Like many this evening, I have been moved to tears by Michelle Thompson speaking in Parliament of her experience of rape. I have been inspired by her to speak out about my own experience and to encourage others to do the same, because here’s the thing – there’s nothing extraordinary about her experience or mine. Sexual assault is an everyday occurrence.
I have been struck by the similarities between Michelle Thompson's experience and mine. The basic facts may vary, but the impact of the event was almost identical. She was 14, I was 10. She was raped by a person she trusted, I was attacked by a stranger. The technical term for what happened to me is ‘sexual assault’ as penetration didn’t take place, but that term does not convey the force of what happened to me – still a child, I was dragged to the ground by a grown man who forced my face into the dirt, slapped and bit me while he tore off my underwear and ejaculated on top of me.
And just like Michelle, I didn’t tell my mother; I didn’t tell the police. I didn’t tell anyone for years. How could I? I didn’t know the words for what had happened to me, and anyway, surely I was to blame? I was in the woods, on my own. My parents had left my brother and I in the care of an older brother. Both boys were engrossed in a game that bored me, and I wandered off to the woods on my own. It was my fault. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Years later my mother told me what a difficult child I had been in the years that followed, although she had no idea why. It seems I was rebellious, often in tears, throwing tantrums, never happy. She took me to the doctor who prescribed diazepam. All I can recall of those years was a sense of emptiness and a fear of not belonging - of pressing my cold nose against an impenetrable glass bubble, watching my family separated from me inside a sphere of warmth and happiness. Happiness was not for me. I was to blame.
I first told a friend when I was eighteen, mentioning the incident in passing and making light of it. Sexual assault, after all, happens to one in five women in the UK. I knew by then what had happened, and I knew it wasn’t that unusual. It should have been a relief to have it out in the open, but her matter of fact response just encouraged me to bury it deeper. Added to the shame of the actual experience was my shame of making too much of it.
During a period of depression in my early thirties, I told another friend; for the first time opening up to someone else about the impact of the experience and the gross detail. She encouraged me to go for counselling. Being a Christian at the time, it was natural for me to seek counselling within the Christian community. I was put in touch with a married couple and spent a strange evening with them. I have no idea whether these people were trained in counselling, but I doubt it. They placed a heavy emphasis on anointing with oil. They both prayed over me while the man stood behind me, holding my head rather too firmly and heaving great sighs as though I was an immense and intractable problem. They said I needed to heal myself by forgiving my attacker, which was odd, because I had never felt any anger towards him – even as a child I felt he deserved some pity. The couple told me any psychological harm was caused by my lack of faith and forgiveness. There was a lot of praying over my ‘rebellious spirit’, which was rather odd as I had sat docile for two hours with cold olive oil trickling down my neck while the old man breathed heavily over me.
Amazingly, the counselling session worked, though not in the way intended. In the weeks that followed I was filled with rage, a red hot, scalding rage. Out of the rage came healing. I refused any longer to blame myself. It would take years for me to work this fully through, to identify the enemy and get the culprit fully in my sights. For it was not the man who attacked me, nor my negligent older brother, nor my preoccupied parents who were to blame. The enemy was, and still is, misogyny. Misogyny as the casual, socially accepted prism through which women are viewed as inferior, hated objects, bent on teasing and frustrating men’s desires. Misogyny that imprisons men as much as it does women. Misogyny that cleverly conceals itself within our civil structures so that we sometimes blame them, rather than call it out for what it is.
Misogyny is about power, and its most potent weapon is shame. We experience shame when we not only believe that what we did was wrong, but also believe that we ourselves are no longer worthy of love and belonging. That is why I am glad to speak out about my experience, because shame’s greatest enemy is light of day.
Why tell these dirty secrets? Why embarrass others by mentioning those grubby moments? Why wallow in the shame? ‘Shame is the swampland of the soul,’ according to Jung. Surely we should steer well clear of it? Best to pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m relieved to say that eventually I gave up that approach, pulled on my wellies and waded right in - not so I could wallow in it forever, but so I could walk through it and come out the other side[1].
