Why I Can No longer Remain Silent
In 2017 my life changed forever after my oldest daughter was raped on a college campus. Just when I thought that this was the worst blow I would ever suffer as a parent, my younger daughter was also raped while attending a boarding high school the following year.
Before my daughters' assaults, I lived in an upper-middle-class bubble. I used to believe that I could protect my children from everything wrong in the world by virtue of that fact that I had resources, lived in "good neighborhoods" and sent them to "good schools" with equally "good people." I thought that every potential problem could be easily solved by throwing resources at them.
After 2017, I let go of those illusions and falsehoods. Like Neo in "The Matrix," I woke up in the real world, a place where bad things can happen to people that you love and you have to accept your reality as it is —and roll with it. With this veil lifted, I realized that my God had put me here to make some good out of this bad. I was shaken out of my complacency. I was called to action.
I believe that the time has finally come to burn down all of the horrible, old-fashioned ideas that are keeping women at risk for violence induced trauma.
Why Me?
Besides the fact that both of my children have been victims of assault and abuse, I have a few other reasons that compelled me to lend my voice to stop this crisis.
Chief among them is that I am a black woman.
Black women don't often talk about this stuff in public. Even though black women are statistically more likely to experience sexual abuse at some point in our lives than most other ethnic groups, we are taught from a young age to keep it to ourselves. Black women and other women of color are more likely to be abused than any other ethnic group. We often lack the resources to help ourselves and have to hope that other women will speak for us when it comes to these critical issues. It is for these reasons that as a woman of color, I feel I have a duty to speak out and encourage victims of abuse to step forward and seek help. No one should feel they must suffer in silence.
I'm a Mom and a secondary survivor.
I know what it feels like to get that phone call from your child telling you that they have been raped. I see the pain, anger, fear, and disorientation that my children have been forced to live with and work through. I come at this issue with a first-hand understanding of what parents and immediate family or friends need to know to help their loved one.
I am a doctor.
As a health care professional, I want to delve into rape and assault as a trauma vs. an experience or act. There is a lot of incredible scientific and clinical information that is coming out about how the brain responds to trauma. There is an ever-evolving literature on the longer-term psychological, emotional, and physical consequences of this kind of sexual trauma. There are some excellent treatments to support victims. I want to amplify this great work and do my part to help mothers, fathers, and anyone else affected by trauma understand what is happening to their loved one.
I want to focus on BOTH healing and prevention.
I view the prevention and healing of sexual trauma, not too differently from the treatment of a disease. I want to get to the underlying reasons WHY perpetrators harm victims, WHAT we can do to change that behavior and HOW we should help girls and women protect themselves (NOTE: ABUSE/ASSAULT/RAPE IS NEVER THE VICTIM'S FAULT, and we need to teach both physical and psychological defenses to empower women). We, as a society, need to work to provide all of the support and care in our power to help the victim on their healing journey.
I know that not everyone is going to agree with me, my guests, the stats I choose, or a host of other things, and that's alright. If ONE girl or woman or boy or man can reclaim their life after abuse, support someone who has been abused or stops abuse from happening, then it's all been worth it.
Contact me if you (or your organization) are on the front lines of this fight and would like to be interviewed.
