Going “all in” against your flashbacks is a winning hand

One of my favorite pastimes is playing poker — and I had to put my best poker face on the other night when an unexpected flashback snuck up on me.

As survivors of sexual assault, we try very hard to forget about some of the particularly dark experiences we have gone through in our lives. And try as we might, those experiences are always with us and are ready to sneak up on us and offer a reminder of what happened and how it affected us.

The Rape Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) defines a flashback this way:

“A flashback is when memories of a past trauma feel as if they are taking place in the current moment. That means it’s possible to feel like the experience of sexual violence is happening all over again. During a flashback it can be difficult to connect with reality. It may even feel like the perpetrator is physically present.
Flashbacks may seem random at first. They can be triggered by fairly ordinary experiences connected with the senses, like the smell of someone’s odor or a particular tone of voice. It’s a normal response to this kind of trauma, and there are steps you can take to help manage the stress of a flashback.”

In my home town of Wayne, Nebraska, the local Eagles Club hosts a poker league run through a national organization. It’s free to play and there is a core group of about 12-16 people who show up every Wednesday night to play poker, talk about local events and catch up on each other’s lives and families.

I had been sexually assaulted in Newman Grove, Neb., a small town of about 800 people located a little more than an hour southwest of Wayne. The experience took place just a few weeks short of my 10th birthday, an event that, even 42 years later, still pops up now and again — like last week.

I had mentioned that I lived in Newman Grove at one time as we were talking about towns in the area, and a lady at the table said SHE had lived there as well. She graduated from high school around the time our family had lived there and asked me if I remembered any names from when we had lived in the community.

The first one that popped up was the name of my attacker — then a troubled teenage loser, today a convicted sex offender who is on the Nebraska Sex Offender Registry for the rest of his life, thanks to an event that, unexpectedly, came up in conversation with my poker friend.

She had graduated from the local high school a year after my parents moved us out of town to another community. As we were talking about some of the places in the community like the golf course, the local nursing home and the school, she had mentioned that a friend of hers — who was not mentally sound — had been sexually assaulted by my attacker.

As we talked, it became apparent that there was a connection between myself and her friend — one that sent me into flashback that required my best poker face to keep from coming unglued over my chip stack.

Twenty years ago, I had been working as a sports writer at the Norfolk Daily News. This was during a time when the move from traditional cut-and-paste page design to digital page layout with software like Quark Express or Adobe Pagemaker (later Adobe Indesign) was how we put the newspaper together.

Some of our pages were digital, while others were still laid out the “old fashioned” way, so one afternoon as I was waiting for the image processor to spit out the negative of my page, I happened to glance at a paste-up page that contained the “public record” section of the newspaper — court cases, divorces, marriage licenses, arraignments — and started scanning the names to see if there was anybody who I might know.

As it turns out — I did: my attacker had been arraigned on charges of sexual assault of a vulnerable adult.

Twenty years later, my poker friend mentioned this friend of hers and the connection, and it all came together . . . this friend of hers was attacked by my attacker some 20 years later, and could have faced a then-maximum sentence of five years.

After talking with the county attorney, it didn’t sound like he would face anywhere near that length of a stay in the state penitentiary. I asked if there was anything I could do to help him get the maximum penalty, and he had a suggestion — write the judge a letter, explain my connection to the case and tell my story.

In a three-page letter to the judge, I explained why I had an interest in this case and proceeded to tell him how the defendant had sexually assaulted me and threatened to kill me if I ever told anybody about it. The nightmares I had and the impact it had on my life was something I didn’t want somebody else to have to go through.

Amazingly, that letter helped our attacker get EXACTLY the maximum sentence allowed by law at the time, along with a lifetime membership on the state’s Sex Offender Registry (here is his entry, in case you’re wondering). It was justice delayed, in my case anyway, but the friend of my poker friend and I both got it and he wound up with a much longer stay at the Nebraska State Penitentiary than he no doubt was counting on.

I was able to reset myself as my friend and I talked about my experience, and thankfully my ability to put on a good poker face really minimized the potential chaos that might have happened had I not recognized what I was feeling right away.

You may not play poker, but you can minimize the impact of a flashback by doing these four things:
1. Tell yourself that you’re having a flashback — Remember that the actual event is in the past and you are a survivor of it. It’s over, you’re still here. Everything is OK.
2. Use your senses to return to the present — What do you see, smell, hear, taste or feel around you right now? I touched the felt of the poker table, shuffled my poker chips, talked to the other players at the table, took a sip of Mountain Dew and kept reminding myself where I was and what I was doing, using my five senses.
3. Breeeeeeeathe — take some slow, deep breaths to calm yourself down. A panic attack or a flashback can cause the body to act abnormally, so make sure you’re taking some good, deep breaths to get more oxygen in your body and help calm you and relieve the stress of the flashback.
4. Feel safe and BE safe — For me, staying in the room and trying to distract myself by talking with the other players helped me out. Maybe you just need to go home, sit quietly or meditate, read a book . . . find something to help you feel safe and take your mind off what caused the flashback to begin with. Remember — what happened has happened. It is over. You’re OK.

Flashbacks can be triggered by almost anything, so the sooner you figure out what your triggers are, the easier it will be to manage your emotions and ride through — or even around — those trigger moments and minimize the number and severity of flashbacks you have.

If you are seeing a mental health professional, talk with them about your experience and ask for their help. There are plenty of tools available to help you — to borrow a poker phrase — go “all in” and get through a flashback successfully. You can also call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) chat with RAINN online at online.rainn.org.

Disgraced ‘doctor’ called out by Olympic gymnasts

Six years ago, the story of Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of young boys while hiding behind his own youth mentoring organization opened some long-closed wounds that I had from my experience as a survivor of sexual assault and inspired me to write “Call Me A Survivor,” a book about my life.

