Anonymous
I am a Certified Rape Crisis Advocate for Valley Trauma Center, and I have been volunteering there for the past two years. It has been an enlightening and educating experience to be a healing part of an otherwise devastating and taboo experience for survivors of rape.
After a distant relative of mine came out with her traumatic experience a couple of years ago, I gave it a lot of thought and decided to do my part in serving my community. Being her only confidant in the process, I quickly realized how significant my role was in her search for help, so I volunteered at a center. I was reluctant in the beginning to sign up at the center since I was young, inexperienced, and felt underqualified. A year went by and I transitioned from adolescence to young womanhood.
I felt that it was time for me to grow and expand my realm of adulthood. I quickly realized that my ear was all that survivors needed. I trained myself to use my biggest asset, my ears, to listen and help heal wounded souls that would call or visit the center.
Most of my day is comprised of answering phone calls. This enlightening experience of the last two years has created awareness in me that I pass along to my friends and coworkers. This comes to me very naturally, and I am always in search of ways to advocate awareness and prevention methods. We consciously make an effort to call all individuals survivors rather than victims at the center, since the word victim has such a negative connotation to it.
I received a particular call last summer that I will never be able to forget. This caller woke up in a hotel room in Las Vegas with beer bottles and used condoms next to her bed.
Not remembering anything from the night before, she realized that she had come to Las Vegas with somebody she was dating who after raping and sodomizing her, left her stranded in Las Vegas with nothing more than the pain and bruises and the bitter taste of booze. She received a substantial bill since the guy charged it all on her credit card. Checking the bill, she also realized that a camera was purchased, and she was photographed. As I received this particular call, I couldn’t help but to imagine the pain felt by this survivor. She was distraught in a way I had never seen before.
Unable to calm her down at first, I realized she had methodically planned out ways of ending her life. In the conversations I had with her, she clearly explained how she no longer felt desire for men and how she wanted to take her life. She didn’t believe she was worth living after experiencing such a traumatic event.
The most basic human yearning is for freedom. “Every two minutes someone is raped in the Unites States.” Victims of rape experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for years to come because their entire feeling of freedom is taken away, leaving them humiliated for life. Victims of rape cannot be classified by specific characteristics; they are all around us.
It is considered rape when someone is sexually taken advantage of against their conscious will. The use of this terminology seems to undermine the severity of the crime itself.
The sexual revolution of the past 50 years has left many unanswered questions in determining whether an act is a conscious perversion or the far reaching act of rape. Rape happens amongst family members, coworkers, partners, inmates, and even complete strangers. It has no boundaries.
The pandemic of rape is incredibly overlooked and avoided by the general public. It is taboo and under invested by all parts of society to a major extent, and you discover this only when you actively get involved in a rape survivor help center.
For young women, taking extreme measures of precaution in the beginning encounters with men, should be emphasized and advocated to prevent cases like this and others. Much like the old saying goes, “You can never be too careful” to prevent such devastating experiences.
Rape Crisis Hotline
San Fernando Valley (818) 886-0453
Santa Clarita Valley (661) 253-0258
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