When you are a survivor of sexual assault, it is a very intense, deeply personal experience.
Not only has your body been violated, but your sense of trust in your fellow man as well. Most of those who are survivors of sexual assault (I refuse to refer to myself as a victim for reasons I will relate in a future post) have a hard time telling their story to ANYONE.
The reasons why are many – but a lot of it has to do with trust. Some people simply don’t believe the story. Others would believe it if it weren’t somebody they know who attacked you and “I just can’t believe he/she would actually do something like that to anybody.” Others just flat-out refuse to acknowledge the possibility that anybody could commit such a disgusting crime.
Telling my story is not something new for me. I first wrote a column about my experience in the summer of 2001. I had recently been hired as the editor of a small-town weekly newspaper, and for some reason I felt I needed to tell my story. The column I wrote was quite lengthy, and I wasn’t sure this was a good idea since I was the new guy in town and readers had not had a chance to get to know me. I consulted with a minister who encouraged me to follow through, and the response was actually quite positive.
I wrote about my experience on other occasions, but it wasn’t until the Jerry Sandusky story at Penn State University broke in the fall of 2011 where I really felt the need to tell my story and take it far beyond my weekly readership. It needed to go statewide…national…and global. It took some time, though, for me to really figure out a way to do it, and the answer came from a voice that woke me from a difficult night of sleep on a hot summer’s night while visiting my best friend in Denver, Colo. The voice said but three words – “Write the book.”
The result was “Call Me A Survivor,” which is available on Amazon.com’s website. It’s not a War and Peace-length epic, but it’s my story told in fairly graphic and honest detail. The book took about five months from that first night of furious writing in my friend’s guest room to the day I sent it off to Amazon’s self-publishing wing for processing.
The first person I told about my experience was my mother, and it was hard not to. I had come screaming into the house after the attack had happened and told her what took place. For many years after, only family and close friends and relations knew of my experience. Today, I want everybody to know that I was sexually assaulted as a 9-year-old boy by the older brother of a classmate behind the swimming pool in the small town of Newman Grove, Neb., in the spring of 1976.
If only it were that easy for EVERY survivor of sexual assault. And I get that – it’s a deeply personal experience, one that is impossible to relate without having to re-experience the pain, suffering, terror and humiliation that came with the attack. I had a conversation recently with a friend who had been through a similar experience to mine, and I found it interesting how she would say it was something she could NEVER talk about, and yet, as our conversation went on, she let little bits of information out about what happened to her, when it happened and who abused her. And then, after releasing a bit of that information, she’d stop and say, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’ve never told it to anybody before.” (And, just so you know, the details of her experience are something I will not share here or in any other forum . . . it is up to her to determine who, what and how that is done in a time she is comfortable with.)
Who you tell, how much you tell and in what manner you tell it is completely up to you. However, as you become comfortable with it, I believe you will find a certain freedom that comes from releasing that information, and the weight that comes with it. Talking with somebody you trust can be a wonderful release, even though there is a chance the retelling of the experience might reopen some wounds in your heart. The thing is – every time you are wounded, the body has ways to heal ALL of those wounds. And who knows? By releasing that pressure valve, it might open wonderful doors for you to experience a better, more peaceful life.
Who, what, how and where you tell is up to you. I encourage you to think about it and take action. Telling my story has helped me release a lot of negative energy in my life, and I hope to bring that message to the world through this website and the inspirational speaking I intend to present in the future.
I’ll conclude this post with a video clip of one of the first public interviews I did in promoting my book and telling my story. Jeffrey Steffen is program director for WJAG radio in Norfolk, Neb., and hosts a morning talk show on Lite Rock 97.5FM. He and I have known each other for a long time, and I have done sports play-by-play for them on a freelance basis for many years. It was a fun, but difficult, interview to go through, and I tried to capture some of the highlights from our 45-minute talk that day. Enjoy…