I can still remember the look of stunned silence on the faces of the talk show hosts.
lt happened almost 30 months ago, late on a Sunday night. A good friend of mine was hosting a live sports talk show on a TV station in Omaha, and the topic of discussion was the Penn State sex scandal story that had broken a few days earlier.
The story was already a few days old when my good friend, Travis Morgan, and his sidekick were discussing the issue of the Gerry Sandusky scandal that had rocked the world of college football. Almost immediately after reading the grand jury investigation, my world was rocked as well.
As a survivor of sexual assault, the news of what Sandusky had done to numerous young boys reopened some old wounds that I had been working hard to close up regarding my own experience from more than 35 years earlier. The “experts” on TV spent all of their time talking about everything BUT what they should have been talking about – how will this impact the Penn State football program, how this would impact the legacy of legendary coach Joe Paterno, is this a unique situation or are there other coaches out there abusing their authority, etc., etc., etc.
Travis and his co-host were going down the same road, and as a fellow journalist and sports writer, I could appreciate him wanting to hear from his viewers and get their opinions on these same sports-related questions. But he had a devoted viewer with a different question that needed to be answered – what impact is this going to have on the kids who Sandusky attacked?
When I called and asked that question, I began to talk about my own experience as a survivor of sexual assault. I had the TV on mute to avoid any feedback and was letting it all hang out. As I made my point, my friend’s mouth dropped and he stared back at the camera – he was blown away with the news that an old friend of his was, for better or worse, talking about his experience on live television in front of a potential audience of hundreds of thousands of people.
Fast forward a little more than a year – Travis is a native of the small Northeast Nebraska town of Walthill and took over as the new sports director at KCAU in nearby Sioux City, Iowa. It was a homecoming for Travis, as he had worked previously at other stations in town and was a local boy at heart. His station had broadcast a story about me earlier that summer after I began work on “Call Me A Survivor,” but he wanted to follow up with a feature on my experience and inform viewers on some of the facts and figures surrounding child sexual assault.
I know how much work can go into writing a major feature story sometimes, but doing something for TV is altogether different. We did two interviews – one at my house and one at the station – and he shot a variety of other footage of me, from my first major speech about my life and my book to video of me working in my job as managing editor and sports editor of The Wayne Herald. He started working on the story in January, but it would be five months before the story hit the air. Click here to check out his story.
The story was very well-received, according to comments I heard from people who saw the story, and it’s a fantastic piece that Travis put together. It was SO good, in fact, that the story was recently honored by the Iowa Broadcast News Association as a first-place feature story. I’m thrilled that Travis thought enough of the story to do such a wonderful job on it, and considering his talents and what he did to put the story together, it was a very pleasant surprise when I ran into him at a hockey game and he told me the good news about the award.
I think back often to that Sunday night in November when I first told my story to an audience on live TV and, literally, stopped the program in its tracks and stunned the host with news about his friend that he was not even aware of. It took a lot of courage for me to talk about my experience on a live program like that, and I’m thrilled that my good friend felt enough of the story to make the most of his talents as a storyteller and broadcaster to share my experience with his viewers and be awarded with a first-place honor as a result of his efforts.
I hope the video of his story that is attached here will help survivors open up and shatter the silence by telling their stories of survival from child sexual assault. Silence is no longer an option, and I encourage fellow survivors to tell their stories to someone, anyone and everyone.
Dream Theater’s lyrics speak to our experience
Recently, I had a chance to attend a concert and thank the band for a specific song that speaks close to the heart of survivors everywhere.
I’ve been a big fan of the progressive rock band Dream Theater. A friend and colleague turned me on to this band when they first started achieving some national fame for their song “Pull Me Under” and I’ve been a fan of them ever since.
To call these guys brilliant in what they do would be like calling water wet. The musicianship displayed by each of the members of the band is out of this world, so it’s always a big deal for me whenever they put a new album out.
This past fall, Dream Theater released a self-titled album, which in and of itself was a change from such album titles as “A Dramatic Turn Of Events” and “Black Clouds And Silver Linings.” But when I got through the opening instrumental track, I was ill-prepared for the surprise that was to follow as the song “The Enemy Inside” began.
I’m a big fan of good lyrical arrangements, and as I began to understand the words to this song, the meaning behind the lyrics left me overcome with emotion as I realized how much it spoke to my own personal experience as a survivor of sexual assault.
