Tag Archives: Sexual Assault

Speaking Out

Disgraced ‘doctor’ called out by Olympic gymnasts

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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.

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Suicide really is NOT the solution

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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.