they do not care for survivors like me, and feel that it is perfectly appropriate -- nay, quite called for -- to shower me with abusive invective.
(Might there be some truth in some of them saying this could be traumatic for survivors because of what I'm dealing with myself and how I'm feeling right now? Maybe, save when you realize that most of this is coming from my being shown wearing the shirt in places that were not of my choosing, and where, following the choice they made for me, I have asked not to be shown. In fact, I think how I'm feeling says a whole lot more about how rape survivors are often seen as everyone's property -- since we've already been spoiled, see, already ruined -- than it does about how my choices to be public have resulted in my getting upset.)
I've read about how any survivor who wears this is being a terrible person to other abuse or rape survivors who might be triggered by it. However, I never see the same concerns voiced about, oh, many media representations of sex or romance, people verbally abusing their children in grocery stores, people who enforce ideas that sex is a duty people owe one another in certain social contexts, people using the word "rape" applied in scenarios like "The IRS just raped me," or... hey, wait! People deciding to verbally abuse a survivor because she breaks silence in a way they don't like or wouldn't choose for themselves. Just a word on that? I feel pretty confident saying that many of us who are survivors will not be triggered by another survivor saying he or she was raped, or having that voiced in a pretty sensitive way on a piece of clothing. More to the point, if you think this is the only way in any given day we might be reminded of our rapes, you've got to be kidding. The most benign aspects of daily life are often triggers: groups of men crowding close to us in a bus, the street we have to walk down to get home which was the one we were raped on, being quickly grabbed by the shoulder from someone who had no idea that was a trigger, a chair, a doorknob, a broom handle, someone's hand, a belt, a given way the light looks at a certain time of day, the smell of a cologne, the very skin we inhabit, or someone, perchance, saying something about rape to us like "Don't tell a soul."
I have, of course, had to deal with the nasty kinds of feedback we always get any time we talk about rape. I have gotten email which informs me that women are property and that women are raped because men are superior. I have gotten email that told me I am sexist because we largely address rape at the site of men and women which is perpetrated by men, not which is perpetrated by women (which is only because it is perpetrated by women so infrequently, and because we can only respond, in advice queries, to the questions which are asked: I assure you, I have not deleted or purposefully not published any questions about a person surviving a rape by a woman -- I simply have not yet gotten any such questions). I have gotten email informing me that I am making a "disgusting display" to get attention and pity for myself -- and to help young women, I am told, make false rape accusations -- by choosing to put my face all over the news (which again, was very much not my choice, but one made for me against my express wishes). I have gotten email which informs me that if I was raped, I clearly deserved it for being the terrible, horrible waste of breathable air which I am. Of course, I also got letters from people said they would have supported the work that I do and this project until they found out that not only was I, and the site pro-choice, but that I also am a baby killer who works at an abortion clinic (one such letter also informed me that having an abortion would only add to the trauma of a rape survivor, but going through pregnancy or becoming a parent before a person was ready would somehow be in no way difficult or traumatic). I read a thread discussing if I was "hot, for a rape survivor" or not.
For the record, the gender of those with those responses is mixed. These kinds of sentiments by no means only come from men (and when it comes to supportive responses, we've had just as many from men as from women). They come from every kind of person you could possibly imagine. This is one of the many reasons why those who have been raped often stay silent: we never know who is going to react to our rapes like this, and are well aware that it's possible the people we expect it from least may be the ones who react just like this. I can assure you, for the record, that of the people who have sent me the worst of this vitriol, around one of every two is someone who those who know them wouldn't even suspect the malice they usually keep hidden, save for people like me.
We've had server troubles all day which I've had to stay on top of when I still have things I need to do which I had planned to do this weekend, but could not do because I have had to spend most of it on damage control, sending requests to people to please stop stealing my face without asking me, correcting tons of misinformation about all of this flooding my mailbox, having to read through piles of hate to find emails from Scarleteen users we need to tend to, and having to try all I can not to have all of this wear on my relationships with people glad to support me, but who also have needs of their own, and things they need from me. Suffice it to say, since we have had many positive responses, many people want the short, and I wasn't prepared to have to be processing orders all weekend. I have also been reading the positive mails, which are great, but many of them also contain the writer's personal rape experience. That's not to say I am not open to being the person someone chooses to share with, and that I am not very glad if I can provide a way for someone to disclose, but obviously, reading those letters is not pleasant or cheerful.