For many of us, reliving the experience is a common occurrence and one that leaves us dealing with a variety of emotional baggage. The lyrics draw this out immediately in the first verse:
Over and over again
I relive the moment
I’m bearing a burden within
Open wounds hidden under my skin
The pain is real
As a cut that bleeds
The face I see
Every time I try to sleep
Staring at me crying
I’m running from the enemy inside
Looking for the life I left behind
These suffocating memories
Are etched upon my mind
And I can’t escape from the enemy inside
For many of us, the only way we feel we can deal with the memories is to suffer them alone, feeling there is nobody out there who would understand the hell that we’ve been through. Our loved ones know SOMETHING is wrong, but we’re not about to allow them inside our minds to see what that hell looks and feels like, as the second verse portrays:
I sever myself from the world
I shut down completely
Alone in my own living hell
Overcome with irrational fear
Under the weight of the world on my chest
I fall and break as I try to catch my breath
Tell me I’m not dying
I’m running from the enemy inside
Looking for the life I left behind
These suffocating memories
Are etched upon my mind
And I can’t escape from the enemy inside
We look upon ourselves, incorrectly, as a problem to others. We may feel we have nothing to offer the world because we are broken as human beings. We chase after whatever solace we can find, many times in a bottle or some other form of self-medicated relief, knowing that even that relief from the pain that we feel is temporary:
I’m a burden, I’m a travesty
I’m a prisoner of regret
Between the flashbacks and the violent screams
I am hanging on the edge
Disaster lurks around the bend
Paradise comes to an end
And no magic pill
Can bring it back again
I’m running from the enemy inside
Looking for the life I left behind
These suffocating memories
Are etched upon my mind
And I can’t escape from the enemy inside
After listening to this song and understanding the story behind the song (guitarist John Petrucci wrote the song after talking with a number of fans with military experience who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder – PTSD – after their service in Iraq and/or Afghanistan), I felt that the band needed to hear from somebody who was touched in so powerful a manner by their lyrics.
I got in on a meet-and-greet event before their concert in Denver, and took the opportunity to thank each of them and present them with copies of my book, “Call Me A Survivor” as a token of thanks for that specific song. It was great to meet these guys in person and get a group photo with them before the show, and in our brief conversations I found them to be very friendly, not your typical rock stars by any stretch of the imagination. The members of Dream Theater seemed genuinely enthused by a fan giving them such a unique gift and I’m hoping that I hear from them at some point down the road to hear their thoughts about my book and my experience.
As for the concert itself – it was magical for me personally to hear them open the show with “The Enemy Inside.” From my seat in the third row, I had my hands raised as high as they could go and sang along with tears in my eyes. The three-hour show was amazing from start to finish, but the emotional release of hearing them play “The Enemy Inside” live was something I’ve never felt before at a concert.
I’ve listened to the song a number of times since the show, and it still hits me as a reminder of what I’ve been through and serves as inspiration for me to continue to speak out about my experience as a survivor of sexual assault. I’m forever grateful that a band like Dream Theater was able to capture that emotion and those feelings that survivors of violent experiences – whether it’s fighting in a war or dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault – in such an amazing and hard-hitting fashion.
Suicide is never an option
I was answering questions during a school presentation after telling my story as a survivor of sexual assault, when a young man raised his hand.
The middle school-aged boy was of a stocky build, wearing glasses, a T-shirt and jeans. He had already asked a couple of questions about my experience, then came up with a question that left me stuck without an answer: how many people who are sexually assaulted end up committing suicide?
It was something that I had talked about in my own experience, how I stood along the bank of the Missouri River convincing myself that taking my own life would end all of MY pain. And it’s a thought that many other survivors of sexual assault have contemplated in their lives – and, sadly, a number of them have successfully followed through and ended their lives.
Suicide is the ultimate act of desperation that many sexual assault survivors turn to in an effort to end the depression that they have experienced in their lives. Many studies have shown that suicide is the result of untreated depression, the final act of a victim who feels there is no other way out.
According to an article on the suicide.org website, about 1 in 3 survivors of sexual assault will have suicidal thoughts at some point, and about 1 in 8 of sexual assault survivors will attempt suicide. They are numbers that are, to put it in kind terms, disappointing.
