I was raped when I was college age on the streets of the city in which I first went to college. I have written about that experience a couple of times in the years since.
Why tell such a personal story?
In the case of Alice Sebold, author of the bestselling novel The Lovely Bones, telling her rape story in the nonfiction book, Lucky, seemed to be a way to deal with the brutality of the attack, her frustration with the difficulty in bringing her rapist to justice, and the anguish caused by people around her who could not possibly understand what she was feeling — who, indeed, suggested to her that she was “lucky” her attacker had not killed her.
I did not suffer deep psychic wounds as a result of my rape the way Sebold did, and it wasn’t hard for me to talk about it the way it is for many victims. Telling my story may have been a way of dealing with the assault, but I think I mostly wanted other rape victims to know they weren’t alone.
Sometimes rape stories are told by surrogates who stand in for victims who are no longer able to tell their own stories. I happened to notice that Andrea Cooper, the mother of a victim, is speaking soon at my former university. Her daughter, Kristin, cannot tell her own story because she killed herself after she was raped. From the Web site, Kristin’s Story:
Kristin’s Story is a mother’s tale of her daughter’s rape and subsequent suicide. A vibrant 20-year-old…, Kristin committed suicide shortly after she was raped by a friend in 1995. Her … mother Andrea Cooper made the difficult decision to share her daughter’s tragedy with college students all over the nation.
Cooper explains her reason for telling her daughter’s story:
“I am sharing this because I hope by telling Kristin’s story that other lives will be saved, and other young women will not be victims of acquaintance rape, and that those suffering from depression, for ANY reason, will get help,” Andrea explains.
We tell stories as personal as a rape experience to bring about change — to change people’s attitudes, the change young women’s fears, to change their reluctance to seek out the counseling that might prevent them from doing what Kristin did. As the site goes on to say:
Here’s the conclusion of a story of how Cooper’s work has helped one young rape victim:
I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such an amazing influence on my life. Honestly, if it weren’t for you, I probably would have kept it all to myself and slipped into a great depression. I’m sure I am not the only girl whose life you’ve saved, and I truly hope you take comfort in knowing that.