Disclaimer: The following article contains graphic accounts of sexual violence. Read at your own discretion.
Evalaurene is the founder of Black On Black Education, an online platform bringing Black educators, experts and thinkers together to increase learning in the black community.
We often remind people of the importance of learning, but forget the need to unlearn that which holds us back. In some ways, I have lived a hard life, but one that I can be proud of. I have seen anger, pain, and heartache. Without learning how to unlearn, the negative behaviors that have been ingrained in me would remain. The following opinion piece was written a little less than a year ago. It offers a glimpse into my unlearning process and how I’ve grown into a survivor. I am strong enough to write this piece and free enough to share it with the world.
He caressed her lower back in a way that was all too familiar. With every sweep of his finger, I felt shivers swimming down my spine. Fear overwhelmed me. I feared for her. I feared his touch would leave her with the same insecurity that still, years later, lives within me. I feared he would make her play doctor, just as he made me years before.
The cameras have stopped rolling, and the headlines have moved on, but as a sexual assault survivor, the pain associated with the appointment of Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh remains. Disclosure is often the hardest part for men and women who have been victims of this sort of violence.
My story, like Dr. Christine Ford’s, comes with torment, hesitation, self-doubt, and self-hatred. I didn’t want to tell my story, and still to this day, I don’t know if I would have until I saw him pruning a young girl I love. There he was, laughing and showing her videos. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if that little girl had to face his abuse. I didn’t want her to constantly fear what lurked in the dark, or re-learn how to trust any man trying to love her.
I can see how Dr. Ford grappled with the decision to tell anyone what happened to her, but when she saw the man who she says attacked her nominated to sit on the highest court of the land, I believe her when she says the memories all came rushing back.
When I look back at my younger self, I realize my stepbrother touching me is one of my first and most vivid memories, and every day, I wish I could erase them. The tears in my father’s eyes, the anger and shame on my mother’s face as I was forced to recount those fresh memories of what he did over and over, stain my memory. I was forced to tell strangers how he asked me to play “doctor”, not knowing what that meant and how he promised to put his hands in my pants to make me “feel good” if I did it to him first. I had to tell them how he forced himself into my mouth and how he used the red bottle of Lubriderm lotion to help ease the pain as he stuck himself into me from behind.
The stories go on and on throughout the years. I was victimized, and still, I feel like no one is listening.
My attacker was young, charming, smart, and handsome, but does that mean his abuse deserves a pass? In many ways, this is the characterization we all heard of a young Kavanaugh, and some are using that to excuse his alleged behavior.
When I finally did disclose my assault, lawyers and detectives said that “there was no evidence,” and “it was years ago.” As I sat in an uncomfortable chair, they stared at me, and then the question dropped like a hammer– “how could you be sure?” Just as Dr. Ford said, when she was asked such questions, I too, am 100 percent certain. Unlike Dr. Ford, however, I received “justice” by coming forward. My abuser sat in prison for five years and remains on the sex offenders’ registry. His sentence doesn’t erase the burden I continue to carry as a sexual assault survivor. His time in prison can’t return my innocence.
Survivors have an incredibly difficult burden to carry when it comes to disclosing. And today, eight years later, as I type these words, tears fall onto the keys, again recounting the horrible things that were done to me, many times before my eleventh birthday.
I share my story from the comfort of my bed, Dr. Ford had to do it in front of the world. Women and men like me have been repeatedly silenced, and the United States Senate chose to silence us again with this decision. I, like so many others out there are still begging to understand. Why? Why choose to save the honor of a man rather than sustain a victim of sexual violence. Why?
Reading this again, almost a year later, my eyes swell with tears. I realize how much I’ve grown. The little girl depicted in this story is and will always be a part of me. She is a part that I will always need, but one I had to learn to control. I had to step out of the pain that was done to me and decide I was enough, and I was so much more than a scared little girl. I had to step into my power and decide it was time to shed what held me back from becoming the person I want to be
We are often told that we have to learn to get better, but those negative habits acquired from our trauma must be unlearned.