I’ve never been sexually assaulted, but I have been physically assaulted. Five years ago my brother and I got into an argument that ended in my being thrown violently across the kitchen and slamming into the cabinetry. I was left with a bruise and abrasion on my back, defensive bruises on my wrists. I was 22; he was 19. I told my parents. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t. I never told the police. It’s taken me years to tell friends. I never told any other family. Here’s why.
My Story:
You finally understand why people don’t tell when something like this happens to them. It’s about power. It’s always about power. And that’s what the people who are supposed to help you don’t appreciate.
You were assaulted. Legally, you were assaulted. You could have called the police and had your brother arrested. But somehow, the thought never even occurred to you. Mostly what occurred to you was to haul-ass out of that house before something even worse happened. Something even worse—
The only people you thought to tell were your parents. And you did; you told them. And they didn’t understand. They didn’t stand up for you.
They told you that what happened to you shouldn’t have happened to you, but that you had to get over it. They told you that you would have to be in the same room as him because they weren’t going to bar him. For an entire year, they told you that they didn’t understand why this continued to be an issue, as you checked your back daily to see if at least your body had healed yet.
After all of their “support,” there are multiple occasions on which you wish you had never said a word.
When you are assaulted, somebody has done their damnedest to take power over you and to take power over your body. It feels as if the only power that you have left is whether or not you are going to tell anybody about what happened.
And if you tell them? If you tell them, it feels as if you are giving away the tiniest bit of that power to them. You are taking your thoughts and feelings and opinions about what happened and telling somebody else—and then they get to decide how much your story is worth. They have the power to determine what merit your story has.
Sometimes they deem you worthy. But sometimes? Sometimes they don’t.
You aren’t good enough.You. What happened to you. Your story isn’t good enough.
So sometimes it feels safer to keep that little bit of power left for yourself, to just tuck it deep inside and save it for a rainy day.
Then at least there’s nobody saying you need to apologize for what they’ve done.
