Why Didn’t They Tell?

So, I’ve been hearing some questions.

If these things really happen, why don’t these victims come forward and tell?

Could that really happen to someone successful and accomplished?

Why did she wait so long to tell?

Why didn’t you tell sooner?

Why didn’t you tell your parents?

Why didn’t you tell the police?

Why didn’t you tell his name?

Why don’t you have all the details?

I’m not sure I have answers. But today, I do have a voice. Her Voice. Hard won. So I’ll tell a few things. Nothing too specific. Go ahead and breathe. But I will mention various ages and point to some difficult situations, so if you are a survivor it could be triggering. If you need to leave at any time to take care of yourself, I totally understand.

Can this happen to someone accomplished?

I graduated with highest honors in my graduate and undergraduate programs. I have presented at national and international conferences in my field of study. I am the founder of two businesses, including an innovative new paradigm model for integrating mental health and social justice and the arts in a Feminist context through “Education, Enrichment, and Empowerment,” in arguably the most misogynist state in the nation. I did not do this alone, but I have done my part.

Also not alone, I have overcome an eating disorder, alcoholism, PTSD, and psycho-somatic but very real ailments. I’m still working on the anxiety and over-doing. I am so fortunate and deeply grateful for my marriage of 30 years.

Being a survivor of sexual trauma affects me today. And it affects my husband. And it affected my son and my parenting style. And it still affects my relations with my parents. And it costs me money and time and emotional labor. Year after year, even though I am somewhat thriving now.

So back to the questions.

Why didn’t I tell?

At just 13 at summer camp, I didn’t tell. I thought he loved me. That’s what he said. I found out different when HE told, laughing and bragging of conquest to the other counselors, and I was sent home in the middle of the night on a bus and grounded for the rest of the summer. I was never allowed to return to my beloved summer camp.

At 14 in spring, I didn’t tell. I watched from the ceiling.

At 14 in summer, I didn’t tell. I didn’t acknowledge this rape by an adult man to myself for 30 years. He laid a blanket out in a field, with a bottle of wine, by the light of his headlight beams.

At barely 15 in summer, I didn’t tell. I had accepted alcohol from my boss, and how would I explain to my boyfriend what happened after that?

Or as I’ve come to understand, not “what happened”—but what HE DID after that.

At 15 during a very long summer with this same boss who also housed me, I didn’t tell. I didn’t know the words for sexual trafficking until I was around age 50.

I still feel strange using those words, since so many other victims had it so much worse. With each coercive, exploitive experience, I fell deeper into self-blame and shame. And drinking. It helped. It never occurred to me that crimes were being committed against me.

At 15 in the winter, I didn’t tell. I just froze. By then, I knew how the script goes.

At almost 16, I told as soon as I could get away, after the long night of being locked in his apartment.

(I had come in after hours of waiting in the snow for a bus that didn’t come, to call a cab.) My boyfriend said I should have let the man kill me instead of rape me. I waited a week or two to tell the police. They said there was nothing they could do.

When I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t tell my family or friends.

At 16, I tried to tell the EMTs and the detectives. After running for my life after escaping, I couldn’t remember what kind of car it was, and that seemed important to them. I wasn’t a good reporter. It was also hard to talk, because my jaw was broken.

My grandfather only asked, why on earth were you hitchhiking?

At 17, I didn’t tell. I had gone there willingly after drinking, vaguely aware he might want something from me, but he was nice, so I hoped it would be ok. His flannel shirt was soft, and I liked resting my head on his shoulder. I didn’t know there would be three of them in the remote cabin. Three adult men.

At 17, again, I didn’t tell. I flirted first, and then I got drunk. I was very ashamed of what “happened,” what grown men did. I didn’t wear white pants again for 30 years.

At 17, again, I didn’t tell. I needed to keep my job.

At 18, I didn’t tell. I didn’t want to upset his wife, who was my teacher. And I appreciated his attention. He helped me get into college. He was 38 years old.

