The aftermath
Wouldn't you have screamed? Wouldn't you have used every effort of power and strength to fight off your attacker? What about going to the Police, surely you would have run, yes run literally to the nearest Police Station. Who cares what time of night or early hours of a morning it is. What you say your daughter was in the other room...Well why didn't you call our to her, who cares if she is only a 5 years old, surely she could have saved you? Right?
Sounds unbelievable doesn't it. No its true, this is taken from a scenario of a trial involving the sexual assault of a mother. The male Defence lawyer was described on record as attacking the "witness" (victim) in the worst possible way, oh yes...there was more. Then why wouldn't he, look what the offender had to look forward to three accounts of sexual assault, each carrying a maximum penalty of seven years of jail. Just think, in the absence of physical hard evidence, the jury must rely on the verbal evidence, statements and accounts of these events by witnesses in a court of law. Naturally the perpetrator and their team of....well I'm yet to find a word to describe the type of persons who would defend rapists....would use their own analogy of the events placing the victim in the worst possible situation. Doubt.....doubt is all they need to raise...doubt, an essence of doubt is all they need....
In the aftermath to follow a sexual assault, immediately following pulling yourself together, trying to make sense of the confusion in your brain, the disorientation, the fear, the trembling, the need to want to scrub every inch of your body as rigorously as possible, to cry, oh yes to cry, to be near someone who makes you feel safe, who will make it all stop, make the crying stop, wipe this from your brain, oh its still there all of it, the pictures keep re-appearing, interrupting your walking, your thinking, dressing. Everything you do, every cognitive, linguistic, physical action you attempt is interrupted by your brain in overload from an abnormal event which it is trying to rationalise. It can't.... there is no rational way of creating sense or meaning from this event. Trust "I will never trust again" you tell yourself, "I will never let anyone near me again", but what about....what will you tell your husband? boyfriend? girlfriend? brother? sister? friends? family? How will you tell them? What will people think? Believe?
In between the random thoughts, the fear, the loss of control, you can't eat, thinking, how can you think? You need to tell someone, share this pain, say it out loud. The words are jumbled, incoherrent, he doesn't understand you, you keep trying to explain, the tears just keep falling, he knows, there are reactions to some events which need no explanation. He lets you take your time, he is scared, he is frightened. Another set of random thoughts, two brains disconnected by tremendous emotion, terrifying. He wonders why he wasn't there for you, to protect you, make you feel safe, how something like this could happen to someone he loves, he is angry, oh so angry, so amazingly angry, like an anger no words or actions could describe.
You lay in your own bed, you don't sleep, there is no sleep, you shower, constantly, over and over again, but you feel the same. Nothing seems to work. He reminds you of how many more women could go through this unless this person its stopped, he wants to stop this offender who calls himself a human being, you know what you must do, it is just so hard, so damn hard, to re-tell these events, you never want to relive, you've given so much time to keeping as far from reality as possible. How could you re-tell this, the most intimate and personal of details about your body, to someone you don't know? You go to the Police.
Trauma...what is trauma? Is it the feeling of shock, that you would go more than a day without speaking more than two words at a time? Would it be uncontrollable crying, shaking, fear? Refusing to leave the house, refusing to answer the phone, unable to return to work even a year later. How about relationships? Withholding intimacy from your partner, the shock of brushing up against a person in the supermarket sending you into such a spin, you leave the fully loaded basket in the isle and go home? Is it the trembling you feel from the smell of stale burbon on a person, how you freeze physically, emotionally, mentally when something as simple as a person who looks similar crosses the street? Your though patterns are constantly interrupted, you have developed neuro-associations to many events which previously told you life was fun, exciting, worth living. Is this trauma?
If you search trauma on the web, it is there. Even for rape victims. Why does the justice system disregard trauma for victims of sexual assault? Expert witnesses are regularly used in trials of a different nature. Why not in sexual assault trials? Are the feelings of victims unjustified? unworthy of acknowledgement? What is this ignorance of society to believe victims should just "get over it"? That life will go on the day after, a week after, even years after this event. The reality of extraordinary events, life threatening events, is they are forever inbedded in your thoughts. Unless we can produced a small pen which we hold up to a persons face to erase such thoughts as things we shouldn't have witnessed or traumatic events with the blink of a flash, those horrific events will remain on the hard drive of our bodies.
When we experience a traumatic event, we can and will react in a number of ways. We may fight, we may run or we may freeze. There is never, ever an assurance that one person will act one way over another. It is what makes our species so unique, our individuality. You yourself might believe if such an event ever took place you know exactly how you would react. You may and I mean may be right.
In the aftermath of a sexual assault, there are so many expectations placed on victims from the legal system and society, we must remember as victims, not to place unreal expectations on ourselves. Victims of sexual assault have a right to heal, a right to their pain, to their trauma, their time to recover and right to acknowledgement...which has for too long been disregarded by the legal profession, the justice system and society. It is time to make a difference, to give victims of sexual assault the right to heal.