There were several thoughts that pulled me away from the edge of the river that summer evening in 2006 – chief among them was the impact that my suicide would have on my children. My oldest daughter was a sophomore in high school and was the one thing in my life that had always been a positive light in the darkness I was living in. I couldn’t imagine what my family would be able to tell her. She had very little knowledge about my experience as a survivor of sexual assault, so it would be a tremendous burden on both her and my family to try and help her understand all of that.
Another thought that kept me from taking those final two steps was a thought that, in retrospect, is a cold and incorrect assessment of the mind of someone who contemplates, or completes, a suicide attempt.
A school administrator who I have a tremendous amount of respect for was discussing the sudden passing of an employee of the school who had committed suicide. It seemed a logical thought at the time when he said that it was a selfish act for that individual to take his own life.
Over the years, as I’ve contemplated my own dance with death, I’ve come to the belief that it is not an act of selfish behavior, but one of utter desperation by the individual who feels he (or she) simply wants the pain to stop. In the vast majority of cases, it’s not PHYSICAL pain, but the emotional suffering and the mental anguish that, left unchecked, can drive an individual to the point where they feel the only way out is by taking the ULTIMATE way out.
For those of us who are survivors of sexual assault, the biggest, toughest and most persistent opponent we will ever face is not the individual who physically attacked us, but the person that we see in the mirror every morning. The story that individual tells every day, more often than not, is more damaging than anything our attacker did to us.
My best friend is a brilliant graphic designer who lives in Denver, Colo., and also has the best pair of ears a friend could have access to. He has trained as a life coach and has helped a number of people through some difficult personal circumstances, and he helped me dig out of the hole that I had found myself in with some really solid advice.
The best thing he ever told me was a very simple statement – energy flows where attention goes. Some people know it as the Law of Attraction, which essentially states that like will attract like and we are capable of drawing positive energy into our life simply by turning our focus away from the negative and keeping it on the positive.
For me, this was a very difficult challenge because, in my mind, that stigma and the experience that I had as a survivor of sexual assault was something would never go away. I will ALWAYS be a victim of sexual assault, and that negative mindset was a perfect fuel cell for the depression that I was experiencing to thrive in my mind.
Ultimately, I came to the realization that I have a lot to offer the world, as does EVERY individual who has been through the horrible experience of sexual assault. I’ve found happiness and, ultimately, forgiveness in the experience and now look upon myself as a survivor.
That doesn’t mean there are never any “down” days in my life. Some days are challenging as I continue my daily existence, but I know that suicide is not an option for me to consider. I refuse to add to those statistics, and I want to help others who are going through the experience to understand that suicide is not, nor should it ever be, an option to overcome the pain and emotional suffering that a survivor of sexual assault experiences.
If you’re having thoughts of suicide, or want to help somebody who is, call 800-784-2433 (800-SUICIDE) or 800-273-8255 (TALK). There is a wealth of information available on the Suicide.org website as well.
No matter where you are at in your experience as a survivor of sexual assault – don’t think, for one second, that suicide is a way out. You have far too much to offer this world to consider that as a viable alternative to the pain and depression you now face. Get help and know you have so much to offer this world.
Winning the battle against PTSD
Comedian Adam Ferrara has a funny bit about friends who aren’t doctors, but also aren’t shy about offering medical device. And I can’t help thinking about this as I write the following:
I’m not a doctor, but . . .
One of the things survivors of sexual assault must deal with, one way or another, are some of the symptoms that are consistent with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as PTSD.
The Mayo Clinic’s website defines PTSD as a mental health condition that is set into motion by a terrifying event, such as a sexual assault. Flashbacks are common, as are nightmares and severe anxiety.
For some people, the aftermath of the experience includes some of these experiences, but survivors adjust and are able to cope with it. For others, though, the problems that come from the nightmares and the flashbacks say with them for a long time and can be a real detriment to living the kind of healthy and happy life we all deserve to live.
The memory of what happened can come back at any time, and its manifestation can be triggered by even the most unlikely of situations.
I was attacked in the spring of 1976 and had numerous nightmares and flashbacks about the experience. They lessened in frequency and severity over time, but one situation that happened more than 20 years later triggered a panic attack that actually helped me achieve a certain degree of justice for what happened to me two decades earlier.
In the summer of 1998, I was working as a sports writer for the Norfolk Daily News in Norfolk, Neb. As I was finishing up a page that I had laid out for that day’s paper, I was looking at another page that had the county court record with information on court cases, traffic infractions, marriages and other public information from the courthouse that is regularly published in newspapers.