The impact of the unraveling of this crime and the subsequent damage it did to a university, its football program and the legendary coach at that institution are still being felt all these years later. While the football team has regained its place as one of the top programs in the country, the after-effects of Sandusky’s criminal behavior are not only a part of the school’s reputation, but are still a bitter talking point for people on both sides of the issue.

Fast forward to today, and now we are seeing something even bigger and more shocking than what Sandusky pulled off, this time at the hands of a “doctor” who took advantage of his position to manipulate and sexually assault hundreds of female athletes, both at Michigan State University and as part of the United States women’s gymnastics team.

Dr. Larry Nassar was a well-connected trainer who was part of the success of the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team, and had also been a trainer at Michigan State University during his career.
Nassar took advantage of his position as a physical trainer to grope and sexually assault hundreds of young women, many of them teenagers and younger, under the guise of providing medical treatments to help them heal from a variety of sports injuries.

Nassar conned these young girls, and their parents, into believing that what he was doing was going to help them overcome their injuries. Those lies made athletes like Aly Raisman believe SHE was the problem for feeling uncomfortable at what Nassar was doing when he would insert his bare finger into her vagina, resulting in nothing more than him abusing his position to get off on his own twisted, sexual pleasures.

“You made me uncomfortable and I thought you were weird, but I felt guilty because you were a doctor, so I assumed I was the problem for thinking badly of you. I wouldn’t allow myself to believe that the problem was you,” Raisman said in her powerful victim statement in a Michigan courtroom recently, forcing Nassar to sit through days of statements from hundreds of survivors of his perverted assaults, masqueraded as healing procedures.

Raisman, who competed successfully in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, not only took the disgraced doctor to task, but called out U.S. Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee for allowing these crimes to continue unchecked for many years. She, and many others, were told that they were either mistaken or were being dramatic about what they believed the doctor was doing to them.

“This is like being violated all over again,” she said.

Based on the testimony of Raisman and many of the other athletes who came out and let Nassar know what they think, one can’t help but think that the scum that runs U.S. Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee make disgraced Penn State president Graham Spanier and his administrators look like amateurs when it comes to trying to hide the predators who violate the trust of our youth in such a manner.

This is a crime that these survivor impact statements are only beginning to scratch the surface of when it comes to how bad things are within those organizations. Nassar is not the only one who needs to be brought to justice — those in positions of power at the U.S. Olympic Committee, U.S. Gymnastics and Michigan State University were complicit in these crimes and gave Nassar the opportunity to conduct these criminal activities without fear of being caught. These individuals should have to answer for their part in these crimes against these young women as well.

Raisman had some powerful words of criticism for those running the gymnastics and Olympic organizations, but she also said some things that ALL survivors should take note of, and I’d like to comment on those here.

First, she said, “There is no map that shows you the pathway to healing.” No truer words could be spoken for those of us who have experienced this horror in our lives.

Each of us has a different story to our experience. For me, it was an event one spring evening in a small town in Nebraska. For Raisman, it started as a little girl competing overseas in Australia and continued for years in hotel rooms and training centers all over the world. Your story is no doubt different from hers and mine as well. And the path to healing takes different twists and turns for all of us.

It was evident to me that Raisman’s journey is still in its early stages. You could feel the rage in her eyes every time she looked at or spoke to Nassar as he sat there, looking like the beaten, evil being that he is. She is going to come out of this experience in fantastic shape, judging the courage she displayed as she calmly, but forcefully, took her perpetrator and those who facilitated his years of deviant activity to task in that Michigan courtroom.

Second, she commented, “Abuse goes way beyond the moment, often haunting survivors for the rest of their lives, making it difficult to trust and impacting their relationships.”

My abuse happened more than 40 years ago, and to this day I have nightmares and visions about the experience. It has impacted my ability to trust others over the years. I have many people who I consider as friends and have developed many great personal and/or professional relationships with over the years, but the number of people that I trust with my life, without hesitation, can probably be counted on two hands.

When you have been personally violated in such a manner, many things are broken in that moment that can never be repaired. The physical damage may heal, but the mental and emotional scars from that experience never completely leave you. They can trigger depression or rage in the blink of an eye, a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that seems to pop up in the strangest places.

Raisman’s third statement, and one that I’m particularly proud of hearing her say, was quite simple: “I am no longer a victim, I’m a survivor.”

When the Sandusky story broke, I spent the better part of six months dealing with the depression of having my past come flying back in my face. I had experienced something similar to this several years before when, by accident, I discovered that my attacker had sexually assaulted a vulnerable adult in a nearby community.

I talked with the Madison County Attorney, Joe Smith, about the case and he encouraged me to write a victim impact letter describing my experience with the individual who was awaiting sentencing for his crime. Years later, I happened to meet the judge who worked that case, and he told me that letter made enough of an impact on him that he felt compelled to give my attacker the maximum sentence for his crime.

Fast forward to the Sandusky experience, and when I began writing the book, the thought came to me that I was no longer a victim, but a survivor. Somehow, through all of the hell I’d experienced and the nightmares and suicide attempts and everything else, I had somehow survived and I needed to own that idea that I was not a victim . . . but I was a survivor.

Raisman hit the nail on the head with that statement. Sometimes, it is hard to put into words what you’re going through with this experience and it seems there is never light at the end of the tunnel for you to look forward to. Turning the idea around, though, has been a big step forward for me. Looking at myself in a more positive light as a “survivor” — rather than the darkness that comes with being a “victim” — has helped me better understand all of this and helped me express that to others who have been through this horror in their own lives and given them some sense of hope.

Those who are “survivors” of the demented behavior of the ‘doctor’ who treated them have their voice and are bringing hope to their sport and to humanity. Here’s hoping the judge who finally decides Nassar’s fate gives him the proper justice due and that he spends the rest of his life behind bars and rots in hell . . . which is the only fate he and other perpetrators like him deserve.

