This has been a rough couple of weeks for women. Stories of sexual assault have been on every news channel, website, and social media. For many of us, this has meant constant reminders of our own trauma and repeatedly being forced to relive the worst moments of our lives.
The first time I was sexually assaulted I was fourteen– and how telling is it that, at just 19 years old, I have to say the first time I was sexually assaulted?– which is just one year younger than Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was at the time that she experienced an attempted rape at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh. Like millions of other people across the country, I spent the entirety of last weekend watching the senate hearing where both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh testified. It took me two days to get through the whole nine and a half hours because I had to stop every so often to pull myself out of the flashbacks.
It was not easy to watch but I felt compelled to watch it. Like Dr. Ford said about her reason for coming forward, I believed that it was my civic duty to be witness to this incredible act of bravery from a fellow survivor.
And here’s the thing… I believed her. Not just in the way that I will believe any survivor who shares their story, but as if I had been right there when it happened. There was no doubt in my mind that she was telling the truth. The more I listened to her speak the more I felt connected to her and her story. Dr. Ford is just one woman, and this is just one case of sexual assault, but when she spoke that day she was speaking for all of us. Every survivor who was afraid to come forward, who wasn’t believed, or who was believed but never got justice– we all saw ourselves in her story.
But as much belief as I had in Dr. Ford, I had very little in the senators she stood in front of. Deep down I knew, that she would not be believed and Kavanaugh would be confirmed. Or worse, she would be believed and he would be confirmed anyway.
When I got the notification that he had officially been confirmed I did not question how something like that could have happened, instead I began to question how we were supposed to move forward. This lack of justice isn’t surprising, not in a country where 97 out of every 100 rapists will face no time in prison.
Photo from The Enliven Project
The response of so many non-survivors, particularly white men, was not surprising either. Countless men tried to engage in arguments with me on social media and in person. I thought about writing an article filled with facts and figures for survivors to arm themselves with so that they could go into these arguments prepared for a debate. I went as far as researching and beginning to compile a list, but I decided not to write that article. As survivors it is not our job to try and force people to acknowledge our existence and our pain, we are not responsible for changing the minds of people who are so set in their beliefs. Sure, there is a time for debate and making ourselves visible, but that is something we should be able to do on our terms.
Instead I am going to share how I, as a survivor of sexual assault and abuse, have been trying to cope.
The day of the hearing I spent two hours waiting to talk to a counselor from the free chatline offered by RAINN, an incredible organization that is “experiencing unprecedented wait times for [their] online chat” because of all of the survivors who are struggling right now. I participated in the national walkout and stood at Penn Hall with a number of other students but I still felt powerless to do anything to help.
In the week that followed I fueled my pain into anger and spent a significant amount of each day engaging in activism on social media, sharing and creating posts in support of Dr. Ford and other survivors and criticizing those in government who refused to stand for what I knew to be right.
When I would wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, convinced that my abuser was in the room beside me, I would reach out to friends, or read poetry, or play with my stress toys- anything to distract me from the panic.
I listened to music that makes me happy, reread my favorite books, and binge watched Parks and Rec for the hundredth time. All of these things helped in the moment, but nothing could shake the feeling of discomfort and fear that had clung to me since Dr. Ford had first come forward.
The day after he was confirmed I was home for the weekend, in close proximity to a metro station that would take me to the heart of DC and the middle of the protests. I felt as though I had to be there to make my voice heard, but I had no one to go with and knew that it was not in my best interest to go alone. Sitting at home that morning and studying for midterms felt like an impossible task.
I needed to do something to feel as though I was making my voice heard and showing my support for survivors all around me. So, I decided that if I couldn’t go to the protests, I could bring the protest with me wherever I went.
I rushed out to the store and bought blue window markers and began writing on all my car windows. “Midterms are coming,” “Respect our existence or expect resistance,” “I believe her,” and “Text resist to 50409”. Each word that I wrote felt like a weight lifted off of my shoulders.
When I finished writing, I stepped back to look at my work and I started to tear up. It brought me a sort of closure I didn’t know I could find. For the first time in a very long time I felt empowered. I drove around all day with my front windows down, letting people see me and my message. There were a few guys who flipped me off from the sidewalk or yelled from the car next to me at a stoplight, but there were also the women; women who looked at my car and smiled, who pulled out their phones to take a picture, who called out thank you or raised their hand in a fist in solidarity with me.
This is what people saw when I drove by, an empowered survivor smiling and making her voice be heard. I took back the power that was taken from me and I turned my pain into protest. There are so many survivors out there who are doing the same, whether they are going to DC, taking to social media, or anything else. We are here and we are going to make the world listen to what we have to say.
Of course it doesn’t end with the car. The next day my parents made me wash it off and the sense of power was gone. Cleaning the paint off the car felt like erasing my story and as hard as it is to tell it, it’s even harder to have to take it back. I’m not done telling my story though, and I’m not done fighting for other survivors like me who want to see real change. I don’t know exactly what steps I am going to take from here or what we, as a country, are going to do as our next step, but I know that we will keep protesting and speaking our truths until, eventually, things begin to change.
**Disclaimer**
While I have been open about my trauma with a select few people in my life, and have spoken more vaguely on certain social media platforms, there are still a large number of people in my life who do not know (if any of those people are seeing this article, I am sorry for keeping this part of me from you but I was/am not ready to share it with everyone yet). It took me years to tell anyone other than my therapist and even now there is much of my experience that I keep to myself.
Although I have personally found it helpful to publicly take stances on these issues and share bits and pieces of my story, that may not be what’s best for you. Each of our stories are unique, and each of us deal with them in our own ways. If you are not ready to share your truth yet you should not feel pressured to do so by the large number of survivors who are coming forward. You need to do what’s best for you, and if that means staying silent that is okay. Those of us who are ready to speak out will make our voices loud enough for all of us, and if/when you’re ready to join us we will welcome you to the fight with open arms.