Survivors

As the Penn State sexual abuse scandal unfolds into an abhorrent nightmare, I am aware of a primitive terror emerging once again from deep within me. There is no escaping the graphic and atrocious details of countless assaults by a monster who shattered innocent lives. I sit alone on my bed. The shades are drawn in my pitch black room. It starts again. I instinctively recoil and suppress a wave of revulsion. Long buried images tumble out from the flimsy niche I had carved out as a young child. I catch flashes of swirling smoke and smutty fingertips. The images speed ahead like a slideshow timed to the thrashing of my restless heart. Cigarettes and putrefying crooked teeth. Dimmed lights and a worn bible on the floor, while shadows on the wall perform a vile act witnessed only by two. Long brown hair falls in turbulent waves over the edge of a rickety bed. I catch my breath; icy fingers fly up to silence my quivering lips. I squeeze my eyes shut. The nausea propels me forward to the bathroom where I fall on my knees and cradle the toilet bowl with two shaking hands. I heave. His nicotine tinged odor wafts over from a past that follows me around no matter how far I go. No matter how far I’ve come. Nothing comes up as I wretch and gag and catch my ashen reflection on the mirror reflecting back a little girl who has never really grown up. I continue to lurch in supplication, pleading with my body to expel every last bit of venom he left inside. I’m frantic, practically shoving my fingers down my throat and tearing my tender nerves in the process. But nothing comes up. I stop and look in the mirror, tears streaming down my terror-stricken face. My heart feels like it’s about to explode and smear the mirror, which I polished only hours before, with a red, sticky substance that might never come off. I know what’s happening. It’s just a flashback, a voice squeals from somewhere within. I pant and squeeze the rim with all my might. The moment will pass, but the memory won’t. Victims never forget. I remember my breathing exercises and rise up on two quivering legs as I stumble over to the sink. The cold splashes of water shock me at first but start to bring me back to the present.

Who are the victims? Who are the victims that remain faceless, nameless and silent until speaking becomes necessary for survival and healing? I wonder what they’re feeling. The boys who were savagely stripped of their innocence. What strategies are they invoking in order to deal with the media circus? How have they been able to get up every day from the moment they were first violated and brutalized? What did they think of the rioting? Have they contemplated taking their lives? Do they ever laugh? Do they know what happiness feels like? Can they forgot for just one moment what happened to them or do they relive with every waking second the horrors they were subjected to by a man beyond sick and evil? I try not to obsess over the boys who were raped. The boys who are now young men.

It has been estimated that 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls are victimized in one way or another before reaching 18. Surely the estimates must be generous. If the victims are coerced into abiding by a code of silence, how do we know with certainty how many victims are among us? They could be your neighbors. Your friends. Your boyfriend or girlfriend. Your lover or enemy. The barista who prepares your latte every morning at 8:45 before you board the train that will take you to work. Or the checkout lady from your neighborhood grocery store who always smiles at you no matter how busy it gets. Who are these boys and girls? What do they do after surviving such a devastating trauma? Do their dreams shatter in an instant and their entire lives afterwards are nothing more than a struggle to understand something that has no meaning? Are they broken, doomed to find ways, both healthy and unhealthy, to repair wounds that might never fully heal? How many times do they cry and curse the world around them? Or do they keep it all bottled up inside, a seething rage that burns and sizzles as the years drag on and the memory never fades?

I lay in bed with my knees pressed to my chest and a thick blanket pulled up to my chin. Fiona sings to me in the background. She is one of the girls. Her words are like therapy for all the other victims who relate to her pain and ordeal. And as she serenades me with her stirring melodies, I realize there’s a part of me that wasn’t touched or harmed by him. The part of me that creates and strives to share my story with the rest of humanity. She is no longer a victim- she’s a strong, lovely survivor who forged something beautiful out of something so completely horrible. Those boys who are now young men are survivors. And while society might look upon them as victims, I know they are fighters. They have a long and arduous road ahead of them on their way to recovery from deeply traumatic events. Some of them might give up on the journey, but I sincerely hope they hold on and share their stories with other victims who can become survivors.