I had no real reason to look at the page, other than that it was there on the paste-up board. I started scanning to the names, laughing at myself as I wondered if there would be somebody I knew in the criminal court section. Not being a guy that regularly hung out with the area’s criminal element, the thought that somebody I knew might be on the list elicited a laugh.
And then . . . I saw his name and the crime he was being charged with – first-degree sexual assault.
The flashback that came suddenly made me tremble. I could feel myself shaking, my eyes welling up with tears. I quickly composed myself, excused myself from work for the day and drove to the county courthouse to read up on the case.
I found that my attacker had sexually assaulted a vulnerable adult on a county road. He had a rather dubious history in the court system, everything from sexual assault to impersonating a police officer.
Working with the county attorney, I wrote a letter to the district judge and explained my connection to the attacker. For the first time, I told my story to someone outside of my personal circle of friends and family. The letter made a huge impact – the county attorney said the district judge had traditionally given 1-2 year sentences for this crime, but he wound up throwing the book at this individual – he got five years in prison (the maximum sentence in Nebraska at that time) and had to register as a lifetime member of the state’s Sex Offender Registry.
Fortunately, the flashback that I had at that moment ultimately had a positive outcome. However, there are many other symptoms that survivors of sexual assault deal with that could be linked to PTSD.
Symptoms can include:
– upsetting nightmares about the event
– feeling emotionally numb
– feelings of hopelessness
– discontinuing activities you once enjoyed
– trouble concentrating or remembering things
– difficulty maintaining close friendships or relationships
– uncontrollable irritability or anger
– overwhelming guilt or shame
– self-destructive behavior (drinking, drugs, sexual activity)
– being easily frightened
– hearing or seeing things that don’t exist
PTSD is also difficult for those who are in the survivor’s inner circle. They want to help, but may not have a point of reference in their personal history to use in an effort to help the survivor. It’s common for us to want to say something like “I know how you feel” to help ease the tension. However, if you haven’t been through the experience yourself, you really have no idea HOW or WHAT a survivor is feeling or experiencing.
Fortunately, there are some things you CAN do to help a survivor who might be experiencing some of the symptoms of PTSD:
– Listen, but don’t force the issue. Help the survivor understand that you are there if they need a shoulder to lean on, but don’t insist that they unload everything. Let it happen on THEIR schedule, and be ready and willing to receive the information when they are ready to give it to you.
– Find a place and time to chat. When they are ready, make sure you can sit down and chat without any outside distractions. Whether it’s the local coffee shop or around the dining room table at home, sit down and REALLY listen. If you don’t understand something, ask for clarification. And make sure the phrase “I know just how you feel” is NEVER used . . . unless, of course, you have personally experienced a similar situation in your life.
– Take five. If things are getting a little too stressful, don’t be afraid to take a time out. Everything doesn’t have to come out all at once, and if either of you are feeling a little too intense about things, step back for a minute and pick up the conversation at a later time. Make sure you follow through on it, though . . . don’t leave your friend or loved one hanging out there feeling like they don’t have someone to talk to.
– Don’t minimize the threat of suicide. Sometimes, a survivor feels they have no choice left but to take their own life. Be cool about it, but don’t let the threat go without taking whatever steps are needed to keep the survivor safe and alive. If there is imminent danger of a suicide, call 911 or your local emergency number immediately. Make sure everything from medications, sharp objects or firearms are not in a location that is easily accessible. Stay with that individual until help arrives.
But don’t take my word for it (remember, I’m not a doctor). The Mayo Clinic has some wonderful information about PTSD available on their website, and I would encourage you to read through their information and, if you are suffering from some of the symptoms listed, to talk with your healthcare provider and get the help you need to win the battle.
You’re not the one to blame
Why didn’t you . . .
Why couldn’t you . . .
How could you . . .
These are questions that survivors of sexual assault hear time and time again. They hear it from family members, friends, investigating officers – there are countless times when this question is asked in the days after a sexual assault.
The one person who asks those questions most often, though, is the survivor.
It’s been 38 years since my attack, and for the vast majority of those years I have replayed the moment in my mind with completely different scenarios and outcomes.
I’m sure, if somebody were to invent a contraption that would allow us to turn back time and undo that which was done, we’d jump at the opportunity to go back to that moment in our lives and replay the situation using the knowledge we have gained and the experiences we have been through SINCE that fateful day.
