Thank You For Your Presence
Marie and I met in 2019. We knew then that we could do something to bring us, those of us who have lived through disruption, disorganization, reorganization and gone underground, to stand together in community. We wrote together and discovered our vision and called it Our Silent Voice. No longer will we be isolated by being individuals. We are one, we are a force, we are loud, we are brave, and we are strong together.
Recently I heard someone talk about an oddity - that we humans are limited by our unique skill at identifying ourselves as individuals. We don’t see ourselves as born into a herd or a colony. We are unique individuals, each and every one of us. We can hear us defined as an individual when someone talks about rights or power residing in one or another and winning or losing.
The oddity is that we may not be individuals and, by believing that we are, diminishes our available power.
When one of us is assaulted or even harassed, we immediately retreat into a reactive mode called the Rape Trauma Syndrome, a phrase coined by two therapists, Ann Burgess and Lynda Holmstrom and reported by the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.
https://students.wustl.edu/rape-trauma-syndrome/
In the article they write that the person who’s assaulted or raped immediately separates as an individual into the short-term phase of disruption and disorganization. Then the long-term process of reorganization that inventively leads to the underground phase. This is not unique to those of us who have experienced rape.
It’s familiar to us. It resonates. It’s real.
In my book Survival Isn’t Mandatory, I relate the reaction I had to my gang rape at a party in 1964:
My senior year started rough. I didn’t tell anyone about what happened at the party. I did my best to put one foot in front of the other. I failed.
I lost my homework somewhere. But where? My god, it's gone. Maybe I forgot to bring my notebook home. My empty locker stared at me. My mind went wild.
Driving to school one day, I missed the turn to the school. I have to pull over. Oh God, I can’t breathe.
Later that week, after I'd left campus to get lunch at In-N-Out Burger, I missed the turn to my school, my mind traveling to places interlaced, not fitting with reality. My lunch stayed on the floor of my car, untouched and unseen. I had to pull it together.
I walked through each day-by-day, hoping my face reflected someone I knew. What’s wrong with me? When did I split in two?
Driving home, someone cut me off, and I started screaming. I can't stop, I won't stop, I will not stop, I’ll scream forever. Sobbing, I put my head on my arms, rested on the steering wheel, and fell asleep on the off ramp of the freeway. I woke to a knock on the window. The highway patrol officer asked me what I was doing. Oh Shit, oh shit, I’m in trouble. How will I explain this?
He wrote me a ticket for stopping for no good reason. I got home and looked at my mother. The heavy, sharp-pointed vest of guilt-love bore down on my exhausted body. I had to pull it together. Oh God, if she asks if I’m okay, I’ll break apart.
The long-term phase of reorganization began. I did not have a community that could hear me, not in 1964. The point of my memoir is that I chose to change how I saw myself and survive. What I didn’t expect was that the underground phase would last from August 1965 to October 6th, 2018 when the tear-streaked face of an enraged man in a Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearing sputtered his innocence to claims of sexual assault at a party. 53 years of ‘underground’ erupted in my living room, on the sofa with my third husband and I began to write.
Our latest email thanks everyone for this, our community called Our Silent Voice.
We want to thank you so much for your presence in our community.
Whether you participated in one of our workshops or submitted your work through the website, both or neither, we are grateful for your support and engagement with our content.
Without you, we couldn't maintain the supportive community we've built for many survivors.
We truly appreciate that you're a part of the Our Silent Voice community.
Here are thoughts on what's next…
We learned a lot from these emails and would love to share what worked (and what didn't) with you.
We'd love to continue sharing stories and resources with you that you'd be interested in. (Got something you think our community would like? Hit reply and tell me about it.)
We want to continue discussing what's working online for you. These conversations will likely happen in emails and one-on-ones over virtual coffee conversations.
Would you be interested in booking a conversation about what's working in 2023?
If so, send us an email to mpjp@oursilentvoice.com schedule a conversation.
Warmly,
Marie and Janet