*****

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Not long after this entry was posted, Dr. Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40-175 years in prison, a sentence that won’t start until he is finished serving a 60-year federal sentence for possession of child pornography. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina handed down the sentence Wednesday in a Lansing, Mich., courtroom, telling Nassar “It is my honor and privilege to sentence you. You do not deserve to walk outside a prison ever again,” and “I just signed your death warrant.” The 54-year-old disgraced pervert will be eligible for parole after pleading guilty to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the year 2117. . . but still awaits sentencing on three other counts in a nearby county. It’s safe to assume he will never see the outside of a prison wall the rest of his pathetic life.

2ND AUTHOR’S NOTE: Wednesday evening, Jan. 24, it was announced that Michigan State University president Lou Anna Simon had tendered her resignation as a result of the crimes Nassar committed on the campus while he was employed by MSU. In her letter, she tried to cover her tracks by saying a cover-up of Nassar’s crimes did not exist on campus, a pathetic attempt to deflect responsibility that she and others in positions of power and influence on the MSU campus clearly dropped the ball on. The question now is not whether or not they knew, but who knew what and decided to back the perpetrator instead of the student-athletes and others who were violated under Nassar’s “care.” Discovery of those individuals should lead to further prosecution as accessories to Nassar’s criminal activity.

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year brings voice to sexual assault survivors

In a crazy year when they very easily could have honored a loudmouthed world leader, a communist lunatic or an unpatriotic out-of-work football player, Time Magazine instead chose to honor not just an individual but a deserving group of brave people who are dragging an unspeakable crime out of the darkness and giving the abusive power structure in this country a long-overdue kick in the teeth.

While the faces and stories of such notable celebrities as Ashley Judd, Megyn Kelly, Taylor Swift and Selma Blair are included in their Person of the Year feature, they are nowhere near alone in their efforts to share their stories as survivors of sexual assault and harassment. Their voices also speak for the thousands of women AND men who have subjected to this abuse for far too long and have helped many realize that they CAN tell their stories and bring their perpetrators’ secrets out of the darkness in full view of the public and the authorities.

I first told my story as a survivor of sexual assault as a young newspaper columnist and have shared the story numerous times in print, including a 2012 book “Call Me A Survivor” that was inspired by the events surrounding the Jerry Sandusky controversy at Penn State University. I have shared my story, and continue to do so, at public speaking events when the opportunity presents itself, so I have a pretty good understanding what kind of courage it takes for these people documented in the Time story are dealing with. Our experiences may be different, but we share the same desire to tell our story and make sure those who commit these crimes won’t get away with it.

Sexual assault and sexual harassment is a crime that knows no boundaries — gender, race, economic or social — and happens far more frequently than we may realize. The crime happens approximately every 98 seconds here in the United States, and people of both genders are on either end of the situation. Most assume that perpetrators are male and their targets are female, but there are also numerous accounts of female perps and male targets, as well as same-sex and LBGT perpetrators and targets.

Sexual assault is an even bigger problem with our youth. A Centers for Disease Control study determined that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys reported that they were sexually assaulted before their 18th birthday. If you were to apply those ratios to the current K-12 enrollment of every public and private school in the state of Nebraska, you would be able to fill up more than 80 percent of Memorial Stadium. Throw in the UNREPORTED cases — which various studies indicate as many as 3 in 10 kids experience — and you’re looking at nearly half of the entire student body in the state.

And while the Time article focused primarily on sexual violence in Hollywood, the government and the workplace, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of survivors of sexual assault KNOW their perpetrators. Parents assault their children or stepchildren, school teachers attack their students, and then there is the Catholic Church and its long, dubious history of not only allowing so-called “men of God” to abuse kids in their church, but then shuffle them off to other parishes when their crimes are discovered, only to see them repeat their retched behavior at the next stop.

Many who have not experienced this crime will question the actions of those who have spoken out. For some, the timing and the target of their accusations seem dubious considering the current mess our two-party political machine has become. Why didn’t these accusations become public when they happened, whether it was last week or 30-40 years ago?

For people like Ashley Judd, Taylor Swift and others to speak out and bring their perpetrators’ crimes out in public took an unthinkable level of bravery that those who question their motives can begin to comprehend. People who commit this crime do so from a position of power and influence that, in many cases, is the one thing that keeps survivors from coming out and telling their stories. Perpetrators like Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, and others count on that power and influence to not only silence the ones they’ve already attacked, but those they WILL attack in the future.

Time Magazine has gone above and beyond the call of duty to honor those who have exhibited a unique flavor of bravery by honoring “The Silence Breakers” with the Person of the Year Award for 2017. They have helped legitimize the voice that we, as sexual assault survivors, have longed to be able to use to better the world we live in. I pray that those who have yet to feel comfortable enough to tell their stories will find comfort and inspiration in Time’s portrayal and that more can escape that sense of fear and intimidation to not only tell THEIR stories, but to make sure those who violated their lives are brought to judgement.