But here’s the thing – we can’t. There’s no way that we can spin the clock in reverse, put the dates back on the calendar that have fallen away, and go back to that moment in time when we were assaulted and change the outcome.
Many times, the questions are asked as if we, as survivors, are somehow to blame for what happened to us. Is there something we could have done DIFFERENTLY to prevent the attack from happening? Is there something YOU could have – or, as they like to accuse (without saying it), SHOULD have – done to prevent this attack from occurring?
And the answer is, quite simply – no.
When I was attacked as a 9-year-old boy, I didn’t have any of the life skills that we teach our kids today to avoid contact with strangers or evil people. The idea of Stranger Danger wasn’t something that our school officials thought needed to be taught in a small town of 800 people like the one I lived in.
Maybe my naive nature as a little boy was to blame. I trusted that people who said they were going to do something would back their words up with action. If you said you were going to be home for dinner at 5:30, you were home at 5:30. So, in my mind, when my attacker wouldn’t give up my bike and offered to give me a ride home, I assumed he would ride my bike back to my house and then walk home from there.
When we came to a stop behind the swimming pool – several blocks away from my house – I realized that not everybody did as they said. My attacker held all the cards in that moment. He had all the power. He was a foot taller and much bigger than I was. I could run, but he would catch me. I could scream and kick, but he would easily silence me. The threat of my life being taken from me made me an easy prey for him.
In other words – there was NOTHING that I could do to prevent the attack from happening. It’s a reality that took me a long, LONG time to grasp and understand – and it’s a reality that you, as a survivor, need to understand . . .
TODAY!
RIGHT HERE!
RIGHT NOW!
It took me the better part of 35 years to come to terms with the fact that what happened to me was not my fault. You can not believe the freedom that came when that weight was lifted from my shoulders. When I finally was convinced that I shared zero blame for what happened, it felt like being let out of my own personal dungeon of darkness and despair.
You also share absolutely ZERO blame for your situation. The blame falls ENTIRELY and UNEQUIVOCALLY upon your attacker. Nothing you can do, say or feel will change what has happened.
However, there is something you CAN do to change the situation . . . and you can begin right now by accepting that unquestionable truth that IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT.
— It doesn’t matter what the relationship was (or is) between you and your perpetrator.
— It doesn’t matter what the circumstances were at the moment of the attack.
— It doesn’t matter what their social, financial or religious standing is (nor yours, for that matter).
ALL THAT MATTERS is this – your perpetrator is 100 PERCENT to blame for the experience that you two share. It is ENTIRELY on the perpetrator, and there is nothing you could’ve/should’ve/would’ve done to change that.
We can not go back and change history. Nothing we can do, say or feel will alter what has happened.
What we CAN do, however, is change the way we view ourselves in what happened, understand that what happened is not our fault and move forward with our lives and understand that life happens and we can only live it forward and comprehend it in reverse.
You did all that you could do – now do something for yourself and leave the blame where it deserves to be placed – on your perpetrator.
An unexpected emotional ride
Have you ever been driving down a highway, listening to an old classic rock song and singing along with the lyrics that you heard over and over again when the song was popular in your youth and now seem permanently ingrained into your subconscious.
You’re driving down the road, singing along, and all of a sudden . . .
WHAM!!!
It’s not an oncoming car, or a deer materializing from nowhere to run out of the ditch.
It’s that lyric . . . just one line in a song. And it speaks to you in a way it’s never spoken before.
And then, the next thing you know, you’re a blubbering mess trying to keep it together, keep your eyes on the road, and you’re STILL singing that song. (You might also be a real masochist like I am and REPLAY the song after it’s done, just to make sure that was really you that had a sudden emotional breakdown. I did it THREE times.)
When I was growing up, one of the classic rock bands I enjoyed was Kansas. Like most everybody else during that time, I was quick to grab a copy of their “Leftoverture” album as the first single from the album, “Carry On My Wayward Son” was helping the band make a name for itself.
But THAT’S not the song that got me . . . it was the song that followed the hit single on the album, “The Wall.”
The album was actually released about six months after my attack, and yet it seems the song was written with my experience in mind.
I’ve listened to this song thousands of times over the years. In fact, I pretty much played the grooves off of Side A of that album. I loved “What’s On My Mind” and really got into “Miracles Out Of Nowhere” – a song title that, appropriately enough, describes where this sudden emotional outburst came from.
