on behalf of victims' families because I have been the victim of brutal violence and am also the close relative of someone who died from a shot to the head.
I have been to an ER with stab wounds. I was raped after leaving the hospital with stitches for the stabbing. I have miscarried a pregnancy as the result of a beating. I spent 3 hours at the barrel end of a hand gun in a car parked in the middle of nowhere and managed to stay calm enough to convince the perp to drive me back to work.
A close relative was a rape victim who died from a gunshot to the head. Several years before that, a cousin was murdered, along with her boyfriend, because she was White and he was Black.
A very close friend of mine was a kidnap and rape victim when she was 19 and I was 20. She barely survived and managed to escape after being tied up, and to phone police for help, then her parents, who contacted the FBI. Her story, complete with name and address, was publicized on radio, TV, and the front page of the local newspaper.
Fortunately, nobody published photos of her nude, beaten, and shivering body that police found when they arrived. But the entire community did take sides, pro and con, about whether she was a genuine victim or acted in a way that "brought it on herself." She did not get the privacy for processing what had happened and for healing that she needed. She was cruelly ostracized and vilified at work until she quit her job. She became public property and seemed to be used by everyone as a Rorschach ink blot for projecting their own issues onto. It got worse when the kidnapper/rapist was caught and she had to relive it all in her testimony at trial. She went from a shy, soft spoken young woman to a promiscuous, drug addicted party animal for a few years before she was able to seek counseling privately, without the world intruding on her personal trauma.
I do not claim to speak for all victims and their families. But I do know that I needed time to heal without drawing the entire world into my grief and trauma. When I was strong enough, I became an advocate for rape and violence survivors. I have held women's hands in the hospital during a rape examination. I have walked with women into their home, under police protection, to get their personal belongings while an angry, estranged partner stood by making threats despite the police presence. I have gone to court with survivors as moral support during hearings.
While I can't speak for all victims, survivors, and their loved ones, I do know that, for myself and for the adults and children that I worked with, healing was a top priority on getting strong enough to confront the issues, speak about them, and go on with life. The last thing that I or the victim's that I worked with needed was the melodrama of having our lives turned upside down and invaded by people who would want to publicize our pain on behalf of a cause.
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