Suicide really is NOT the solution

When I was 40 years old, I felt as if I’d had enough.
A combination of situations had led me to stand at the edge of the Missouri River, not more than a quarter-mile away from the apartment I was renting in the city of South Sioux City, Neb. There were a number of factors that led me to the edge of that deep, murky water that was flowing quickly to the south, where all I kept telling myself was, “Take two steps, and all this pain will be gone.”
A lot of things were happening in my life at that time. Less than a year earlier, I had left a newspaper job to start up a business, but that business failed miserably, leaving me tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I had to take another newspaper job in a town two hours away from my teenage daughter – the same one I had promised, several years earlier, to stay in the area until she graduated from high school so I could be part of the events she would experience as she grew up.
On top of all of that — I was trying to run away from the pain and despair that I’d been carrying around for years as a survivor of sexual assault. The memories of that spring evening 30 years ago, in 1976, had lingered long into my adulthood. I still had nightmares about my attacker’s threat to “finish the job” if I’d ever told anybody (which I did). The negative self-esteem issues that came after this horrible event continued to tamper any positive experience I should have enjoyed in my life, and when you combine that with everything else going on in my life at the time, it seemed suicide was the only solution available to end all of these bad things I was experiencing in my life.
One thought, however, stopped me that summer evening from taking those final two steps. That thought was this — who will explain all of this to your children? They will never know WHY you committed suicide, and they will carry that with them for the rest of their lives.
Ultimately, I walked away and cried all the way home that evening. Even though I made the right decision, I still beat myself up about it — “You’re not even tough enough to kill yourself,” I thought. “You can’t do ANYTHING right.” — and wondered WHAT the solution might be.
This is National Suicide Prevention Week, and my hope is that if you are reading this AND are contemplating suicide, that if you take ONE THING from reading this post, that is be this – suicide is a PERMANENT solution to a VERY TEMPORARY problem. No matter WHAT you are dealing with as a survivor of sexual assault . . . suicide is NOT the solution.
Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, with more than 42,000 people taking their own lives ever year. Suicide is most prevalent in men, who commit the act 3.5 times more often than women. White males accounted for 7 of every 10 suicides, according to data from the year 2014, and middle aged white men have the highest rate of suicide. (The fact that I’m a 50-year-old while male makes ALL of those statistics all the more disturbing, on a personal level.)
That visit to the river 10 years ago wasn’t my first attempt at suicide. On two previous occasions, a breakup with a girl was the inspiration for my attempts. A bad breakup with an old girlfriend pushed me to the edge, pulled away by my best friend. The second time was in the aftermath of my divorce — I tried to drink myself to death, but forgot that my tolerance level for alcohol isn’t all that great, so I got sick and passed out, rescued that night by a family member.
This last effort, though, was all on how bad I felt about what kind of person I was, because of the fact that I had been sexually assaulted as a child. Even though it had been 30 years since my attack, I still carried that pain around and let it run my life. Even 10 years AFTER, I still catch myself thinking about all of that, and am thankful to have had the support and encouragement from a lot of wonderful, helpful friends, family members and professionals who have worked with me to help me deal with all of that crap that I’ve carried for so long.
Today, life is much better for me. Walking away from that last attempt has allowed me so many wonderful life moments. I’ve watched both my daughters graduate from high school. The oldest made me a father-in-law in the spring of 2014, and a year later, I became a grandpa to the most beautiful little girl in the history of mankind (OK — there MIGHT be some bias in that statement, but let’s not lie . . . I know I’m right, and that’s all that matters.). My youngest is an honors scholar at a major university and has grown into an amazing young woman who, I’m sure (and again, I MIGHT be biased), is going to do some amazing things to make her mark on this world. I’ve made so many new friends and acquaintances, started up a business with my best friend and look at life with a much different perspective than I did in the summer of 2006 as I stood two steps from taking my own life.
For those who are living with the aftermath of a sexual assault attack, there are two things I want to leave you with here.
First – you are not a VICTIM of sexual assault. You are a SURVIVOR. I want you to repeat that to yourself over and over again until the negative word (victim) is erased for your subconscious vocabulary. We use words to describe ourselves TO ourselves, and a lot of times, those words have a negative emotion or memory attached to them. That you are here today, alive and standing on the right side of the grass IN SPITE OF THE FACT that you have been through that experience – you SURVIVED it. You are ALIVE. You are MOVING FORWARD. Only SURVIVORS do that. It’s not easy to tell yourself that, and it’s even more of a challenge to actually BELIEVE it sometimes. Trust me — you ARE a SURVIVOR, and each day that passes is evidence that you are the ultimate winner. Once that becomes a part of your daily mindset (and, yes, I know it’s not easy, but don’t stop trying), you will find life to be a much better experience.
Second — If you are contemplating suicide, there is a wealth of information available at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention website. Click on the “Find Support” link and you will find some useful resources – whether you’re thinking about it, or are concerned or have lost a loved one to suicide. Seek the help of a good, qualified therapist – talk to your pastor or priest – seek the counsel of a close friend or someone who has gone through what you are experiencing. Do not allow yourself to continue on this thought pattern that suicide is the only solution . . . because it most certainly is not.