Sounds unbelievable doesn't it. No its true, this is taken from a scenario of a trial involving the sexual assault of a mother. The male Defence lawyer was described on record as attacking the "witness" (victim) in the worst possible way, oh yes...there was more. Then why wouldn't he, look what the offender had to look forward to three accounts of sexual assault, each carrying a maximum penalty of seven years of jail. Just think, in the absence of physical hard evidence, the jury must rely on the verbal evidence, statements and accounts of these events by witnesses in a court of law. Naturally the perpetrator and their team of....well I'm yet to find a word to describe the type of persons who would defend rapists....would use their own analogy of the events placing the victim in the worst possible situation. Doubt.....doubt is all they need to raise...doubt, an essence of doubt is all they need....
In the aftermath to follow a sexual assault, immediately following pulling yourself together, trying to make sense of the confusion in your brain, the disorientation, the fear, the trembling, the need to want to scrub every inch of your body as rigorously as possible, to cry, oh yes to cry, to be near someone who makes you feel safe, who will make it all stop, make the crying stop, wipe this from your brain, oh its still there all of it, the pictures keep re-appearing, interrupting your walking, your thinking, dressing. Everything you do, every cognitive, linguistic, physical action you attempt is interrupted by your brain in overload from an abnormal event which it is trying to rationalise. It can't.... there is no rational way of creating sense or meaning from this event. Trust "I will never trust again" you tell yourself, "I will never let anyone near me again", but what about....what will you tell your husband? boyfriend? girlfriend? brother? sister? friends? family? How will you tell them? What will people think? Believe?
In between the random thoughts, the fear, the loss of control, you can't eat, thinking, how can you think? You need to tell someone, share this pain, say it out loud. The words are jumbled, incoherrent, he doesn't understand you, you keep trying to explain, the tears just keep falling, he knows, there are reactions to some events which need no explanation. He lets you take your time, he is scared, he is frightened. Another set of random thoughts, two brains disconnected by tremendous emotion, terrifying. He wonders why he wasn't there for you, to protect you, make you feel safe, how something like this could happen to someone he loves, he is angry, oh so angry, so amazingly angry, like an anger no words or actions could describe.
You lay in your own bed, you don't sleep, there is no sleep, you shower, constantly, over and over again, but you feel the same. Nothing seems to work. He reminds you of how many more women could go through this unless this person its stopped, he wants to stop this offender who calls himself a human being, you know what you must do, it is just so hard, so damn hard, to re-tell these events, you never want to relive, you've given so much time to keeping as far from reality as possible. How could you re-tell this, the most intimate and personal of details about your body, to someone you don't know? You go to the Police.
Trauma...what is trauma? Is it the feeling of shock, that you would go more than a day without speaking more than two words at a time? Would it be uncontrollable crying, shaking, fear? Refusing to leave the house, refusing to answer the phone, unable to return to work even a year later. How about relationships? Withholding intimacy from your partner, the shock of brushing up against a person in the supermarket sending you into such a spin, you leave the fully loaded basket in the isle and go home? Is it the trembling you feel from the smell of stale burbon on a person, how you freeze physically, emotionally, mentally when something as simple as a person who looks similar crosses the street? Your though patterns are constantly interrupted, you have developed neuro-associations to many events which previously told you life was fun, exciting, worth living. Is this trauma?
If you search trauma on the web, it is there. Even for rape victims. Why does the justice system disregard trauma for victims of sexual assault? Expert witnesses are regularly used in trials of a different nature. Why not in sexual assault trials? Are the feelings of victims unjustified? unworthy of acknowledgement? What is this ignorance of society to believe victims should just "get over it"? That life will go on the day after, a week after, even years after this event. The reality of extraordinary events, life threatening events, is they are forever inbedded in your thoughts. Unless we can produced a small pen which we hold up to a persons face to erase such thoughts as things we shouldn't have witnessed or traumatic events with the blink of a flash, those horrific events will remain on the hard drive of our bodies.
When we experience a traumatic event, we can and will react in a number of ways. We may fight, we may run or we may freeze. There is never, ever an assurance that one person will act one way over another. It is what makes our species so unique, our individuality. You yourself might believe if such an event ever took place you know exactly how you would react. You may and I mean may be right.
In the aftermath of a sexual assault, there are so many expectations placed on victims from the legal system and society, we must remember as victims, not to place unreal expectations on ourselves. Victims of sexual assault have a right to heal, a right to their pain, to their trauma, their time to recover and right to acknowledgement...which has for too long been disregarded by the legal profession, the justice system and society. It is time to make a difference, to give victims of sexual assault the right to heal.
posted by Surviving @ 2:21:00 pm
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