SarahRW

"Triggering" The gang rape at Richmond High School

Posted on 10/29/09, 09:44 am

Okay, so I'm not going to post the entire story. It's on CNN.com if you need to see it.

This is really bothering me. People keep talking about it and offering their two cents and I just want to scream. I can't handle hearing about this story anymore. I can't stand people saying what they think happened or should have happened when they have no idea whatsoever what it's like.

I had an anxiety attack about this yesterday. My friends wouldn't stop talking about it. I asked them to stop talking about it and they'd try and then it would come up again. My face got so red, my pulse was going fast. This is upsetting me so much. It's like I can't control my emotions right now at all. I feel so open and vulnerable right now.

I'm mostly sick of people saying "that's just what people (the bystanders) do in these type of settings and circumstances" to explain why they did nothing. Even if it's true I just don't want to hear it anymore.

Sorry for my vent.

• Reply #1 10/29/09  10:32am
  
  Catroot
  I read about it on Care2 the comments were mostly sane. But when I watched the news coverage on ABC I got kinda sick ... not only about the crime but the way the announcers were talking. So I won't watch coverage and I find I have to be careful reading comments because unless I am able and willing to write my own piece it's awful to hear such ignorance ... anyone of those bystanders could have broke away and contacted police or someone who could contact police for them.
• Reply #2 10/29/09  6:48pm
  
  BetterVersi...
  This makes me just physically ill. I can't believe its not illegal to be a spectator to a rape.
  
  I want to know why, in the 2 1/2 hours that the rape was taking place, that NO ONE from the school dance happened to wander outside to make sure things were okay. WTF? Its a school dance for God's sake...the school district/chaperones should be ashamed of themselves. And the fact that, in Richmond, there are no security cameras on the school's campus at all?
  
  So many things are wrong wtih the entire scenerio, my heart is broken for that girl.
• Reply #3 10/29/09  7:16pm
  
  EmpoweredOKC
  I am working on an op-ed about this.
• Reply #4 10/29/09  11:33pm
  
  scubagirl1
  If someone told me about this, I would be convinced that I would have to investigate further, cause there would have to be misinformation somewhere cause theres no way 10-20 people could stand by and watch an innocent girl get violated in such a way that would be just short of murder. But then I thought about it some more, and tragically, this might actually be an accurate representation of what might not only go down in CA, but in other places also.
  
  This is my reasoning. I recently shared in a journal that I told a very good friend of mine about my rape. I was prepared for every reaction in the book from her except for the one I got, "me too." Not only was she raped by an unknown man on a beach, but she was molested by a stepbrother. I was instantly angered that I had been longing to have someone to talk to in person who would understand, but I didn't want it to be a close friend. And I have been friends with her for so long and didn't know, how many others are there? If we know the statistics are SO under-reported and try to provide accurate statistics that way, then I really think you need to consider those new adjusted statistics underreported also. So, how many victims does that equal? For every victim you have at least one perpetrator. A criminal of a sorts that commits a crime that is just short of homicide, equally as damaging as terrorism acts, and by the very nature of the crime, allows a victim to be emotionally/physically torn to pieces right in front of them, by their very own hands. And there are enough of these people around that we know personally they exist or we know of people who have had the misfortune of meeting them. Point being, sick, SICK people.
  
  And then people say, don't worry, it won't happen again. Or they victim blame. I guess my point is that it is terrifying that there are so many people exist who can stand by and watch this. Have we become so desensitized as a nation that this doesn't bother us to watch, or are there that many sick people out there who are willing to commit acts that are deemed by the UN as terrorism? Just so many...
  
  Maybe this isn't the most appropriate forum for this, but it floors me that this is even possible. I hope I don't sound paranoid or like I'm exhaggerating anything, but I really don't understand how this happened or how so many people in one place can have the same mindset of not taking any action, almost like it is the norm. Like I said, I dont mean to be doom and gloom, but its things like this that I want to throw back into peoples face when they challenge me about SA being "everywhere".
  