A stadium full of survivors

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and I’d like to ask you to follow me on a little journey.
Imagine, if you will, going to a football game at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Neb., home of the University of Nebraska football team.
This stadium has been sold out since 1962 – more than 330 consecutive games where a capacity crowd has watched the Huskers play football every fall Saturday afternoon. There never an empty seat on game day – people flock from all parts of the state (and the globe) to witness Husker football every season.
The tailgating starts early – people are grilling food, enjoying cold beverages of all types, throwing Nerf footballs around and enjoying the social time together, talking with people from all across the state and just enjoying a crisp, sunny fall afternoon on the plains of Nebraska. It’s a great day to be a Husker fan, and everybody is enjoying themselves as they await kickoff.
Now imagine this – the Huskers are playing the biggest game ever in the history of the program. A national championship rides on the outcome of this game. And yet, for all that is riding on the game, only 78.7 percent of the stadium is occupied. Based on a stated seating capacity estimate of 92,000, the attendance for that game would be 72,440 fans.
Now let’s throw this into the mix – let’s say that the only fans allowed into the game are children under the age of 18. No big-money donors, no alumni, no university students – only kids going to school in Nebraska who are under the age of 18.
And, just to really get specific to the point – let’s say the only you can get into the game is if you live in Nebraska, are under the age of 18 and have been sexually assaulted. It’s hard to imagine that, with all of those limitations, you’d have THAT MANY people in the stands for the big game, isn’t it?
And yet, based on a Centers For Disease Control study that found 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually assaulted before their 18th birthday, that’s EXACTLY how many kids would be able to attend the big game, based on the 2014-15 enrollment numbers provided by the Nebraska Department of Education and the corresponding CDC ratios mentioned previously.
Based on the CDC ratios, more than 30,000 boys and more than 42,000 girls in this state have experienced the horror of sexual assault. I can say that being a survivor of sexual assault is a horror, because I’ve experienced it and know what it’s like. I know how it feels to be violated in such a way at such a young age, and I know the terror and the trauma that becomes a life-long existence because of that experience.
More than 20 percent of our school-age children in this state are survivors of sexual abuse. That’s 1 in 5 kids – a number that SHOULD scare the hell out of you, because these children grow up into adult survivors of sexual abuse, and many of them carry these burdens with them throughout their lives.
I can quote so many numbers about the increased likelihood of everything from drug use to suicide that accompanies those who have been sexually abused in their young lives. I’ve had my own struggles with drug use, depression, suicide attempts, and I can trace every one of those experiences to a spring afternoon in March of 1976 when I was attacked by the older brother of a classmate behind the swimming pool in the small town of Newman Grove, Neb.
There are a number of organizations in Nebraska who can help those who have been victimized by sexual assault, whether it happened to you as a child or as an adult. In my home town of Wayne, Haven House is a great resource for those who have been victims of sexual assault or domestic violence. They have wonderful people whose mission is to serve those and help survivors get what they need to deal with the crimes that have been perpetrated against them. These are non-profit organizations that fill an important role in the effort to combat sexual assault.
In this day and age, we know so much more about the effects that can be experienced by those who have been sexually assaulted. At the same time, the crime has expanded and our children are susceptible to these attacks in more ways than could have been conceived back when I was attacked 40 years ago. And those numbers mentioned above relate ONLY to those who report the attack. When you think about the fact that only 3 in 10 child sexual assault cases are actually reported and acted upon, the actual number of children in this state who have been sexually assaulted would, most likely, more than fill up Memorial Stadium.
If you’ve been sexually assaulted and feel like you’re the only one to have experienced this, know that you’re not alone. There are those, like you and me, who have been through this hell and know that there’s nothing wrong with you. This is NOT your fault. Talk with someone about the experience. Report the crime to the authorities if it’s something that has happened recently. Do not go through the rest of your life hiding in fear, dreading your existence or feeling like you are unworthy because of what happened to you. It’s time for we, as survivors of sexual assault, to claim victory over this experience and tell the world that we will not be kept down by our perpetrators and what they have done to us physically.

Erin’s Law now getting support in Congress

I wanted to pass along this information I received from Erin Merryn, the author of “Erin’s Law” who has worked so hard to try and get this legislation passed in every state in the United States. She has 26 states that have passed this law, and this will be a big boost to waking up feet-dragging states like New York and my home state, Nebraska, toward making this the law in EVERY state.
The following is a news release Merryn received regarding a bill that is being co-sponsored in Congress by three U.S. senators:
U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Dean Heller (R-NV), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) today introduced bipartisan legislation to help protect children from sexual abuse by funding school programs that provide age-appropriate lessons to primary and secondary school students on how to recognize and safely report sexual abuse. Twenty-six states have passed a version of “Erin’s Law,” legislation that requires public schools to provide child sexual abuse prevention education to students and professional development for school personnel. Gillibrand, Heller and Feinstein’s Child Sexual Abuse Awareness and Prevention Act provides federal funding for schools to develop and implement or expand these programs for students, parents and guardians. In 2013, there were a total of 60,956 instances of child sexual abuse reported to Child Protective Services agencies in the U.S. However, this estimate only represents cases of child sexual abuse reported to and confirmed by child protection authorities. Many such cases are never reported to welfare or legal systems.
“Our children need to have an age-appropriate understanding of sexual abuse and know how to safely report to an adult if they have been victimized,” said Senator Gillibrand. “Erin’s Law is helping to fill an important gap in our prevention and awareness work, and the Child Sexual Abuse Awareness and Prevention Act will make sure schools have the resources needed to develop or expand these programs and provide parents, guardians and school personnel with the tools to help prevent and respond to child sexual abuse.”
“As a father of four children, I know parents want to protect their children and provide the safest possible learning environment for them,” said Senator Heller. “This legislation equips local school districts with the resources they need to develop or enhance child sexual abuse awareness and prevention efforts. Providing parents and children with the information to recognize child sexual abuse is a key weapon in stopping these heinous crimes. I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan legislation with my colleague, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, to ensure states, like Nevada, have the tools to help stop child sexual abuse.”
“Sexual abuse can scar children for life and we must do everything we can to prevent it,” said Senator Feinstein. “Children are more likely to heal if abuse is detected early, which is why we must ensure they are taught what to do if they are being abused and school personnel are trained to spot the warning signs.”
“For five years I have been traveling from one state capital to another trying to pass Erin’s law in my mission of all fifty states requiring that personal body safety be taught,” said Erin Merryn, Erin’s Law Founder and President. “The biggest hurdle I face in each state is Erin’s law being an unfunded mandate. It is my biggest road block. With this bill passing it will play a significant role in Erin’s law getting passed in the next 24 states. This funding will be an answer to my prayers in my biggest battle for Erin’s law. Kids’ lives are waiting to be saved and we must educate them. I didn’t have a voice but I am going to ensure every child in America has theirs.”
“When it comes to stopping sexual violence and ensuring its victims get the help they need and deserve, knowledge is power,” Scott Berkowitz, RAINN Founder and President. “This legislation will help educators learn to spot abuse and will help kids recognize when it happens to them and empower them to reach out for help. We are grateful for the leadership of Sens. Gillibrand, Heller and Feinstein and for survivors like Erin Merryn, who bravely step forward and remind us all that while we’ve made tremendous strides, our work is far from done. We look forward to working with Congress to pass this law to address sexual violence and protect America’s children.”
Twenty-six states across the country have passed a version of Erin’s Law, named after childhood sexual assault survivor and advocate Erin Merryn. Erin’s Law emphasizes the importance of educational programs that help prevent sexual abuse by using age-appropriate techniques to instruct children on how to recognize and report sexual abuse. Research has consistently shown that educational programs designed to prevent child sexual abuse are effective at teaching children skills to identify dangerous situations and prevent abuse. Such programs have also shown to be effective at promoting disclosure and reducing self-blame by victims. Two other critical aspects of Erin’s Law include professional development for school personnel and information for parents and guardians in how to recognize signs of child sexual abuse, talk to children about child sexual abuse, and how to respond when a child discloses sexual abuse.
The Child Sexual Abuse Awareness and Prevention Act provides additional funding to advance Erin’s Law. Erin’s Law requires all public schools in states to implement prevention-oriented child sexual abuse programs. The programs established through the federal grants can be developed in partnership with community-based services and non-profit organizations with expertise in child sexual abuse prevention or response. The initiatives can be designed to include topics on how to recognize child sexual abuse, how to safely report child sexual abuse and how to discuss child sexual abuse with children. Gillibrand, Heller and Feinstein’s legislation serves as a complement to the Helping Our Schools Protect Our Children Act, allowing states and school districts to use federal grants to provide professional development to school personnel regarding how to recognize child sexual abuse. These personnel include: teachers, principals, specialized instructional support personnel, and paraprofessionals.