But it was the first lines of “The Wall” that had me in a sudden state of emotional upheaval:
“I’m woven in a fantasy, I can’t believe the things I see
The path that I have chosen now has led me to a wall
And with each passing day I feel a little more like something dear was lost
It rises now before me, a dark and silent barrier between
All I am and all that I would ever want to be
It’s just a travesty, towering, marking off the boundaries
My spirit would erase”
As I sang along to those lyrics, I suddenly felt as if I was singing about the walls that were forced upon me when I was sexually assaulted as a 9-year-old boy in small-town Nebraska in 1976.
I didn’t actively choose what happened to me, nor was there anything I could do to stop the attack. And yet, there is the unrelenting belief that there was something – anything – I could have done to stop it. And, because I couldn’t, I felt, for many years, that i grew up a shattered version of what I could have been, that wall of darkness standing in front of me.
That wall was erected the night I was attacked. It was a wall that stood between me and my childhood. It was a wall that made me feel unworthy and unattractive. It was a wall that kept me from feeling good about who I was and what I was capable of doing in my life.
There was so much good in my life, from personal and professional success to the network of friends and loved ones who always were there. And yet, I stood still, the wall preventing a move forward to what could very well have been something even bigger and better. It’s still there, but few have the courage to step over that wall and step forward to an amazing opportunity. It’s a sense of courage that, only now, I’m beginning to understand.
For many years, that wall that was built around me, stopping me from realizing the value that I have and the gifts that I have that can be shared with those who share in my experience as a survivor of sexual assault. I always told my daughter that she was “capable of great things” – but why couldn’t I take my own advice? What would it take to tear down that wall?
The last part of the lyric really speaks to where I’m at today:
“And though it’s always been with me
I must tear down the wall and let it be
All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be, in harmony
Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross
There is no loss”
In discussing the lyrics he wrote, founding member and guitarist Kerry Livgren said this in his book, “Seeds of Change”:
“Looking back, I regard the lyrics to “The Pinnacle” and “The Wall” as the best I have written. Somehow the wall was in me, and I did not have the power to remove this barrier to the depths of joy and harmony I so desperately sought.”
There IS opportunity and peace, joy and harmony on the other side of that wall that we, as survivors of sexual assault, can enjoy – if only we summon the courage to break down those walls that our experience has put up for us. With each sunrise, I’m seeing a new light and a new experience that I never saw as a VICTIM of sexual assault. The journey is a long one and there are walls we must face in order to reach that destination – but I can tell you that, without a doubt, the goal is worth the journey.
No April foolin’ during SAAM
Under normal circumstances, April 1 is a day I look forward to.
Since I’m the self-designated practical joker in the family, April Fools Day is usually a fun day for me. If you remember the MTV show “Punk’d” where Ashton Kutcher would play practical jokes on people, that’s the kind of hijinks that make up a normal April Fools Day for me.
One of my favorite pranks was the day I called my dad out of the blue and told him I’d been asked to take over a job as a beat writer for an NBA team. Going from a small-town Nebraska daily newspaper to the big NBA metropolis was such a shocking bit of news, and he fell for it all — even the part about the newspaper owning its own golf course and private school.
This April 1, however, there is a different vibe surrounding the day for me.
The month of April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, a great opportunity to spread the message on sexual assault and helping those who have been through the experience. Rather than trying to see if I can fool somebody with a good practical joke, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to speak out about my experience as a survivor and, hopefully, help those who have been through the experience find their voice as well.
I was hoping to do a month-long tour of speaking engagements, but more time and planning needed to go into a venture of that magnitude. Still, I’ve been able to line up a few speaking engagements for the month, and I’m working to get in print, on the radio and even on TV to raise awareness of sexual assault and the impact it has, especially on the lives of our young people.
I’ve been getting ready for my first big speech, which comes up later this week, and I’ve been going back and re-reading some of the initial information that I found as I began speaking publicly about my experience — and that information continues to blow my mind when I think of how many children in this country are dealing with the trauma of being a victim of sexual assault.
Here in Nebraska, if we took the Centers For Disease Control study that found 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys would experience a sexual assault before their 18th birthdays and applied it to the current statewide K-12 enrollment in our school systems, we’d have enough kids to fill up three-fourths of Memorial Stadium — that’s more than 70,000 school-age children.
