I’m usually writing about leading.
Today I’m leading by writing.
The shame of sexual assault belongs to the aggressor but lands on the victim. I know this because the shame of sexual assault landed on me when I was 5 years old. It remained there for decades.
In my 40s I discovered the true owner was the person who assaulted me. I thought this discovery might help others and decided this is the moment to share my story. It illustrates how the shame of sexual assault lands on victims, and how to exorcise this shame that doesn’t belong to you in the first place.
First, I want to assure you that I’m fine and my mother’s response taught me to stand up for myself. I was among the lucky ones. Second, I’m not going to share details of what happened. While I don’t recall feeling traumatized, my memories of the event have all the markings of trauma – images, physical sensations and exact words.
How the Shame of Sexual Assault Landed on Me
A teenage boy who lived next door molested me. I was five years old. Our mothers were good friends. His sister was my best friend. He was supposed to take care of us.
I didn’t know anything about sex or sexual touching. But I knew what he did was wrong. I knew what he asked me to do was wrong. At five you just feel it and because you feel it you know it’s true.
I told my mother. She was angry and told me he would never do that again. She called his mother, and that’s when the shame hit. I got HIM in trouble. It didn’t occur to me that he got himself in trouble.
I don’t recall seeing him again, even though his sister and I remained best friends and played at each others’ homes. Children have the capacity to disappear what they fear. I must have disappeared him. We moved away when I was nine.
Years later, on the first day of high school, I saw him walking the halls. My molester was a teacher. My stomach fell and I took a kick to the gut. Trauma leaves a visceral trace. The body keeps score.
I turned my head in shame. I didn’t want him to see me, because I told. I got him in trouble.
Throughout high school, I feared running into him again. I vigilantly scanned the hallways. FOR FOUR YEARS. Whenever I saw him in the distance, I turned and walked the other way.
How to Wash Away the Shame
Decades later, during my graduate studies in psychology, a young woman told me she had been sexually abused. She wept and wept and wept some more. She wept with relief because she finally spoke the thing out loud. Her tears began to wash away the shame that was never hers.
That night I wept. I wept for her. Then I wept for myself. I wept for the shame I had carried. The tears began to wash it away.
Sometime later I read an article entitled A Confusion of Tongues Between the Adults and the Child. It explained what happens and why the shame of sexual assault lands on victims.
The victim introjects the guilt feelings of the perpetrator.
Introjection – Person A projects his/her feelings onto person B. Person B experiences those projected feelings as his/her own. Basically, you swallow someone else’s stuff but you think it’s your stuff.
Shame is a useful emotion. It prevents us from doing things we shouldn’t. The aggressor doesn’t feel his own shame, but emotions don’t evaporate. Shame leaves his body and lands on hers. She carries it for him, thinking it’s her shame until she realizes who really owns it. Then, if she’s one of the lucky ones, she washes it away.
Note: The dynamics of shame from sexual assault apply to girls, women, boys and man. Male victims are affected by a more complex set of issues that are not addressed in this article.