Obviously, this wasn't my best weekend ever. Many of these responses and results obviously disappoint and distress me.
But what they don't do is surprise me. I've lived as a survivor for almost 27 years now, and I've worked in sex education, including in advocacy for survivors and efforts for prevention, for a decade. When I was a teacher, more than once I had to deal with the travesty that was the justice system for a student of mine who was being abused. I am used to people excusing away all manner of abuses, resenting the hell out of those of us who do our damndest to protest that, and am well aware that denial of abuse, and the amount of abuse which exists in the world, is alive and well and living...well, everywhere.
I am used to statements which start with, "If I was a woman and had been raped..." (as if men never get raped: but really, statements like this start that way because they're about how women should behave, period), or "If I was a rape victim...." or "If I had been raped..." and with the uselessness that follows all of them. Maybe it's time for me to start talking about how I might feel and behave were I a woman of color, were I a heterosexual person, were I a person of means, had I survived the Holocaust. Because, obviously, my ideas on how I might feel and behave in those situations would be so very useful, especially to those people who actually are members of those groups.
I am used to hearing that if I want to talk about my rape, if I make it important in any way, even for a limited time, that I haven't "moved on." I am used to hearing about how I deserved it, asked for it; I heard it from one of my rapists (and had I been fully conscious for one of my rapes, I am sure I would have heard it from more), I heard it from friends and family, I've heard it from others who are oh-so-certain they and my rapists have nothing in common. I am used to hearing that the difference between strong survivors and perpetual victims is this: if you never say a word about it, if no one around you even has to know you were raped, you're a strong survivor. But if you're upset, if you want to talk about rape or your rape, if anyone around you has to know what happened, then you're looking to stay a perpetual victim so that you can live a sweet life where everyone feels sorry for you. I am used to hearing that if I want to speak out about my rape, publicly or privately, that anyone who hears me is entitled to react however they would like, even if that means speaking to me in a way which is abusive, threatening, callous or cruel.
I am used to hearing about how any given thing about me is so awful or distasteful that nothing about me or what I do deserves any sympathy or, -- and more important to me, since I don't really need sympathy -- any kind of basic common courtesy or respect. Sometimes that's been because I'm queer, other times because I do sex ed, other times because I've had an abortion (and now, because I also work where they are provided), because I'm Buddhist, because I'm this age or that one, this gender or that, because I look this way or I don't look that way, because I don't have issues with nudity, because I'm sympathetic to a given group of people, because I'm loud, because I'm independent, because I have sex I enjoy, because I'm still alive. I am used to every kind of excuse imaginable at this point for why I don't deserve the same courtesies I have always extended to others.
None of these things are new to me, nor are they much different from what I have dealt with simply in my personal life when it comes to my rapes.
And I am used to hearing all of this so much, that while it never stops being hurtful, what it has long since stopped being for me is particularly powerful. Don't get me wrong: I have spent a lot of the past few days somewhat shellshocked, but that has more to do with the en masse onslaught and a lack of sleep than it does with any particular thing anyone has said or done. I know the place the craptastic stuff comes from, and I know that that place is one of fear, resentment, guilt, ignorance, violence or self-loathing. As much as I revile those things, as much as I want them gone, and as bad as they make me feel, I can at least identify them, and I know very acutely where my own bad feelings come from and, for the most part, how to deal with them. I can even look them dead in the eye: again, that's a survivor skill, too -- to survive, we all have to learn to do that expertly.
I'm also used to the fact that all rape survivors are different. We are not all the same, our rapes were not all the same, how we've processed them or reacted to them has not all been the same. I have had plenty of thanks for other survivors in my email box over the weekend, but I have also gotten emails like this:
"You are a sick fuck... and if in fact you were truely raped you would not be so fucking stupid to even want to do something so damn outrageous on wearing a shirt. And I wonder why you dont want to show your face. You are a sick individual and I am a rape victim and now a survivor but you appaul me on such a horrible suggestion on someone wanting to wear such a dumb remark shirt. If in fact you were raped, you are as sick as i could ever imagine. Of how you want to make money on it... this is not fame this is a sick person like you it saddness me to think there are people in this world like you . Playing on what horrific act of rape , how it kills a person day in and day out. We have to live with that horrible thought of it happening to us. And then we have people like you... SICK.. how do you get up and look in the mirror? May god bless your sick soul."