I’ll be busy during the next month, working on speeches and talking about sexual assault during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Look for more entries and information here in the days ahead.
Carrying on and looking ahead
It was 38 years ago this week – and it still feels like it happened yesterday.
I was hanging out with friends on an unusually-mild late March afternoon in the small town of Newman Grove, Neb., when the older brother of a classmate happened along and took my bicycle for a ride. When I asked for him to return my bike so that I could go home, he offered to give me a ride.
Instead of going home, though, he drove me to a place behind the local swimming pool . . . and stole my innocence.
I’ve tried to forget that experience many times since then. I’ve tried ignoring the day, replacing the memory with drugs and alcohol, and doing anything else I could to try and erase that horrible moment in my life from my mind.
I’ve second-guessed myself for years, wondered if there was something else I could have done. Could I have escaped this monster and still come out of the experience alive? What if I had done this differently . . . what would have been the final outcome then?
For a lot of years, I chose not to talk about it. Better to act as if it never happened than have to revisit and re-create the events in my mind. It was bad enough dealing with the nightmares, the bedwetting, the bullying and all the negative experiences I was going through without actually coming out and talking about it.
Even if I would have, it would have been difficult to talk about surviving a sexual assault attack. Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, sexual assault was not discussed openly – and especially if the target happened to be a boy. Boys NEVER get sexually assaulted . . . they’re always the perpetrators of the crime.
Thank GOD times have changed.
We still have a long way to go as we advance in the 21st century, but it’s becoming a lot easier for those of us who are survivors of sexual assault to talk about our experiences, express our emotions and drag our perpetrators out into the light of the criminal justice system to make sure they are punished for their crimes and carry the shame and the stigma that goes with being a perpetrator of a sex-related crime with them for the rest of their lives, much the same way we must carry on through life as a survivor of sexual assault.
This April, I’m speaking out about my experience and encouraging others to Tell Someone, Anyone and Everyone about sexual assault. I’ve taken a break from preparations for my speech to write this blog entry and encourage everybody to take a stand against this crime – especially if you’re one of those who have had this crime become a part of your life.
There is a lot of work that has yet to be done in this country to put this crime on the front burners of our legislators and criminal justice officials. As more and more survivors come forward and share their stories, it’s becoming more and more difficult for people in courthouses and state capitols across the country to ignore this crime and the impact it leaves on those it touches.
I won’t ever be able to undo what happened to me behind that public swimming pool in the spring of 1976 – and while we can’t go back and change what happened yesterday, we can look forward to tomorrow and work to make sure experiences we survivors have been through are dealt with and those who would commit these horrible crimes are given the proper judgement due them.
If you want to share your story with me, shoot me an e-mail at mike@mikeycproductions.com.
Talking about the real “madness”
For college basketball fans across the United States, the month of March is known as “March Madness.”
March is a special month for me as well . . . but for a far different reason.
On a warm spring evening in late March of 1976, my childhood and my sense of innocence was taken away behind the public swimming pool in the small town of Newman Grove, Nebraska. I was sexually assaulted by the teenage brother of a classmate who left me with one terrorizing thought — if I told anybody about what happened, he would hunt me down and kill me.
At the age of 9 years old, my life changed forever — all because of the madness brought forth by a sick, twisted excuse of a human being, one who had preyed on children before and continued to force himself on the less able-bodied until he finally found himself doing time in the Nebraska State Penitentiary before earning a permanent spot on the state’s Sex Offender Registry.
In the years since my attack, I’ve dealt with just about everything one could experience. The physical attack, the nightmares, the flashbacks, thoughts of suicide — my life is a literal day-to-day mixed bag of emotions. I’ve forgiven my attacker for the violent act he committed . . . but I’ve never been able to forget it.
My story is a story that is shared by more people than I care to count — in the 16 months since my book, “Call Me A Survivor” was published, I’ve had numerous people contact me, whether in person, via mail, e-mail or social media, and tell me their story. They were attacked by family members, a neighbor, a coach, a member of the clergy — people they thought they could trust. The physical wounds that are left behind may heal, but the emotional scars that are left behind will never go away. It will always be something that we, as survivors, will deal with on a daily basis until God calls us to our final resting place.