Making Erin’s Law a nationwide effort

If you’re reading this blog, chances are good that either you are a survivor of child sexual assault or you know someone who is.
It is not something that is new to the world — children have been sexually assaulted by family, friends, neighbors, etc., for as long as human life has existed. Children are easy to manipulate and easy to abuse, and those in positions of power (in relation to those children) have been doing it for far too long.
Let’s make 2015 the year where children fight back and stop this horrible, violent attack on the youth of our world.
One young woman who has already made this her lifelong quest is Erin Merryn. Her tireless effort to make “Erin’s Law” the law of the land throughout the United States has already achieved recognition and she is picking up supporters in states where the law currently does not exist, and I have been involved in efforts to make the law happen in my home state of Nebraska.
Quoting from the Erin’s Law website, here is what Erin’s Law is all about:
Erin’s Law is named after childhood sexual assault survivor, author, speaker and activist Erin Merryn, who is the founder and President of Erin’s Law, which is registered with the State of Illinois and the IRS as a 501 (c)(4) non-profit social welfare organization.
After Erin introduced the legislation in her home state of Illinois, the bill  was named Erin’s Law after her by legislators and it has caught on nationwide.
“Erin’s Law” requires that all public schools in each state that passes it implement a prevention-oriented child sexual abuse program which teaches:
— Students in grades preK – 5th grade, age-appropriate techniques to recognize child sexual abuse and tell a trusted adult
— School personnel all about child sexual abuse
— Parents & guardians the warning signs of child sexual abuse, plus needed assistance, referral or resource information to support sexually abused children and their families.
More than half of the states in the U.S. have either passed Erin’s Law or have it under consideration in their respective legislatures. Her home state of Illinois was the first to pass the law in February of 2011, and the states of New Mexico, Utah, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Louisiana, South Carolina and Vermont passed the law in 2014.
Here in Nebraska, a modified version of Erin’s Law was introduced by State Sen. Dave Bloomfield. The difference between LB143 and Erin’s Law is that the Department of Education would be required to draw up a template for a child sexual abuse policy that school districts in the state would have the “option” of incorporating into their schools. Obviously, this is not enough, and Bloomfield has told me on numerous occasions that any attempt to change LB143 to make the policy mandatory would be grounds for him to pull the bill, as he feels — erroneously, I might add — that the requirement would be an unfunded mandate, which he is opposed to.
Sen. Bloomfield’s support of his own legislation is, at best, tepid. He had a chance, during the 2014 session of the Nebraska Legislature, to make the bill his priority bill and open the door for school districts to introduce child sexual abuse policies in their school. Instead, he chose a bill that would give motorcycle riders the option of riding without a helmet (motorcycle riders are required to wear helmets in Nebraska). When asked how he could justify this decision, he told me that he had 94,000 motorcyclists in the state who, he felt, should have the freedom to choose whether or not they wanted to risk their lives by riding without a helmet. How this trumps more than 300,000 children under the age of 18 in the state to have the tools to keep themselves safe from sexual abuses, to this day, defies logical thought.
One of my personal goals for 2015 is to overcome this close-minded “representation” within Nebraska’s governing system and get THE version of Erin’s Law passed. With a new governor and a number of new state senators on board, the opportunity to help the children of Nebraska couldn’t be better.
I would encourage you to check out the Erin’s Law website at www.erinslaw.org and get involved in the effort to make Merryn’s law the law of the land in all 50 states. More than 20 are already on board — let’s make a nationwide effort to make every state an “Erin’s Law” state.