By all means, I feel the way that person chose to spoke to me was insensitive and cruel. However, I think that it's really important to remember that none of us lives in a culture conducive to healing, or in a culture which makes it comfortable to live as a survivor. We can't even trust each other, as fellow survivors (and when we're addressing a survivor who is same-gender, an awful lot of same-gender learned distrust is tossed in the mix, something often even more difficult for male survivors since their rapists were usually male as well), in our motives, in how our healing differs, in the different places we're at in it. Survivors are, justifiably, angry -- and also all sorts of people -- and can often enough direct that anger just about anywhere: that's how it is when you're so angry and so hurt and given so little support. I directed mine inward after I was assaulted, and doing that, on top of having my rape be a thread that wound through other trauma I was living with and trying to survive, nearly killed me and also set me up for challenges in my life -- as well as more risks of danger -- all of which could have been, if not avoided, strongly mitigated by being able to talk about my abuses, at all, and finding some kind of support. I don't like getting emails like that, to say the least, but at the same time, I have to take a breath, stop, and recognize that at the very least, someone just got some release of all of that anger, and while I don't think I'm the right person to direct it to, that that person was able to direct it anywhere -- to open up that pressure valve -- is a likely positive for that person.
It may well also be -- and pardon any pop psychology on my part -- that as much as I don't want this kind of visibility, that survivor does, and resents me for having what she wants. That's also valid, since we are made intensely invisible as a group of people, particularly if we become survivors, rather than remain victims. While if our rapes were in some way found horrific, we might get some media-based ambulance-chasing, once they're over, we're non-issues, and if there is nothing particularly noteworthy about our rapes (and for most of them, the general population will find nothing noteworthy about them), we'll rarely see address at all. In any case, victims trump survivors, and victims who arouse a pithy kind of pity trump all.
Or, this one: "No body in there right mind would believe that you're truly doing this to help other people. I'm a real survivor because I'd never broadcast or announce the horrible things that have happened to me. the only people who would wear that shirt are full of shit. NO BODY would wear that who's really been raped. But I'm sure a bunch of girls will buy it who want attention and want people to feel sorry for them. I do think this should be taken away from you and all the bullshitting bitches who pretend this has happened to them. Millions of women have suffered and worked very hard to over come what you are now trying to profit from. You should NOT be allowed to capitalize on other people's pain. And even if you were raped that shouldn't give you the right to profit from it. Did you know when you were raped that you were going to get paid for it? Or did that idea come later?"
What I hear in this -- once more, forgive me for being armchair -- is that this person needs to be validated in surviving, and needs to have someone let her know that however she speaks out of silence is okay, is brave, is laudable, even if it doesn't look like someone else's way. My impression is that she needs for her rape to be made important, because if it already really felt that way, I'm not sure why she'd put so much energy (I got three different emails from this woman before I blocked her address) into telling me how no one's story is true but her own or those which resemble hers. I hear that she is suffering, and I hear that she is tremendously, and probably righteously, angry. That doesn't mean I'm going to say she's not responsible for misdirecting her anger at me, because she is, and I've directed no such things at her or anyone else, but it is to say that I can only get so angry back at someone in this space. I know that space: been there, done that, and -- literally -- have the t-shirt.
Here's what we don't often see and hear in the various peanut galleries of the Internet: we don't see many survivors sharing the stories they have also shared with me both in my email box over the weekend and in other avenues I've had them shared with me in my life, both with work, and with the people who have personally disclosed to me over the years. I even got stories in my email box from survivors who were at sites talking about this, where so many people incessantly talked about how they were not silencing anyone, and yet, these people didn't feel able to tell their stories, or perhaps even share the mere fact of being survivors. people who send me email like the above aren't posting it in the forums or on the blogs: through the resentment, they also know I'm safe, or else I'd not be hearing this. Everyone else would.
