In 2016, Barack Obama signed a Presidential Proclamation establishing National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month (SAAM). In doing so, he wrote, “Too many women and men of all ages suffer the outrage that is sexual assault, and too often, this crime is not condemned as loudly as it should be. Together, we must stand up and speak out to change the culture that questions the actions of victims, rather than those of their attackers.”
In the 35 years that I've been healing from sexual trauma, I've seen a huge change in our country's attitude toward survivors. While people might still ask, “What were you wearing?” the police are far less likely to. From emergency rooms to classrooms, workers, teachers, counselors, and human resources personnel are all on the lookout for signs of sexual harassment and assault. Parents and caregivers learn the signs that show a child might have been sexually traumatized. We learn how to spot a pedophile.
In the 35 years that I've been healing from sexual trauma, I've seen a huge change in our country's attitude toward survivors.
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It might be hard for the younger among you to imagine a society where none of that happened. Welcome to any year prior to the late 1980s or early 1990s — back when we weren't given the dignity of being called survivors. We were victims. Or sluts. Even five-year-olds.: “What was she doing, sitting on his lap?”
She was being five years old.
We can credit a book (yay!) for the seismic societal shift of the late 1980s and early 1990s:
The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. Accurately subtitled "A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse," it is impossible to overstate the international political and sociological impact of
The Courage to Heal. In 1988, few said at any volume, “rape,” “sexual abuse,” or — God forbid — “incest.”
With Old Testament fervor,
The Courage to Heal rent asunder denial and trivialization. Survivors stomped into the 1990s in a pair of Riot Grrrl boots, refusing to keep at bay any longer memories that could, if not released, lead to suicide, battery relationships, overdoses, and diseases related to overeating.
I read
The Courage to Heal as I sat on the grass in my favorite park in Tokyo, Ki-chi-jo-ji, sat in the weak sun that was stealing looks through the cherry blossoms.
The Courage to Heal is a doorstop, a quarter-inch thick with close to 500 pages — and big pages at that.
I read The Courage to Heal as I sat on the grass in my favorite park in Tokyo, Ki-chi-jo-ji, sat in the weak sun that was stealing looks through the cherry blossoms.
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There on the grass, I plowed through it. Was it on that day that I began my path toward writing
As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back? At that point, I'd barely written anything longer than a letter. Nevertheless, I must have internalized the words:
... it is possible to heal. It is even possible to thrive. Thriving means more than just an alleviation of symptoms, more than Band-Aids, more than functioning adequately. Thriving means enjoying a feeling of wholeness, satisfaction in your life and work, genuine love and trust in your relationships, pleasure in your body.
I know that those words sank into my bones because when, years later, I finally did set about writing
As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back, I knew that Bass and Davis's promise would drive the recovery path my main character, Carlie, would take.
At the time I started writing, I was moving past “functioning adequately.” I did not yet have a partner — goodness! I didn't have a date! I had a job I hated, that paid me crap, yet I was healing. In fact, I was on my way to thriving. I tasted that freedom. It bounced against my teeth, my need for wholeness: satisfying work, loving relationships as full of healthy and mutual reliance as they were human. And pleasure. One of the most empowering things survivors can do is to reclaim their sexuality. That element had to be a part of
As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. It had to, though I had not, yet.
It bounced against my teeth, my need for wholeness: satisfying work, loving relationships as full of healthy and mutual reliance as they were human.
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Most adult survivors shut down, sexually. Survivors who suffered childhood trauma can shut down, or they can become hyper-sexual; often, we flip between the two. When I did meet the man I would eventually marry, I was immediately struck by his ability to be masculine without being macho — a great improvement over my usual suspect, the guy at the party with the long hair, a joint hanging out of his mouth, and I will ruin your life written all over him. Instead, my now-husband and I went as slowly as I needed to, in order to feel safe. There was a lot of wonderful, soft kissing and touching. Refreshingly carnal. I learned to say, “Not yet,” and also to initiate.
Through Carlie's story, I desperately needed to convey that a healthy, deeply relished sexuality is the right of every survivor. That critical element of a joy-filled life was ripped from us. We deserve to have it back.
I couldn't have taken that step without all the people I will never know. Those on the front lines, directly assisting survivors. Those running nonprofits that assist with planning and raise money for programs. Still others who donate that money.
I am not that person. Kindly put, we writers are not often the most natural of caretakers. Rather than feel like a selfish idiot, I chose to regard myself as someone whose purpose was to bring a healing message into the world through a novel.
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Alle C. Hall is a Seattle writer and the author of
As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back.