Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [118]
Long after the physical trauma of assault, victims must contend with emotional wounds. A number of factors influence the severity of the trauma that comes from sexual violence. Generally the trauma is more severe if the victim is young, if the assaults occur with frequency and over a long period of time, if the assailant is related to the victim and if the assault is violent. The most damaging assaults are violent ones by a family member.
Other factors that are important include the reactions of the victims. The sooner girls tell someone what happened and seek help, the better. The more support they have from family and others, the better. Finally, girls vary in their own resiliency and ability to handle stress. Some are capable of a quicker, more complete recovery than others. All victims of sexual assault are helped by posttraumatic stress work, either with family, friends or therapists.
ELLIE (15)
The first appointment with Ellie and her parents was painful for everyone. Ellie sank into my big chair and curled up like a small child. Her dark eyes were filled with tears. Her dad, Dick, was so overwhelmed he could barely talk. Ronette, who was small and dark-haired like her daughter, did most of the talking. She began our session by saying, “I’m so shattered by this that I can barely speak.”
Dick was a welder and Ronette ran a hair salon in their home. They were hard workers who put their daughters first. Dick had an American flag flying in their yard and flag decals on all the vehicles. He’d been wounded in Vietnam and was president of his local VFW.
Ronette liked the country music at the VFW and was proud that she and Dick were good dancers. They’d taken dance lessons at the local community college. She was a good-hearted, hard-working woman who had run into few problems she couldn’t solve. Both cared deeply about Ellie, who was the oldest of their three daughters.
Ronette took deep breaths and gave me an outline of events. “Ellie acted up some in eighth grade. She argued about everything—her chores, the telephone and her studies—but we weren’t really worried about her. We knew kids acted that way. Her grades were pretty good, mostly Bs. She was on the swim team. We liked her friends.”
Ronette sighed. “What worried us most was her disobedience. She skipped school several times and she slipped out at night with her friends. We were afraid she’d get hurt.”
Ellie began sobbing as her mother talked, and Dick curled and uncurled his fists like a boxer ready for a fight. Ronette’s face was tear-stained and tense, but she continued. “This last month she’s driven us crazy. She’s been insulting to us and mouthy at school. Yesterday she was called into the counselor’s office because she pushed a kid in the hall. That’s just not Ellie. Her grades dropped and she quit going out with her friends. We knew something had to have happened but we couldn’t figure what.”
Dick said, “We asked her what was wrong and she wouldn’t tell us.” “Thank God Ellie told her counselor,” Ronette said. “Things were going downhill fast.”
I asked, “I know this is difficult, but what exactly happened?”
We all looked at Ellie, who buried her face in the chair.
Dick said, “We don’t know many details. It’s too hard to talk about.”
Ronette said in a dull voice, “Ellie sneaked out to a bowling alley. She thought her friends would be there but they weren’t. When she walked across the parking lot to come home, four boys pulled her into their car and raped her.”
“I wish we’d known,” Ronette said. “Ellie’s not telling hurt us almost as much as the rape. We thought she trusted us more than this. We thought we had