Some survivors do want something like this. It's okay to want it, and it's okay not to, and wanting it or not doesn't determine who was and who was not raped. It's having been raped, only, which determines that. The two women above were raped. The man who wanted one of these and told me it was because of being brutally raped during time he spent in jail over a misdemeanor was raped. The woman who bought one because she was molested as a child was raped. The person who bought it for their partner who is working on acceptance of their rape was raped.
Saturday morning, I literally overheard my neighbors talking about the news story on the porch (and clearly not knowing it was their neighbor, who could hear them, they were talking about: Seattleites don't tend to be very familiar neighbors)
So, why would a survivor wear something like this? Obviously, I can't speak for anyone other than myself and for those who have talked about why they would. I've also already said a little bit about why I would here. One of the emails above asks how I look at myself in the mirror.
When the t-shirts got here, and I put one on to take a quick photo, checking in the mirror to make sure that despite the fact that I was two days late on washing my hair, I wasn't too disheveled, it was an interesting experience. It was like myself was telling myself a hard truth directly, but gently. With a quiet, but clear, understanding. Rape is something that those of us who are raped are told at every turn to doubt happened to us, to explain away with a rapist's "misinterpretation" of our nonconsent, to do our best to rid our memories of the experience, to the point that even someone like me, who also works with other survivors, who has done an epic amount of personal processing for over a very long period of time can have days and times where I, too, wonder if somehow, in some way, I managed to imagine what happened to me. Maybe that blood was from something else: maybe I just had hemmorhoids I didn't know about. Maybe that soreness is from falling off my bike and I just don't remember when. Maybe the reason I don't remember all of that assault isn't because I got knocked on the head, but because nothing actually happened. Maybe no one wants to believe me because I'm crazy, and this is all some sort of delusion. Maybe all of those body image issues, that overdose, all that poetry I wrote in my teens was about all that OTHER stuff, and that other stuff caused me to believe I was raped. Maybe when he shoved my head in his crotch, he mistook it for his own hand: maybe while I was choking on what he wanted and I didn't, he just didn't know I couldn't breathe. Surviving rape is a whole world of maybe, but maybe nots.
So, sitting there, looking myself in the eye in the mirror with that t-shirt on did cause me to cry, and even if I never wear it anywhere else, even though I have, at other times, been able to acknowledge and accept what happened to me, that moment was powerful for me. I deeply could look at myself in the mirror and accept the woman who is there and everything that made her who she is, even when some of those things are incredibly difficult and not things I wished for. I was proud of her, and she made me feel strong and able, both for myself and for the work I do where I need to help others find strength and resilience. I can do that at other times, too, but I'm always grateful for any new tool to help me do that, because some days, the ones I have don't work or don't take me to a new place.
Over the weekend, when I was talking to an old friend on the phone providing support, he said to me, "You know, you can take this. I know it doesn't feel good, and you don't want to, but the fact is, you can handle this." It might sound hollow, that, but the truth of the matter is that yes, I can. That woman looking back at me in the mirror could. If taking it wasn't something I thought might carry any benefits for anyone, not only would it all be even more upsetting than it already is, I wouldn't have had anything to do with this in the first place, or even have been public about surviving rape as I have been over the years. I didn't need to be as public as I have for myself: just telling people close to me and being able to sometimes speak through my art, for me, has been enough. I've been more public in the hope that my doing so will help other people be able to break silence, find strength, and be able to find whatever way is their way to healing.
The biggest bummer with things like this is that unfortunately, one very strong message the backlash sends to other survivors is that it is absolutely best they stay silent: because if they don't, see, if they speak up like I do, speak up in any way, this, too, is what will happen to them. Some who silence with ignorance, fear or guilt probably have no idea that this is a likely result: others, of course, very much are aware that they are silencing and very much intend to silence.