  
• Reply #5 10/30/09  1:39am
  
  EmpoweredOKC
  This is not my op-ed, this is just my rant about some personal reactions of mine to this situation. My experience has been that rape victims are often particularly troubled by the actions of bystanders, feeling a sense of personal betrayal at the failure of help that could have come. And when bystanders actually promote the violence through cheers and laughter, the betrayal trauma is unfathomable. Having never been a rape victim, I am not exactly sure why the bystander aspect of this churns up such intense feelings for me, but I find myself harboring very strong emotions about their role. I used to do rape prevention programs in schools that focused on the role of bystanders (see http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/... and http://www.know-your-power.org/pre...).
  
  I can't imagine what the victim must feel toward those who knew she was being attacked and harmed, and yet remained at best passive and impotently silent, and at worse permissive. This becomes a crucial stuck point in betrayal trauma--to be attacked and abused by a group with power is one thing (abusers do what abusers do), but to have peers, including persons once known as friends, remain as bystanders is a betrayal that exceeds cruelty. These friends cannot feign that they didn't know what was happening--they were there, they knew. They cannot claim they were helpless, because tolerance of abuse PROMOTES abuse ("all that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," said Tolstoy in "War and Peace"). Let's look at this aspect from two positions.
  
  From the position of the bystander:
  
  How will they resolve their inaction in their own minds? For the rest of their lives, they are the "friends and peers who did not help." They did not even report this, refusing to do the merest act of help: speaking up. How will they cope with this? Will they feebly ask for forgiveness? Not likely. More like, they will convince themselves that they did nothing wrong, and shove the memory away and refuse to process it. They will compress it into a warped chimera of mutated values, somehow concluding that the course of friendship led them to the decision to step back, know who is being hurt, and yet fail her. What parts of their life's truth will they have to ignore simply to pray? What truth will they have to ignore to convince themselves, in future years that they stand for something--anything!--decent? How will they persuade themselves that they are achieving good in this derelict world, knowing that they chose to tuck courage and morality into their purses, log off their souls, and stand there, transfixed in the comfort of inaction? If our character is defined by the choices we make, what self-delusions will they have to generate to drown out the hurricane floodwaters of their guilt? The violence would have happened anyway, but they could have impacted the situation with ANY intervention, ANY effort. At least the wounded, humiliated victim would be able to carry the truth with her, during her healing, that she had not been abandoned, that there were those who saw and tried, that someone--SOMEONE--saw her as worthy of their effort. She cannot even carry that flicker of truth into her next life as a wounded person now.
  
  From the victim's position:
  
  What on earth can she possibly say? Perhaps by some miracle of human compassion, spiritual depth, and deeply-buried remnant of divinity still living within her, she could say, "I forgive you." But to whom would she say it? Will these bystanders ever face her and accept the agonizing moment of real-life, in-person encounter with the survivor of their own choices? Or will they simply assume she has moved on, is fine, and rob her of her rightful moment of confrontation? Perhaps she can forgive. I hope that someday, in whatever form she needs, she will be able to drain the poison of this pain from herself, and leave it spattered behind her as she journeys on.
  
  Certainly she is entitled to say much more. But what words even exist to explain to them what their choices meant? Our language does not even come close to offering us the scream and sadness that she needs to express, and I challenge anyone here to attempt it. How could you? How could you know that I was hurt, know that I was innocent and yet attacked so viciously, bringing to an end everything in my life to that moment, changing forever the mind, body, and spirit I will live with from that day on, and do nothing? What am I to you? Do you think I am so tough, or perhaps so guilty, that my life can take this kind of tragedy, and that I wouldn't need help? Your peace is broken. Perhaps you can find a way to restore our place with one another as co-equal inhabitants of this world, but I cannot imagine how you will achieve it. You had no role to play in my struggle, so you have no role to play in my healing. But you do have a burden to carry from this day on, and you will have to consider it every time you see the news, every time you hear the word "rape" for the rest of your life. Every time you catch yourself claiming to be Godly, or good, or even happy, you will have to suppress a flicker of truth's memories. You will not be able to drink them out of you, or deny them out of you, but I hope and pray that I will learn to heal and make my way out of my memories and my pain, because you deserve your memories. I do not deserve mine. Somehow, I have to believe there are people in this world who will not fail each other, will not betray, will not watch suffering happen. There have to be better people in this world, and I am going to reach them. Who will you reach?
  
