On July 4, 1990, I went for a morningwalk along a peaceful-looking country road in southern France. It was a gorgeous day, and I didn't envy my husband, Tom, who had to stay inside and work on a manuscript with a French colleague. I sang to myself as I set out, stopping to pet a goat and pick some wild strawberries along the way. An hour later, I was lying near death, pleading for my life with a brutal assailant who had jumped me from behind. I hadn't heard or seen him coming. He dragged me off the road and into a deep ravine, beat me with his fist and with a rock, sexually assaulted me, choked me repeatedly and, after I had passed out four times, left me for dead.
I could describe in vivid detail the grotesque inhumanity of my attacker, the humiliation of having to obey his sadistic orders, the terror as I lost consciousness while my animal reflexes desperately fought for air, the struggle to climb out of the ravine and run to safety with my eyes swollen shut, the dizzying pull toward oblivion battling with the galvanizing fear of dying alone. But each violent assault is gruesome in its own way, and I want to write about what I have in common with other survivors -- the long, unimaginably painful process of recovery.
In one way, my recovery has differed from that of many other victims of sexual violence in that I was assaulted by a stranger, in a "safe" place, and was so visibly injured when I encountered the police and medical personnel that I was spared the insult of disbelief or blame. Still, I have found people's most common reaction to be that of denial.
Where the evidence is incontrovertible -- I was hospitalized for 11 days and the assailant was caught, confessed to the attack, and was indicted for rape and attempted murder -- denial takes the shape of attempts to explain the assault in ways that leave the observers' world view unscathed. The most well-meaning individuals, caught up in the myth of their own immunity, can inadvertently add to the victim's suffering by suggesting that the attack was avoidable or somehow her fault. One court official stressed that she herself had never been a victim and told me that I would benefit from the experience by learning not to be so trusting of people and to take basic safety precautions like not going out alone late at night.
Denial also takes the form of silence. During the first several months of my recovery, I led a spectral existence, dissociated from those around me, and my sense of unreality was reinforced by the fact that most of my relatives didn't phone, write, or even send a get well card. These are all caring, decent people who would have sent wishes for a speedy recovery if I'd had, say, an appendectomy. Their early lack of response was so striking that I wondered whether it was the result of self-protective denial, a reluctance to mention something so unspeakable, or a symptom of our society's widespread emotional illiteracy that prevents many people from conveying any feeling that can't be expressed in a Hallmark card.
I learned later that they were afraid reminding me of what had happened. Didn't they realize that I thought about the attack nearly every minute of every day and that their silence made me as feel though I had, in fact, died and no one had bothered to come to the funeral?
For the next few months, I felt angry, scared, and helpless. I wished I could blame myself for what had happened so that I would feel more in control of my life. It would have been easier than accepting that I live in a world where I can be attacked at any time, in any place, simply because I am a woman.
My outrage at the injustice alternated with debilitating depression. I was too terrified to direct my anger toward my assailant, so I aimed it as safer targets. Once, when Tom told me to quit moping, I wanted to choke him, just so he would know what it was like. Fortunately, Tom and my family stood by me and I learned to release my rage first by hitting pillows and then by taking a women's self-defense class. The confidence I gained from learning how to fight back effectively not only enabled me to walk down the street again. It gave me back my life.
But it was a changed life. A paradoxical life. I began to feel stronger than ever before, and more vulnerable, more determined to fight to change the world, but in need of several naps a day. I was glad I had only myself to look after, that I didn't have a child who would grow up with the knowledge that even the protector could not be protected. But I felt an inexpressible loss when I recalled how much Tom and I had wanted a baby and how we'd hoped to conceive one on our vacation in France. I couldn't imagine getting pregnant now, because it was so hard to let even Tom near me and because it would be harder still to let a child leave my side.
I joined a rape survivors' support group, got a great deal of therapy, and started speaking out against sexual violence. I also devoted myself to getting more pleasure into my life, not so much because living well is the best revenge but because living at all had become such a challenge. We got two kittens to keep me company, and then two Dalmatian puppies. I took up tap dancing again, and each day I made a point of singing. I spent countless hours with supportive friends and survivors who brought meaning back into my world. Gradually, I was able to get back to work.
"You will never be the same," the facilitator told us at the first meeting of the support group. "But you can be better. When your life is shattered, you're forced to pick up the pieces, and you have a chance to stop and examine them. You can say 'I don't want this one anymore' or 'I think I'll work on that one.'" I have had to give up more than I would ever have chosen to. But I have gained important skills and insights, and I no longer feel tainted by my victimization. It's an honor to be a survivor, and although it's not exactly the sort of thing I can put on my resume, it's the accomplishment of which I'm most proud.
People ask me if I'm recovered now, and I reply that it depends on what that means. Am I the way I was before the attack? No, and I never will be. I am not the person who set off, singing, on that sunny Fourth of July in the French countryside. I left her in a muddy creek bed at the bottom of a ravine. I had to in order to survive. I am changed forever, and if I insist too often that my friends and family acknowledge it, that's because I'm afraid they don't know who I am.
But if recovery means being able to incorporate this awful knowledge into my life and carry on, then, yes, I'm recovered. I don't wake each day with a start, thinking: 'this can't have happened to me!' It happened. I have no guarantee that it won't happen again, although my self-defense classes have given me the confidence to move about in the world and to go for longer and longer walks -- with my two big dogs. And I no longer cringe when I see a woman jogging alone on the country road where I live, though I may still have a slight urge to rush out and protect her, to tell her to come inside where she'll be safe. But I catch myself, like a mother learning to let go, and cheer her on, thinking, may she always be so carefree, so at home in her world. She has every right to be.
