When she was twenty-two years old, philosopher Karyn L. Freedman was viciously raped at knifepoint. She narrowly escaped being murdered and her body disposed, perhaps never to be found. In her memoir, One Hour in Paris, Freedman recounted her efforts to heal from this horrifying ordeal. Nearly 25 years have passed since she was raped, but she has yet fully recovered and doubts she ever will. Even after years of therapy, support group meetings, and educating rape survivors in Africa about the effects of trauma, Freedman claimed:
“The biological truth of my trauma is anchored in me, but it lives there like a parasite. And as I move in and out of recovery I am reminded that however much work I do, healing from a traumatic experience is never complete. This is one of the most significant facts about psychological trauma. It is permanent. The psychological damage that results from the experience of terrorizing life events over which we have no control is profound. It sticks around for life. It is a chronic condition, which makes recovery from traumatic events an ongoing process.”
Freedman’s continued struggle is common. Susan J. Brison, also a philosopher and also brutally raped in France as an adult, wrote the following about the lingering impact of her rape:
“People ask me if I’m recovered now, and I reply that it depends on what that means. If they mean, ‘am I back to where I was before the attack’? I have to say, no, and I never will be. I am not the same person who set off, singing, on that sunny Fourth of July in the French countryside. I left her — and her trust, her innocence, her joie de vivre — in a rocky creek bed at the bottom of a ravine. I had to in order to survive. I now have my own understanding of what a friend described to me as a Jewish custom of giving those who have outlived a brush with death new names. The trauma has changed me forever, and if I insist too often that my friends and family acknowledge it, that’s because I’m afraid they don’t know who I am.”
Although I have never been raped as an adult, I was sexually abused as a child. I spent years nostalgically imagining the person I might have been had I not been abused, and went through periods haunted by nightmares and flashbacks that kept me reliving my twisted fate. Still, I consider myself lucky. I have managed to escape sexual revictimization as an adult, which happens with appalling regularity to women with histories like mine.
Yet like Freedman’s and Brison’s rapes, the impact of sexual abuse persists. Sometimes I fail to see the secureness of my present life because of the protracted shadow of fear that is cast by all forms of sexual violence. Something startles me and I am reminded that safety can be eclipsed in a moment. Even now, I am prone to dissociate the felt sense of my body when I am overwhelmed by fear. I learned to escape in my head conditions that were inescapable in my environment. Some habits are near impossible to break.
It has taken me a long time to honor these survival responses and acknowledge that sexual violence is not something I, or anyone else, fully recovers from, although this is not a reason to give up on recovery. Survivors can and do become strong again — sometimes stronger than they ever imagined — and often graced with an awareness of the fragile nature of life that deepens their capacity for compassion.
But the process of healing from sexual violence is slow, painful, and expensive. And because I have worked hard for a peaceful mind and body, I am protective of them. I have a low tolerance of toxic attitudes and behaviors that might upend my recovery. But I am also quick to stand up to injustices that impact others, and I have witnessed this trait in people like myself who are committed to healing their wounds of violence and abuse. Unintentionally, we become warriors of the heart — the would-be Bodhisattvas and protectors of those less fortunate and vulnerable — those we imagine are like we were before we reclaimed our right to dignity and self-preservation, and those we imagine could become victims like we once were.
Not everyone likes the justice-seeking aspect of recovering survivors of sexual violence and other abuses. Anyone who needs to exert power over another, needs someone capable of being a victim. Furthermore, the psychological complexes and interpersonal dynamics that lead to subjugation extend well beyond the predator-prey dynamics of sexual violence.
I once had a supervisor describe my penchant to protect others as a “Joan of Arc” complex. This observation followed after I asked her to stop calling my clients names like “bitch,” “putz,” and “schmuck.” Shortly after my objections, I was removed from my position. Had I avoided the work of recovery, I might have lacked the courage to defend my clients, especially given what I sensed (and heard) about this person’s penchant for bullying. Had I not taken the time to address how sexual violence had led to certain defensive behaviors and beliefs in me, I might have continued my early life habit of silencing my objections to perceived wrongs, since this submissive style of defense had protected me. But it’s no way to live, even if the consequence of standing up to injustice is more injustice. The price of dignity can be great, but the price of submitting to injustice is greater.
In large part, although often unconscious, the commitment to heal is a sustained effort at avoiding becoming a victim again. And the changes we make in our efforts to ensure future safety and integrity also lead to resisting abuses of power in all aspects of our lives.
Knowledge is a powerful way to defend against further subjugation. In One Hour In Paris, Freedman shared an extensive knowledge of PTSD, the history of the DSM, and the treatment of psychological trauma. Obviously, I share her desire to know everything I can about healing. Every textbook I have read on the treatment of trauma has been with double vision: one eye on how to maintain my own recovery, the other eye on how to help others with their’s. Having fallen victim once, some of us arm ourselves with knowledge to fail-safe our recovery, but also to ensure we never fall victim again.
One outcome of this unanticipated expertise is a nuanced understanding of the consequences of unrestrained power that includes knowing how to heal from subjugation and avoid further victimization. This is valuable wisdom, and a largely untapped resource. The wisdom of recovery can enlighten efforts at creating a society centered on safety, respect, and fairness.
Because of the insights gained through recovery, I believe the commitment to heal is a generous act, even though the process means focusing intently on oneself. Individual efforts to heal become the groundwork for equality and respect in relationships, families, communities, work environments, and societies. Healing society really does begin with healing its members.
Granted, as Freedman and Brison shared, even after an extended period of recovery, suffering still happens. No one ever completely gets over being a victim of a sexual predator. Still, with time and effort the reactions can be managed. In the process, the survivor often gains a stronger spirit, greater integrity, and better self-care that together foster a deep caring for others. As Brison also wrote:
“But if recovery means being able to incorporate this awful knowledge into my life and carry on, then, yes, I’m recovered. I don’t wake each day with a start, thinking: ‘this can’t have happened to me!” It happened. I have no guarantee that it won’t happen again, although my self-defense classes have given me the confidence to move about in the world and to go for longer and longer walks—with my two big dogs. Sometimes I even manage to enjoy myself. And I no longer cringe when I see a woman jogging alone on the country road where I live, though I may still have a slight urge to rush out and protect her, to tell her to come inside where she’ll be safe. But I catch myself, like a mother learning to let go, and cheer her on, thinking, may she always be so carefree, so at home in her world. She has every right to be.”
In what follows, I discuss some of the reactions, beliefs, and emotions that interfere with seeking help following sexual violence, and thus getting the process of recovery started. I have found for myself, and for others I have had the honor to support in recovery, that it is difficult to accept the extent of the damage caused by sexual violence. The tendency is to believe that if you can avoid thinking about the rape or abuse, its impact will fade away. Furthermore, shame, no matter how undeserved, keeps women from seeking help. Taking a trauma-informed perspective can help overcome these obstacles to beginning recovery.
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