  These are purely fictional words, of course, because nobody can project themselves onto her or ascertain what her real feelings are. Perhaps they are just "F--- you." Perhaps they are nothing more than the single indictment, "why?" But it is good to let ourselves feel our outrage in her behalf, even if just to remind ourselves which side of choice we are on. We draw our line in the world by those choices.
  
  
• Reply #6 10/30/09  2:25am
  
  scubagirl1
  Exactly. I never realized it before I started with my psychologist, but I assumed for so many years that no one else in the house knew what was going on. After I told him exactly what happened, he told me that they knew. I considered his and told him I thought maybe he was right. He looked me strait in the eye and said, "Devin, they knew."
  
  It stings. It stings a lot when you realize that all you needed someone to do was to pick up a phone, dial 911 and walk away. Or to knock on the door, or dare I say it, challenge a rapist! It was so painful to think that someone could betray you in a way that I didn't even go there in my mind, however I did write about how I was upset she never helped. I guess I always knew on some level.
  
  Thanks for posting that Matt. I didn't realize that it was such a normal stuck point for people to feel so strongly about those who passed by instead of helping (or doing ANYTHING). All my emotions have always been focused on the attacker himself, rather than anyone else. I still glaze over that.
  
  I hope she can find the peace you so eloquently spoke of and I hope she can find forgiveness towards onlookers so she can heal herself. In her case, I'm sure she feels like she was gang raped by 25 people. Talk about the world turning its back on you :(
• Reply #7 10/30/09  4:46am
  
  BetterVersi...
  I want to add to this but its going to take me some time...I want to organize my thoughts, my emotions.
• Reply #8 10/30/09  10:21am
  
  StarbuckDif...
  What happened has sickened me, too. Bless your heart! I wonder how many out there are being triggered by this being all over the news. They probably can't watch the news at all these days. But it is another matter if your friends won't give it a rest--hard to avoid your friends! And the problem is, society needs to NOT give this a rest....we need to understand what it is about our culture that creates 10 boys who will rape a 15 year old outdoors in public for over 2 hours, and what creates 20 spectators who will cheer it on and not even anonymously call for help. As a nation, we need to diagnose this and fix it, or it will happen again and again and again.
  
  But yeah, the coverage has been horrifying and stomach-turning, and while the whole thing is an outrage, it is a lot for survivors to take in. I guess the best we can do is to get angry about it, be outraged about it, and then use that anger constructively. ...that is, if you are able. If you are not, then turn off the TV and take good care of yourself FIRST!
• Reply #9 10/30/09  12:02pm
  
  Exit109
  The whole ordeal that poor girl went through is beyond my comprehension; I can't think about it too long. The ache in my heart for her, her family and friends is so deep that it causes me physical pain. I am however glad that it is getting coverage; the nation should be appalled, outraged and angered.
  
  The flip side of that is the commentary of victim blaming. How is that even possible??? I can no longer read my local paper online due to imbeciles leaving their opinions. They re so filled with misinformation propaganda, baseless judgments and frankly hatred. I believe its the anonymity of the internet that allows people the ability to be cruel without consequence. I wonder what has happened to compassion.
• Reply #10 10/30/09  5:45pm
  
  butterfly9
  I was trying to think of something to write, but this whole is so very troubling. I am not sure what to say. I agree with so much that people have written.
  
  Maybe, I can say more later.

Discussion, question-and-answer, general social support, and journal processing for progress-oriented rape survivors. No crisis, no damaging or triggering conflicts--this is for individuals who want to contribute to collective, cooperative action toward the goal of making actual PROGRESS through rape trauma. Much of this work is based on the book "Resurrection After Rape." Diversity of topics is expected and encouraged!