Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [120]
Ellie was shaking now as if she were chilled. Her voice was flat and dead. “All the time they did this, they were laughing and joking. The driver said I must have wanted it or I wouldn’t have been out alone. They didn’t threaten to hurt me or anything. They just wouldn’t let me go. They treated me like an animal, like I didn’t have feelings.
“Afterwards, they dumped me out of the car and threw my shirt after me. I put it on so I wouldn’t be topless and walked home. I was crying so hard I thought I might have a stroke or something, but I didn’t go in the house till I stopped sobbing. I slipped in my window and lay in bed till morning. Then I took a bath and rinsed out the shirt.”
Ellie looked at me. “I was amazed that the next morning my parents didn’t notice anything. At breakfast they talked about my little sister’s dental appointment.”
Over the next few months I heard that story many times. At first Ellie told it without much emotion, but gradually she connected her words and her feelings and she sobbed as she told the story.
I asked her to write, but not send, letters to the guys who raped her, letters that allowed her to express all her anger. She scrawled letters beginning, “I hate you for what you’ve done to my life. You’ve ruined everything for me and my family. We’ll never be normal again.”
Dick bought her a punching bag and hung it in the basement. Nightly she went down and punched it. At first she had trouble connecting with her anger as she punched, but I encouraged her to keep trying. I told her to visualize the boys, the car, the rape as she hit. Once she did this, she hit with a frenzy and yelled about the rape. Afterward she collapsed in a puddle on the floor, but she felt calmer. All that anger was out of her and in the bag.
Meanwhile, the court case against the boys worked its way through the system. This re-traumatized Ellie in some ways. The police came by her house with further questions, and she had to tell her story at a deposition. The newspaper carried articles. Her name wasn’t mentioned, but seeing the stories always caused her pain. The trial loomed in her future as a public exposure of her shame.
Dick and Ronette came in monthly to talk about their reactions to the rape. “For a while,” Dick said, “our lives had no meaning.” Both of them were afraid to let their daughters out of the house. Neither could bear to read news of rape or violence against women. Dick had revenge fantasies that interfered with his work. He woke at night covered with sweat, the way he had during the war in Vietnam. Sometimes Ronette cried when she was working on her customers. She would wrap a towel around the person’s head and run out of the room.
Later the younger sisters joined our group and talked about how Ellie’s experience affected their lives. The middle sister swore she would never go out alone at night or hang out with boys her family didn’t approve of. The younger sister wanted revenge. Since the rape, she’d had trouble in school for acting up. Everyone agreed their family was different now. Other families talked about money, school and ordinary activities. They were obsessed with the rape. They felt a distance, an estrangement that victims often feel. They, like Ellie, needed a place where they could talk and cry.
Gradually Ellie recovered. Her fingers healed and her nails grew longer. She regained her enthusiasm for the swim team and school. She went out with her friends. She and her sisters signed up for a self-defense class. She said, “I want them to know how to defend themselves.”
We talked about the implications of the rape for her future. Ellie said that she felt vulnerable. Now that she’d been raped she knew that it could happen to her. She would always be more cautious and more anxious than her friends. For right now she was not interested in boys. She wanted to stay away from sex for a long time. She said flatly, “I’ve lost all my curiosity.