Throughout my teens, I didn’t tell of the dozens of microaggressions toward me as a female, some frightening, some humiliating, all confirming my low self-worth. I didn’t know words like harassment. I knew men were in charge. And capable of overpowering me.

At 20 in rehab, a counselor invited me to tell her my story. She saw me shaking and looking at the floor. She offered to turn her back and look out the window so I wouldn’t have to face her. I told about half of it then. It was mostly still my fault, I believed, but I wasn’t so alone. I did stop drinking soon after. It is still hard to tell my story, but it will never be that hard again.

Since then, I have told. Not usually the names, some of which I don’t know. I have borne painful consequences for telling and painful consequences for not telling.

The rapists and abusers and assaulters have borne no consequences.

In my 30’s and 40’s, I wanted to tell them. I tried to find some of them, to tell how it still affected me: at the doctor, at the dentist, with my parents, in my body, with my finances. I wanted to face them and them to face me. I wanted their sisters and wives and aunts and mothers to know and to help them understand the impact of what they did. I wanted what I now know is called restorative justice. I couldn’t find them. None of them are public figures that I know of. 

I wonder....Do you believe me?

I believe her. And I believe and honor the ones speaking into the elevator last week for the nation to hear. I honor those who told and those who didn’t tell. I honor those who fought back and those who quietly made it through. I honor those who ran and those who froze. I honor those who remembered in great detail and those who forgot.... and those who tried to remember and those who tried to forget.

I honor those who lived and those who died and those who have not inhabited their body since that moment in time and those who have reclaimed their bodies. I honor those who reacted and coped by becoming asexual and those who reacted and coped by becoming hypersexual.

I honor that differently-abled people and LGBTQ persons and people of color, particularly Black women, are at far greater risk than I am, as a white woman in a heterosexual marriage, for sexual violence and for the consequences of telling about it. Or not telling about it.

I honor boys and girls and men and women who have been abused, who have survived, thrived, and all those who have served as allies.

I have had the privilege as a therapist and retreat leader to assist hundreds of women and girls, and some men too, in telling their stories, their truth. Telling it to me, all at one time or over a long time, telling to groups of other survivors and/or allies, to their families, (or not), and sometimes, though not usually, to lawyers or authorities or to the people who abused them.

They tell when the news triggers buried memories. They tell when their children reach a certain age and they see their own child-self in them. They tell when their parents are dead. And when they are ready to tell, when they are safe enough to tell, it is often like it happened yesterday, like they are still the age when it was done to them. There is plenty of science about the brain and trauma and why that is.

Even as I reread this telling, more memories pop up that I didn’t include, and that is after years of sobriety and therapy to string together the narrative, disjointed by numbing and repeated traumas. After telling at least part of this story many times. Imagine what it’s like to try to tell that story if one has not been able to overcome substance abuse or PTSD yet or afford therapy, or to take time off work for the privilege of attending therapy. Or if one is severely mentally ill or cognitively delayed. Or if one has not had the privilege to be able to get out of current danger, such as domestic violence, or dealing with law enforcement while Black.

So if anyone wants to ask questions about why someone didn’t tell, or how they told, or who they told or when they told or what details they told or did not remember to tell...let them ask with an open heart and mind. Let it be an inquiry to learn and an invitation to compassion. Let them be sure they are really ready to listen, without being defensive and re-shaming the victim.

If you have to ask the questions, you obviously have a lot to learn, and those who are able to speak may be willing to do so, if you ask respectfully and listen while suspending judgement.

If they decline to tell, please respect that, too.

Patricia Stout, LCSW-BACS

Women’s Center for

Healing & Transformation

St. Tammany Parish , Louisiana

Written September 29-30, 2018 when Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser,  Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, were in the news. Read at HER VOICE Poetry & Spoken Word, Part of 100,000 Poets for Change