TW: sexual assault
The court process can be strenuous for any individual. From the thorough investigations to unfulfilling hearings, plea bargaining and unjust sentences, my exhausting experience navigating the court process was no exception.
When I was in high school, I came forward about a teacher that sexually assaulted me in middle school. The case took up about a year and a half of my life, and it is safe to say that it took a drastic toll on my emotional health. It wasn’t until years after that I started to feel the repercussions of the process. The court process is grueling. It squeezes every last drop of you into a bottle and requires you to relive every millisecond of whatever trauma you endured in your past. It not only reminds you, frame-by-frame, of what had happened to you, but it also uncovers even more details from the events that your brain, at the time, may have blocked out. It was difficult for me to find resources to help me process what exactly I was going through. It didn’t take long to realize I was not alone and that ‘trauma by trial’ is a very common by-product for people, let alone children, who have to go through the court process alone. Here are three ways that the court process re-traumatized me as a child:
- RELIVING THE EVENTS FRAME-BY-FRAME
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They say that talking about your problems helps with the healing process. They also say that everything must be done in moderation.
Something I wasn’t prepared for was the sheer amount of times I would have to re-tell, re-explain and repeat everything that led up to, occurred during and happened after the sexual assault. I would spend hours at a time each day walking someone through every second of the events. It played in my mind like a movie. However, it didn’t just end after the sessions, as the events played in my head over and over like a broken record. It was something I couldn’t escape and the line between past and present began to haze. I tried journalling, and I tried counseling, but it is very difficult to escape your mind.
- DESENSITIZING of THE STORY
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As you can imagine, after a certain point in time, you just begin to feel numb. Retelling the events hundreds of times can cause you to feel like a robot, which can further cause intense feelings of disconnection from the words you are saying. The further down the court process you go, the less words you have to say, due to the fact that the detectives and attorneys start to regurgitate your words for you. Hearing your trauma exchanged by mouth in such a transactional way can cause it to lose its original weight.
On one end, this can be great! You no longer feel an emotional attachment to the words you are saying and it almost feels like the ‘victim’ being discussed is not you. However, on the other end, it can feel like your story gets stripped away from you and is no longer yours. It can feel like minimizing this life-altering event into nothing but a court case in a manila folder that will eventually be put away forever. These are very conflicting feelings to encounter while in the midst of a case that has brought so much pain into your life.
- UNJUST SENTENCE
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Throughout my case, it was never about the sentencing for me. My only goal was to be heard, not just for myself but for every survivor that didn’t have the privilege to get to where I was. However, there was still a small part of me that selfishly wanted to watch the man who raped me get the sentence that he deserved.
My detective and attorney knew exactly what I wanted out of this case and that was to fight until the very end. Watching that same attorney accept a plea deal that charged a small fraction of the felonies that the teacher had committed shattered me. And hours after, being cut off numerous time by the judge while reading my victim impact statement shattered me. The case shouldn’t have taken me longer to get into court than the teacher spent in jail.
Let me repeat: That case should not have taken me longer to get into court than the teacher had to spend in jail. The judge should not have cut me off seven times while reading my victim impact statement at the final sentencing. While I spent many post-case years feeling angry, confused and betrayed, I think I have finally found a sense of peace within myself. I have found news ways to get my voice out there and share my story outside of the courtroom. I have been able to reclaim this part of my life not as something that hurt me, but instead as something that made me kinder, wiser and stronger. I understand that it is, unfortunately, a privilege to even get to that point in my case as a sexual assault survivor. While I may not have gotten the result I thought I wanted, I got exactly what I needed in order to grow from this case, and for that I am grateful.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org.