I was threatened with my own life if I stayed silent, but that wasn’t an option for me. When I ran screaming into the house, there was no hiding what had happened. Sadly, our justice system was ill-prepared, or maybe just completely unwilling, to deal with those who committed these acts of sexual violence against another human being. My perpetrator was a juvenile, and the probation he received was hardly a deterrent to his future sick acts against others. He developed quite a resume of violence before I finally helped put him in prison for a sexual assault he committed against a disadvantaged woman more than 20 years later.
It would be easy to wallow in self-pity and play the “poor me” card — but I’ve chosen a different route: I’m speaking out about my experience and encouraging others to do the same.
During the month of April, I’ve taken it upon myself to speak out during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. I am going anywhere and everywhere that I can to bring my story to the world and raise awareness on a crime that is hurting our children at all ages, from our babies to our teenagers.
A Centers For Disease Control study has found that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before their 18th birthday. If you plugged those ratios into the current K-12 enrollment of every public and private school in my home state of Nebraska, that is more than 70,000 children — enough to fill Memorial Stadium at the University of Nebraska to more than two-thirds capacity.
My goal is to speak to as many people — not just in Nebraska, but anywhere and everywhere in the United States — about my experience and offer support and assistance to those who are living the hell that has been a part of my life for almost four decades. (NOTE: My calendar of speaking engagements is located on the right side of the page — scroll through the list of dates in April and stop by if you can make it to one of my engagements.)
This “madness” has got to stop — there are too many children in this country who are living this daily hell, and it’s time we make perpetrators aware of the fact that we are no longer going to be silent, and that we will tell someone, anyone and everyone about child sexual assault.
Inspired to action
I’ve been inspired into action.
When people ask why I would take a leave of absence from my job to speak out about sexual assault, that’s always been my first response.
I was sexually assaulted at the age of 9, and it’s an experience that continues to be a part of my existence on this earth. It’s something that will never NOT be a part of who I am, and this is something I’ve come to accept and use as the driving inspiration for what I’m about to do.
I’ve found that my communication of my experience to others has been a great benefit, both to myself as a sort of personal therapy and to others who have found inspiration and their own personal call to action in listening to my speech.
My first major speech in front of a group of people came last April during Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) activities at Wayne State College (check out the video of that speech here). My speech was a moving experience for a lot of people, including myself. It had confirmed a truth that it took a long time for me to understand, and I’m sure it opened the eyes of a number of young people in the audience who have struggled with it as well — we are not alone in this.
It’s become something of a tradition for me to hear from fellow survivors after my speech. I’ve had people come up to me immediately after a presentation and share their story with me. Others have waited and have contacted me, whether by e-mail or in face-to-face encounters, shared their experience and thanked me for having the courage to share my story. Knowing that my presentations have helped one person is all the inspiration I need to continue this work.
That’s why I’ve been inspired to action again, taking the risk of leaving my job for the entire month of April to speak out during SAAM anywhere and everywhere. We have a serious problem in this country when 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys have to endure the terror of this crime as a part of their lives. It’s a situation no child should ever have to live with, and I feel it’s worth the time and effort for me to share my story and encourage those who have been through this experience to speak out and Tell (Some/Any/Every) One.
This is a crime that relies on the silence of the victim in order for the perpetrator to be successful. When it comes to this crime, sex is all about power, and the perpetrator uses that power to keep his/her victims from spilling the beans. My perpetrator threatened my life if I told anybody – but I told anyway. My parents knew there was a problem and took action, and our family was essentially ostracized by the community for damaging the life of a local teenage boy (never mind the damage that he left on my physical and emotional well-being, scars that remain almost 40 years later). Getting fellow survivors to understand that the perpetrator wins ONLY through that intimidation of silence is why I continue to speak out about my own experience.
My inspiration to create a month-long speaking tour takes a lot of effort. I’ve spent almost every free moment I’ve had in the last several weeks contacting school districts, libraries, domestic violence organizations and child advocacy support groups to line up speaking engagements. I’m also asking for the support of anyone and everyone who can provide financial assistance that will help me with book printing, video production and travel costs through a funding project on Kickstarter. If you can help out in any way financially, it would be greatly appreciated.
We are not alone as survivors of sexual assault, and we need to tell our story to the world. The inspiration for this project comes from that simple truth, and I intend to spend the month of April sharing my message and inspiring others to their own personal action. I want to be the spark that fans the flames for survivors to open up, share their experiences and help them understand they are not victims – they are survivors.