What we often forget (or try to) in discussions about sexual assault: the trauma.
The trauma is in the details.
It’s a text that just says, “What happened to me?”
It’s another text that says, “My belt is on backwards.”
It’s a story that reveals this isn’t the first time. Or second. Or third.
It’s combing through the backyard desperately searching for the lost shoe.
It’s explaining to the ER receptionist why you’re there, and he doesn’t hear you so you
have to say it louder and people turn and look.
It’s the look on the ER receptionist’s face.
It’s looking out your window every morning to the parking lot where your friend was gang-raped.
It’s deciding what words out of millions and none would get her to the hospital.
It’s the smell of the Icy Hot patches you put on her back.
It’s the dark in the apartment and being afraid to turn on the lights.
It’s the fear of another text message.
It’s sitting in a dining hall with your friend, when she points to a man getting a soda and laughing with his friends and she says “That’s the guy who raped me.”
It’s hearing decisions that feel so painfully backward in their logic.
It’s explaining to your roommates why you haven’t been home for two days.
It’s fries with mayonnaise from the hospital cafeteria at 2 a.m.
It’s staring at a blank email addressed to the professor whose class you didn’t study for.
It’s knocking gingerly on her door because you know she startles easily.
It’s collapsing to the ground on the phone with the police, wrecked with worry about the e-mail that’s about to be sent out to the student body.
It’s writing an angry letter to the news station that exploited her story.
It’s not forgetting these details.
One in four college-aged women will be sexually assaulted. This statistic is alarming, sobering, and true. This statistic often serves as the gateway for the development of sexual assault policy because it demonstrates, unequivocally, that sexual assault is a real, present issue at our university, in Charlottesville and in modern culture. Policy should be celebrated, because it confronts the reality of sexual assault in a culture that would rather avoid such difficult conversations. But policy is limited. In a good-faith attempt to “best” serve all survivors, it can forget the “details” and the individuality of a sexual assault. The trauma is in these details.
It’s the ER nurse who insists that a medical examination would need to collect forensic evidence. Your friend refuses to go to the ER for another 24 hours because of this policy.
It’s the police officer that refers to your friend as a noncompliant impediment to his investigation. She has been assaulted within the past 48 hours and isn’t ready to talk yet. He also implies that you’re noncompliant for withholding her name.
It’s the news story that capitalizes on this “shocking” anonymity. The newscasters can’t believe that your friend wouldn’t instantly come forward to the “system.” You can’t believe they just said that.
So what can we do? We need policy to prevent future assaults. We need policy to provide avenues for advocacy. We need policy to ensure that survivors have resources for support and for taking action, should they choose to do so. At the same time, though, we can never forget the individuality and the trauma of every survivor, every “one” of the one in four. Policy must allow for and grow out of humanity, out of human suffering and thirst for change. Respecting the trauma is also in the details.
It’s finally finding a Sexual Assault Resource Agency advocate who persuades the ER to forgo a forensic investigation. She sees your friend as a person, not as simply the next rape case.
It’s a University employee salvaging that awful news story. She reminds viewers that a survivor should never feel forced to come forward until she is ready (whenever that may be).
It’s a dean respecting your friend’s anonymity.
It’s empowering your friend to make the ultimate decisions about reporting her assault, seeking medical care, and ordering take-out.
It’s respecting and supporting these decisions.
It’s attempting to study while she sleeps and talking to her when the nightmares keep her up.
It’s listening when she remembers another detail and showing her YouTube videos when she doesn’t want to remember anymore.
It’s ordering way too many Campus Cookies and crying over how good they are. She laughs, at long last. She also eats for the first time that day. You knew she couldn’t resist warm cookies. You had a plan.
It’s not forgetting that her pain continues. It’s not forgetting that she’s strong, that she’s a survivor. It’s not forgetting the details. It’s not forgetting.
Alison Celello and Nia Bentall are members of One Less, a sexual-assault education group.
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