Nothing is surprising anymore

Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to being a survivor of sexual assault.
Since publishing my book “Call Me A Survivor” two years ago, I’ve been out speaking publicly about my experience. I’ve told my story, over and over, to people of all ages, races, genders, shapes and sizes. I’ve spoken to thousands of school-age students and adults about what I went through.
After one of my first speeches, a young lady came up to me with tears in her eyes, hugged me, and thanked me for telling my story. She didn’t have to tell me that we had a shared experience as survivors of sexual assault, but it was clear to me that what I had said about my own experience had made her think about her own experience.
That’s part of the reason why I talk about my own experience in front of people – I know there are countless men and women, young and old, who have been through this experience and have had to live with it for however many years. I was somewhat fortunate in that my perpetrator was brought to justice (his didn’t come as a result of my case, but I was able to get some sense of closure many years later – details are in my book). Many of the people who experience sexual assault are intimidated or otherwise forced into a vow of silence, allowing the criminal to walk away from the crime without punishment.
The hardest part for a sexual assault survivor is bringing their perpetrator to justice. Those who commit these crimes will use any and every possible act of intimidation to silence their victims. Threats of violence (if not the actual act), legal maneuverings, withholding of opportunities, bribes of money or gifts – a perpetrator will play any and every card in the deck to keep their victims silent. And the higher they are in society, the easier it is for them to get away with it.
More and more these days, survivors are coming out and speaking about what has happened to them, and it seems to get more play in the mainstream media when the crime involves somebody who is famous or well-known to the majority of the population. These crimes, more often than not, challenge our way of thinking, particularly if the alleged perpetrator is somebody well-known in our society.
Recently, stories have come out regarding legendary comedian, TV personality and Jell-O pudding pitchman Bill Cosby. I don’t have to tell you what he’s done over the course of his career – if you’ve lived in America more than 30 minutes, you know about everything from the “Fat Albert” cartoons he authored on Saturday mornings to “The Cosby Show,” one of the all-time great situation comedies in American TV history.
His comedy albums in the 60’s and 70’s were pure comic genius. I’ve had the opportunity to see his shows on TV and attended one live a few years ago, and his unique perspective on everything from raising children to being married have always made me laugh hysterically.
When these stories first came out, it was hard for me to believe, as I’m sure it was for anybody who has seen the guy over the last 50 years. He comes off as pleasant, friendly, intelligent – not the kind of guy who would sexually assault women.
A story posted on the Washington Post’s website, though, paints quite a different picture of the real-life man from the one we’ve seen on TV and on stage – numerous accounts of women who were drugged and sexually assaulted by a man who held considerable influence in American entertainment and society, and it’s taken these survivors 30-40 years or more to come forth and tell their stories.
Of course, Cosby has not been arrested or charged with any crimes relating to these stories, and attorneys for the family have gone out of their way to discredit the individuals who claim they were attacked by Cosby. His attorneys are spending a lot of time and effort trying to get us to believe that these crimes never happened and that these women are opportunistic individuals who are trying to benefit financially at the expense of the integrity of a comedy legend.
As much as I have enjoyed Cosby’s work over the years, though, I have to wonder if there isn’t something to these stories these women have come out with. One person telling a story is one thing – but when it’s multiple individuals telling very similar stories in how they were assaulted, it’s hard to just dismiss it, regardless of Cosby’s standing in American entertainment history.
Also, consider that a number of major corporations who have been, or were planning on, doing business with Cosby – people like the NBC television network, Netflix and others – are suddenly pulling the plug on these relationships with the comedian. These corporations wouldn’t be so quick to sever ties unless there was some fire fueling the smoke, would they?
If there’s anything I’ve learned with this experience, it’s that the phrase “Now I’ve seen (read, heard) it all” will quickly be proven wrong. What ultimately becomes of the situation between these women and Cosby remains to be seen. Regardless, it won’t be something that will surprise me.

It’s just a dream

It’s been almost 40 years, and still they come.

They don’t happen near as frequent. These days, they maybe come a couple of times a year, just a little reminder from the deepest recesses in my vast memory bank that it’s still out there.

When they DO come up – wow, does it shock the system.

I was your typical kid growing up in the 70’s. I had the occasional nightmare, as all kids do. It caused me to jump out of my bed and make my way in the darkness to mom and dad’s bed, where there was the known security of my parents to keep the monsters in my mind at bay.

That all changed in the spring of 1976 – when I was sexually assaulted.

Those silly little nightmares about monsters and scary people chasing me in my dreams became full-on night terrors. I dreadedgoing to sleep at night. I’d beg to stay up and watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and even The Midnight Special on Friday nights . . . anything to avoid going to bed and battling the visions that were going to come, no matter how hard I tried to stop them.

Even the act of getting ready for bed was an exercise in insanity. Our bedrooms were upstairs, but I could recall my attacker’s last words before he let me go: “If you tell anybody, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”

I could picture him bringing a ladder that was tall enough for him to gain access to my room on the second floor. One window looked out to our spacious yard. Another was positioned over the back part of the house, where an addition had been built. The roof to the addition was low enough, I reasoned, that my attacker could climb up there and break through the other window in my room.

Because of that possibility, it became a nightly ritual for my parents to have to actually inspect my room before I could feel comfortable enough to sleep in it. They had to check the closet. They had to look under the bed. Sometimes, they’d have to look out the window to make sure nobody was there. Only when those inspections were completed to my satisfaction, could I finally feel a sense of security that I wasn’t going to be attacked in my own room.

The problem was – nobody could secure what would go on in my mind once sleep came. There was no way anybody could stop me from being attacked from the inside.

And the attacks would come – almost on a nightly basis. Sometimes, I’d wake up from a nightmare, get up to get a drink of water and shake off that memory, then fall back asleep and experience another one. I wet the bed so often that my parents had to put a plastic cover over the mattress, saving them the frustration of having to try and clean a urine-stained mattress over and over again.

It was always tough for me in those early years, because the attack happened in a small town of less than 1,000 people, and my attacker was the older brother of a classmate. I’d get a daily reminder of what happened to me every time I walked into school. I doubled my pleasure (sarcasm alert) during the second semester of sixth grade when my attacker was assigned as a teacher’s aide for my PE class. Talk about having to LIVE your nightmare – when I walked out of school the first day of the semester, shaking and in tears, my mother wanted to know what was wrong. When I told her my attacker was now my teacher’s aide, it unleashed a fury that I’d never seen out of my mom.