[1] I’m indebted to Brené Brown for this metaphor, only she talks about pulling on her galoshes and I have no idea what they are.
I have been struck by the similarities between Michelle Thompson's experience and mine. The basic facts may vary, but the impact of the event was almost identical. She was 14, I was 10. She was raped by a person she trusted, I was attacked by a stranger. The technical term for what happened to me is ‘sexual assault’ as penetration didn’t take place, but that term does not convey the force of what happened to me – still a child, I was dragged to the ground by a grown man who forced my face into the dirt, slapped and bit me while he tore off my underwear and ejaculated on top of me.
And just like Michelle, I didn’t tell my mother; I didn’t tell the police. I didn’t tell anyone for years. How could I? I didn’t know the words for what had happened to me, and anyway, surely I was to blame? I was in the woods, on my own. My parents had left my brother and I in the care of an older brother. Both boys were engrossed in a game that bored me, and I wandered off to the woods on my own. It was my fault. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Years later my mother told me what a difficult child I had been in the years that followed, although she had no idea why. It seems I was rebellious, often in tears, throwing tantrums, never happy. She took me to the doctor who prescribed diazepam. All I can recall of those years was a sense of emptiness and a fear of not belonging - of pressing my cold nose against an impenetrable glass bubble, watching my family separated from me inside a sphere of warmth and happiness. Happiness was not for me. I was to blame.
I first told a friend when I was eighteen, mentioning the incident in passing and making light of it. Sexual assault, after all, happens to one in five women in the UK. I knew by then what had happened, and I knew it wasn’t that unusual. It should have been a relief to have it out in the open, but her matter of fact response just encouraged me to bury it deeper. Added to the shame of the actual experience was my shame of making too much of it.
During a period of depression in my early thirties, I told another friend; for the first time opening up to someone else about the impact of the experience and the gross detail. She encouraged me to go for counselling. Being a Christian at the time, it was natural for me to seek counselling within the Christian community. I was put in touch with a married couple and spent a strange evening with them. I have no idea whether these people were trained in counselling, but I doubt it. They placed a heavy emphasis on anointing with oil. They both prayed over me while the man stood behind me, holding my head rather too firmly and heaving great sighs as though I was an immense and intractable problem. They said I needed to heal myself by forgiving my attacker, which was odd, because I had never felt any anger towards him – even as a child I felt he deserved some pity. The couple told me any psychological harm was caused by my lack of faith and forgiveness. There was a lot of praying over my ‘rebellious spirit’, which was rather odd as I had sat docile for two hours with cold olive oil trickling down my neck while the old man breathed heavily over me.
Amazingly, the counselling session worked, though not in the way intended. In the weeks that followed I was filled with rage, a red hot, scalding rage. Out of the rage came healing. I refused any longer to blame myself. It would take years for me to work this fully through, to identify the enemy and get the culprit fully in my sights. For it was not the man who attacked me, nor my negligent older brother, nor my preoccupied parents who were to blame. The enemy was, and still is, misogyny. Misogyny as the casual, socially accepted prism through which women are viewed as inferior, hated objects, bent on teasing and frustrating men’s desires. Misogyny that imprisons men as much as it does women. Misogyny that cleverly conceals itself within our civil structures so that we sometimes blame them, rather than call it out for what it is.
Misogyny is about power, and its most potent weapon is shame. We experience shame when we not only believe that what we did was wrong, but also believe that we ourselves are no longer worthy of love and belonging. That is why I am glad to speak out about my experience, because shame’s greatest enemy is light of day.
Why tell these dirty secrets? Why embarrass others by mentioning those grubby moments? Why wallow in the shame? ‘Shame is the swampland of the soul,’ according to Jung. Surely we should steer well clear of it? Best to pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m relieved to say that eventually I gave up that approach, pulled on my wellies and waded right in - not so I could wallow in it forever, but so I could walk through it and come out the other side[1].
[1] I’m indebted to Brené Brown for this metaphor, only she talks about pulling on her galoshes and I have no idea what they are.