Four Survivors of Rape Rebuild Lives

By MANDY LOCKE

It's a story without an ending. Every page captures how the
four sexual assault survivors who've shared their stories with the
Gazette navigate through and reshape a world that was once safe and
predictable.

Since the attacks, some days have been good, others just bearable
and still others hard to endure.

While the experiences of Rose, Caitlin, Beth and Alex, whose names
have been changed for privacy, are all very different, their lives are
linked by trauma and uncertainty.

"You couldn't be sad, but you couldn't be
happy," Beth, who was sexually assaulted by a co-worker a year and
a half ago, says, remembering how numb she felt.

"The whole numb thing; maybe that's what I'm
in," whispers Alex, a summer worker who believes her supervisor
gave her a date rape drug before he raped her earlier this season.

"I felt that way for a long time. The first two weeks, I
don't remember too much. You just go. Then after that, it hurts.
Then you just go again because you don't want to hurt. I remember
telling a friend, ‘What if this is as good as it gets? What if
this is how I feel for the rest of my life?' " Beth
continues.

Rose, who was held against her will for several days earlier this
summer while three men repeatedly raped her, relates to the range of
emotions.

"From a month and a half ago until now, it's been a
roller coaster. I've been through every emotion," Rose says.

Shock and confusion marked the days following Caitlin's rape
by two men last year.

"I didn't really understand what happened to me that
night. I couldn't get out of bed for a long time," she says.
It wasn't until some months later that Caitlin could even tell her
family about the rapes.

The women endured much grief before they found the tools to regain
some sense of control.

"There are some days when you just want to crawl in a hole.
Sometimes it was the best idea I had. I don't have them anymore,
at least not everyday," Beth says.

Aside from the emotional strain of dealing with the rapes, there are
concrete losses for these women as well.

When Beth's boss failed to assure her that she wouldn't
be working the same shifts as the man who attacked her, she was forced
to look for another job. Rose, returning home after being held against
her will for three days, discovered she had been fired. Alex quit one of
her part-time jobs because she feared she would see her attacker. And
Caitlin switched schools when she couldn't avoid seeing one of her
rapists every day.

But these survivors refuse to allow the attack to disrupt their
lives forever.

"When I finished school for the year, I came here. And next
summer I'll go somewhere else. I'm not going to let it stop
me," Alex, who left the Island to return to college for her
sophomore year, says with confidence.

Rose now carries her pepper spray, emergency numbers and coins in
order to feel less helpless.

"I feel stronger now than before I was raped. I feel that I
know myself better. It feels like this was a year ago. I've had so
many different things," Rose says.

Beth agrees: "It doesn't run my daily life anymore. That
took a long time. It's given me strength to get through other
things. You really learn who you are."

Exactly one year after Beth was attacked, she wanted to celebrate
this mile mark. While she told no one why she celebrated on this
particular day, she felt some sense of personal victory.

"I was coming upon the one year point, and I survived the year
in one piece. How bad could that be? The rape hadn't won. He
didn't win. I did," Beth says.

And Beth continues to find reasons to celebrate.

"I was in Atlantic Connection this past weekend [18 months
later], and it was the first time I was in a crowd and didn't get
nervous," she says.

Nonetheless, progress for the survivors may not be a straight line.

Beth experienced a chilling reminder of how small the Island is when
her attacker moved next door to one of her friends.

Rose started reliving the horrors of her attack at night when she
slept.

"I started getting nightmares three nights in a row. When I
woke up in the morning, I felt like I had been raped physically. And
that followed me for the next four days. I had felt so good emotionally.
You are moving on so much mentally, then I got that physical thing. I
felt like I had just been violated again.

"It was two opposites, and that just set me right back
emotionally. It was disgusting. It was a feeling of disgust. It's
been one thing on top of the other. After three weeks, a close family
member jumped up and said he didn't believe me. So many levels of
healing," Rose says.

As the women rebuild their lives, they learn how to carry the weight
of their experiences. With such obvious and dramatic changes in their
lives, friends and acquaintances sometimes probe for information they
might not be willing to volunteer, and they must decide how much to
divulge.

"It's not fun having to explain yourself when it's
something that traumatizing, to tell someone you know is not going to
understand. One of my friends, her first response was, ‘Why
didn't you flag down a police officer?' You don't want
to be judged when you are already judging yourself," Rose says.

"Sometimes I want to talk about it. Sometimes I just get
really sad," Caitlin says, noting how her mood and willingness to
share changes with each day.

But even as these women work to rebuild their lives after the
attacks, they are able to offer support and advice to other women. In
fact, during a group discussion, each survivor was helped by hearing the
stories of the other women.

"It's changed my attitude toward men," Caitlin
says. "I don't have much trust. It's hard to trust. I
walk with clenched fists."

But Beth offers this: "Trusting and falling in love again is
worth it." Beth also admits that counseling has aided her healing
process.

"You need someone who can look at you and not tell you how you
should be feeling. It's given me a lot more strength," she
says.

After the 90-minute discussion, when asked what advice these women
might offer the Vineyard community, Caitlin, the youngest of the
survivors, answers without hesitation:

"Believe a woman who tells you she's been raped. For
those who it has happened to, don't blame yourself."