Aspen Matis with her book “Girl in the Woods.” Image courtesy of huffingtonpost.com.
Aspen Matis, formerly Debby Parker, had her whole life come crashing down on her second day of college. She didn’t forget to register for classes, she didn’t get stuck with a horrid roommate; something much worse happened to her that happens to 19 percent of college women in their freshman year according to a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Matis was raped on campus. When she tried to seek help and comfort from her family, her mother was completely indifferent and restricted her from sharing the news with the rest of her family. When Matis brought the matter to the school’s attention, her rapist got off scot-free due to lack of evidence and when she mentioned that both she and her attacker had been under the influence of marijuana, the school board insinuated that she had hallucinated her rape.
Shattered and alone, Matis fled college and sought refuge in the 2,650 mile trek from Mexico to Canada known as the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and tried to walk off her shame. The result was a 360-page memoir called “Girl in the Woods” detailing her transformation from brittle child to unbreakable woman, published six years after her rape.
A lot of critics argued that in the aftermath of the successes of Cheryl Strayed’s “The Wild” (2012) and Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” (2006), the “young person finding themselves in nature” plot has become a trope in modern memoirs. However, Aspen Matis uses her story of self-evolution through nature as a catalyst for bringing to light the often ignored issue of health and safety for college women. Her informal style of writing introduces a point-of-view that mirrors the thoughts of women who have been sexually assaulted perfectly. Matis describes blaming herself repeatedly for what happened to her, constantly telling herself that she isn’t worth it, that she should’ve done something—anything—to have stopped her attacker. After her rape, she tried to convince her rapist to stay and cuddle with her in a desperate attempt to deny what had happened, to pretend that he cared, but she described the guy looking at her like she was crazy before he left, “he knew what he had done.”
This may seem like an irrational desire, to try and convince a rapist to stay and comfort the victim after the rape, but people would be surprised at how common this coping mechanism is. This past summer, I went to England to do some volunteer work and came back sexually assaulted. I met a guy and I was proud of myself for making a friend so easily, but he violated me and I went back home and told my boyfriend that I had cheated on him. The shame was suffocating and I found it hard to articulate exactly what had happened. I thought I was at fault; that I had teased him and inadvertently seduced him into attacking me. I thought I deserved it for being so careless. I was drunk and afterwards I wanted to believe that he had feelings for me, that he cared for my well-being, but he changed tactics and kicked me out of his parent’s house at 2 a.m. I didn’t even consider it sexual assault until I explained everything to my boyfriend and he said that because I didn’t want it, it wasn’t my fault. When Aspen Matis called the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) sexual assault hotline, they told her over and over again “no one causes rape but rapists.” It took her months to believe it and I’m still working towards believing it myself.
Matis’ violation speaks volumes because it happened on campus and the college chose not to protect her, which reveals a shadier side to America’s universities that has rarely been written about. Matis describes with breathtaking imagery and timely suspense how she went through countless near-death experiences while hiking on the PCT—poisonous rattlesnakes, dehydration, almost Frostbite and a flesh-eating bacteria called MRSA—not to mention being unfairly branded as a sl*t from ignorant male hikers during her travels.
Hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail. Image courtesy of Claire Trageser’s blog “The ‘Wild’ Effect.”
Sexually-assaulted victims can only hope that they don’t have to go through all of that to regain a sense of peace in their lives. Throughout her book, Matis acts as a guide with unflinching honestly to provide a rough outline for how she overcame her rape. Some advices readers can glean from the text include speaking out about your rape or sexual violation. Victims often forget that they are not the first and there is a community of others willing to help. Also, escapism can be healthy at times too. Matis left conventional society to participate in a life of tent-pitching, rigorous exercise and hygienic discomfort in order to distance herself from an unsatisfying community. She wasn’t running away from her problems; she was going into rehabilitation. Finally, exercising and eating healthy can help victims start to feel better physically and therefore emotionally. After her rape, Matis gained a significant amount of weight and wore baggy sweatshirts all the time because she was ashamed of her body. Taking control of your body is a step towards taking control of your whole life. These are all teachings Matis touched upon in her memoir.
The novel does bloat a few hundred pages and ties up in a neat bow, but Matis paces out satisfying moments of accomplishment that empower the reader just as much as her. For instance, while hitchhiking off the trail, Matis was kidnapped by a male driver and taken to his reclusive homestead. She handled the situation with self-control though by brandishing a pocket knife at the driver and demanding to be taken back to the trail. She describes this as one of several moments when she became “the director of my life.”
By the close of the memoir, Aspen meets her future husband on the trail, who accepts her for who she is, and goes on to become a successful writer published in several notable places like The New York Times and Dame Magazine. She was invited back to her old university to give a lecture about her rape and is currently back in college at The New School in New York and working on another novel.
Even though Matis is only 24 years-old, she has built a life to be proud of and serves as a remarkable role model for many sexual assault victims trudging through their own healing process. No matter what your story is or where you are in your period of self-forgiveness, “Girl in the Woods” is good place to begin to repair your soul.