We moved from that town after I finished sixth grade, but I wasn’t able to leave the nightmares behind. They followed me to our new home, and it took a while for me to become comfortable with having a bedroom in the basement. While my parents’ bedroom was directly above me, there was a window in my room looking up to the outside, and I had many a nightmare involving my attacker tracking us down and coming through that window. I’d have to inspect my closet almost every night before I went to bed, and I looked under my bed more times than I care to count, thankful each time to see nothing more than the red carpet that my parents put in my room.

Moving away to college, the nightmares seemed to subside. I started drinking and experimenting with drugs around that time, and I guess I’m not sure that they ever happened on the nights when I was loaded on some intoxicant. I do remember, though, that the nightmares would still pop up – sometimes they even involved other people in my life. Family members, friends, other adult figures – they would all make appearances in a variety of roles, from being an onlooker to actually being the one chasing me.

These days, the visions and faces seem more like a blur. I’m not sure if it’s because the action is happening so fast, or time is fading some of those visions, or if maybe the memory of the experience is losing its punch in the process of experiencing these nightmares. This most recent nightmare found me back in that place – on an old, rickety bridge with chipping, faded white paint located behind the local swimming pool, face down with my pants at my ankles, with a garbled, unintelligible sound serving as my attacker’s voice. I remember the colors of that evening’s setting sun piercing through the trees, which were just starting to show their spring buds on branches that reached out, as if they were hiding the rest of the world from the horrible crime that was taking place on that bridge.

I’m not sure what I was more frustrated with when I woke up from this latest nightmare – the fact that it happened, or that it was 2:30 in the morning when I was awakened and couldn’t fall back to sleep (this blog is being written at 4:45 a.m., more than two hours after the nightmare). I’m grateful that I don’t have to experience these nightmares any more often than I do, and I’m hopeful that the day will come when this particular nightmare never comes again.

It will never undo the fact that I was sexually assaulted – but I’m looking forward to the day that I won’t have to re-live the experience in my dreams again.

When filling a stadium isn’t something to be proud of

If you’re like me, you love watching football.
Whether it’s a Saturday afternoon or evening cheering on your favorite college team, or spending Sundays watching the NFL and trying to figure out if your fantasy team is mopping up against your buddy’s team, there’s nothing like watching football on TV.
OK, there IS one thing better than watching it on TV – being AT the game, for example. Between the tailgating, hanging out with friends and fellow fans, making a ton of noise and cheering the home team on to victory, you can’t beat that experience.
Stadium 2013Being a fan of the University of Nebraska football team, the Husker faithful is proud of the fact that there hasn’t been an empty seat for a Husker home game in more than half a century. Since October of 1962, every game at Memorial Stadium has been a sellout, the seats full of red-clad Husker faithful, cheering Big Red on to victory.
With the recent additions to the stadium, the capacity for a Husker home football game now exceeds more than 90,000 people. In fact, 91,585 fans jammed the old yard recently to watch Nebraska take on the University of Miami (Fla.) on national TV.
Can you imagine – more than 91,000 people in one place to watch a football game? Now, ponder this thought – what if every one of those fans was a survivor of sexual assault?
It’s an odd thing to think about, but if you were to take the Centers For Disease Control study that found 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are survivors of sexual assault, and applied those ratios to the current K-12 enrollment numbers quoted by the Nebraska Department of Education, you’d have enough to fill up more than two-thirds of Memorial Stadium’s capacity.
Throw in the kids who are between infant and preschool age living in the state – and now you’ve filled it up well past capacity.
That there are THAT many children in this state who are potential survivors (we don’t use the word “victim” within these walls, which I’ll explain in a future post) is a staggering and appalling thought. And these are just the kids we’re talking about in a state with a population of just over 2 million – can you even begin to imagine what the number of children who are survivors – including those who are still going through the experience – could possibly be?
And, as those of us who have been through the experience can attest, this is not something that children simply grow out of. The physical wounds may heal, but the emotional scars and the mental hurdles are there for a long, long time. This isn’t something that just goes away – especially if the survivor’s attacker is a close friend or family member. It’s something that is always there for us to deal with.
HOW we deal with the issue is the important thing. I’ve used just about every tool imaginable, from faith and prayer to alcohol and drugs. I’ve drank massive amounts of alcohol to dull the pain. I’ve smoked, ingested and popped about every kind of drug you can think of at least once. I have talked with more than my share of psychologists, psychiatrists and other “head doctors” about it. I’ve prayed and spoke at length with my Higher Power about the experience.
While the drugs did little more than suspend reality for a temporary period, I’ve found that talking out my issues has been the biggest source of comfort for me. Whether it’s with a therapist, your pastor or a friend with a good ear to chew on, getting it out in the open and talking about it is sometimes the best therapy that’s available.
That’s something that I try to tell people when I speak publicly about my experience. I’ve had the chance to speak to teenagers and college students at a number of venues in my home area in recent months, and it makes my day when one of them comes up to me and thanks me for speaking out. Sometimes, they’ll share some of their story with me. Other times, the look in their eyes and the way they carry themselves as they thank me says all that needs to be said, and I hope that, by speaking out, it gives them the courage to do the same thing and seek the help they deserve to have to help them realize that they, too, are survivors.
One day, I would like to be able to say that the number of survivors of sexual assault wouldn’t be enough to fill up a meeting room at a local coffee shop. Filling a stadium full of Husker football fans is impressive – that you can fill that same stadium with every child in Nebraska who is a survivor of sexual assault isn’t something my state can be very proud of.

A resource for survivors of sexual assault