But here's the thing: something like this shirt isn't for every survivor, nor for any given survivor in every environment, on every day. I do a lot with my life, and my rape is not often at the forefront of any of it, but sometimes it is, and sometimes, it's helpful to others if I let it be, as much as I'd prefer not to. Being able to even just say -- even just to oneself -- "I was raped," is rarely easy, even though it does get easier over time. It still always hurts, it always infuriates, it always confuses, it always saddens, especially in a world which makes it so very hard to speak just that simple fact and to have it merely acknowledged. It is never easy, and it will never be easy. Saying it out loud, in any way, to anyone, is almost always scary, almost always risky. But for ourselves, and for others, when we can do it, when we are able -- and it's always okay when we're not -- it's usually, in my opinion, a worthwhile risk. While it means that we might open ourselves up to all kinds of garbage, it also means we might open ourselves up to the good stuff, too, to connections which are rare and unfathomably meaningful, to us or to others.
I won't be dishonest: I still want that other weekend that I was going to have back. I'd have preferred that weekend, and I really needed that weekend for myself. I spent a lot of time this weekend very deeply resenting feeling like I was pushed into the spotlight in a way I did not choose and I did not want: up until now, I've felt like the level of public I have been has been enough to make things better for enough people that something like this level of visibility wasn't anything anyone needed me to do. And yet, seeing all that I have seen over the last few days, I can only assume that I was wrong in that, since if things like this were not needed, I can't imagine I'd be seeing so much of what I had. We'd be past all of this by now, wouldn't we? So, if that's what needed to happen, and it did or could net anything at all positive, I can live with that. I can have that weekend I needed another time. I can move past my anger and resentment. I can make time up to my partner next weekend. I can have my life go back to being about all the other things it's about shortly. Again, I can take this: I may not want to, but I can.
There's no perfect note to end this on. I'm massively grateful for the support myself and the project have been shown by some. I'm deeply moved by the other survivors who have trusted me to share their stories, and to those who also have offered their care and compassion, and not just because you let me help you heal, but you helped heal some hidden parts of me I didn't even realize still needed healing. I'm deeply saddened, frustrated, shellshocked and worn the hell right out from all of the backlash -- and some of that is surprise in that I was more vulnerable than I thought myself to be and at the same time stronger, but also not as over my rapes as I have long thought -- but I'm just hoping that maybe at least some of it will result in something positive, either for survivors, or for the world that we live in when it comes to how survivors are treated, how rape is viewed and in terms of anything and everything which might keep it from happening to anyone at all.
And if, from a Buddhist perspective, there truly is no separation between the self and others, and I am seeing and hearing from so many people who clearly need to work through all of this chaos, who have all of this inside and around them -- and if the way I, myself, have been feeling has anything to do with anything -- then all of these last few days hasn't really just been about or for other people: it's been about and for me, as well.
So, as it turned out, and for as much as it sure hasn't felt like it, it seems I spent the weekend tending to myself, after all.
It seems appropriate to link this to Carly Milne's blogging project to benefit RAINN, and I'll write for that project a few more times before month's end. We've linked to RAINN and its services for years at Scarleteen, so it shouldn't be new to anyone, but to say it is a worthy place to support is a serious understatement. RAINN has made, and continues to make, great efforts for both rape prevention and survivor support, and if you have some extra cash -- especially for many of you who get tax refunds -- it's a fantastic place to put it. I know I certainly could have used what it provides, and many other survivors do as well.
I have been raped on several occasion throughout my youth. I am just now, as a 22-year-old woman dealing with these. My friend recently said to me, "Well since it happened to you once, then you are more susceptible to it happening again." It really offended me to hear this, and I wanted to know if it seems unfair to me to get upset. My whole thought process is, I already blame myself (and I know I shouldn't but what girl doesn't) why would you say something like that implying that I brought this on myself? Is that insensitive of me to feel that way?
Hi, when I was about 16 (I am 21 now), I was sexually assaulted by two extended family members. Over the years it has caused me to loose trust for many males especially the ones I met after the incident and males of my race. The only people I seem to fully trust are my four brothers and parents. I have not told them about he incident and I am scared to do so because I don't know how I will or what their reaction might be. I am also facing a problem with dating. I am a little scared to date as I don't know how my partner my react to this incident or if I will treated nicely. Recently, I have been approached by two male friends who have interest in me and I am a little scared to even date them. I have built a trust for them. What should I do?
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