Ch.4 Family & Friends
How to Speak with Friends & Family About Your Rape
I know your experience is different than mine, but I need you to hear some of my story with hope that it will comfort you in yours. Even though I don’t remember so much, there are certain memories that stick out to me because of their deep impact. The reactions from friends and family are all over the spectrum, some sincere, others hurtful. Sometimes you even feel bad for them, knowing how much it will hurt them to know what happened to you. Some people you may never want to know, and that is up to you. But it should be up to you and no one else to tell.
The first person I saw was my roommate, Riya. When the sadistic ringleader of this whole nightmare had finally fallen asleep, I convinced the meekest of the men that I had encountered that I had to go home. He was the only other one there at the time and when I knew that John was really down, I acted quickly. I said that I had to go back to my dorm, that we needed to go get a cab NOW. He looked at his sleeping friend, but I had already put my clothes on for the first time in days and was not about to have them be forced off again. With a sense of urgency that made him get moving, I ran down the stairs and he ran after me. I tried to hail a cab, but he was already by my side. Fuck it, I thought, we are in a ridiculously busy section of the East Village in the middle of the afternoon, and if he touches me, I will scream bloody murder. A cab pulled up and I told the driver my address right away. Fluffy (the name I had given him internally for his large fluffy hair) got in after me.
I told the cab driver to go to my address no matter what happens, and looked at the guy sitting next to me. He couldn’t have been much older than I. “Do you know what that was? That was rape. I was held there against my will.”
He looked back at me shocked, “What?”
“Did you actually think I was into being hit over and over because I couldn’t keep my eyes closed when he struck me?”
“I… I don’t know,” he stuttered.
The car had just stopped at my dorm in Union Square, and I flung open the door and walked into the lobby. There was no relief of being free until I could get past security and back to my room. Using my hair to cover my mangled face, I made it past security directly following someone else who had beeped in. In a daze I walked, or maybe I was running, through the halls, up the elevator and to my door where I knocked hard.
A lot of these memories are difficult to recall, but this one is ingrained in my head forever. Riya opened the door and this time I was looking right at her without the cover of my hair. Her large brown eyes popped out of her head, and she pulled me into our dorm room straight into the bathroom. My face shocked even me. The swelling had gotten so bad that it felt like someone had sewed a chicken filet to the whole left side of my face, and my eyes were getting blacker by the second. I touched the side of my face that he had ruined and could barely feel my own touch. There wasn’t pain, just numbness, and the feeling that that whole part of my face wasn’t mine anymore.
Before I could even look away, my RA was already at the door. He asked what my name was and I replied, “I used to be Lauren Azar”.
Riya began cry.
***
The next thing I know, I’m in a black SUV pulling up to St. Vincent’s Hospital in the West Village. There’s a rape crisis counselor named Jamie with big glasses and dirty blond hair with me. Then we’re in a hospital room and I’m getting prodded and combed. I’m on a stretcher watching the fluorescent lights go by and they look like the lines of a passing lane on the highway. I was so tired, I wanted to use my lane to pass out. Someone is keeping me awake, shaking me every time I start to doze. “You can’t sleep yet. No, no, you have to stay awake now”, the white blur kept saying. But I was so tired…
I’m awake, back in the hospital room. Jamie is there on my right telling me it’s okay. Until I look to my left. Officers. They’re from SVU, they said. Like the TV show, I thought. I had to tell them my story and they had questions. Jamie asked if we could do it later. They said they needed to get a statement now. I looked to see which one was Mariska Hargitay. They were both Munches.
Jamie is telling me we need to call my parents. Do I want to call my parents or do I want her to call them?
“You do it,” I slurred. I don’t remember what I said to the police but all I can remember is slurring. I guess they must have had me on a bunch of drugs. Or maybe when your soul is impaired, so is your speech.
Jamie is off the phone looking at me. “I just want you to know that you have about 20 of your friends out there for you. They had to move them outside because they were taking up the whole waiting room”.
Flattered, I quickly became sad that I couldn’t thank them. That I wouldn’t be out anytime soon to say hello. That there were some that I’d never see again.
I’m a little more with it when Jamie comes back into the room, but my heart immediately sinks when I hear those four words, “Your parents are here”.
I think everyone has heard in one form or another that the love a parent has for their child is unlike anything else. That when a parent hears that there is something wrong when it comes to their child’s well-being, it breaks their heart in a way someone who doesn’t have children can’t comprehend. As I walked down the dark hallway to the vacant ER room where they were waiting, I knew I was about to give my parents the worst pain they’ve ever felt. Once I turn the corner and they see me, their hearts will be shattered. I will never be the same. They will never be the same. Would they ever think of me the same way again? Are they going to survive this?
As I entered the room, I witnessed an illustration of Parents’ Worst Nightmare. The sobbing I expected, but the wailing stung my heart. All of a sudden, my father had pulled me into his lap, holding me tight while rocking back and forth sobbing and screaming in pain. My back was to my mother so all I could hear from her were the uncontrollable gasps of a person crying so hard that they begin to hyperventilate. I don’t know how long this lasted but I remember it being very close to the pain I felt from the attack itself. I wasn’t comforted. I was extremely uncomfortable. I had just destroyed my parents and now I was stuck in a room listening to how I think it would have sounded if I had died.
Everyone will react differently. Some will be hurtful, but when it comes to the closest people in your life, it will just hurt.
***
While recovering at the hospital, I felt very supported. At least one parent was always there, and even some of my friends visited. One of them gave me a stuffed elephant that I still have to this day, although that puppy of mine has absconded with it. My friend Kate, the sweetest girl with the best Brooklyn accent, brought me a zoo she had made. A few days after I disappeared, we had had plans to go the Brooklyn Zoo, which obviously didn’t happen, so she made a diorama and brought the zoo to me. Friends dropped in to send along notes they and other friends who couldn’t make it had written me, and I read every single one a hundred times. Someone even brought me a portable DVD player, very cool at the time, so I could watch my favorite X-Men movies when I couldn’t sleep at night. It all meant so much to me.
When I came home to my mother’s Providence apartment after getting out of the hospital and leaving New York, the living room was filled with flowers and cards. I looked at all of them, reading the cards from close aunts and uncles (whether they be blood-related or honorary) and many of the close friends of my parents who watched me grow up. There were even flowers from family members of my friends at NYU. The outpouring of love was beautiful and I did appreciate it, I just didn’t feel it. Even with so much support around me, I still felt hollow and alone.
I remember feeling like I was being unappreciative. Then my godmother, Aunty Mary came to visit me. We were sitting in my mother’s bedroom talking about things a little, not really in detail, just that she loved me. Then she said, “You know, you’re gonna write about it. That’s what you’re here to do”. Even though it would be years until I was ready, her voice has always been with me, comforting but definitive. It was then I knew I had a purpose other than suffering. I could see a spark of the fire I still had in me and that blazing the way was possible again.
I know you’re thinking “This is all well and good, but why are you telling me this?” There are two reasons: First, I don’t remember what the flowers smelled like, I can’t remember everyone who sent well wishes, but I can remember that moment. It was a real connection with a loved one who saw me as me and not a victim. There is someone out there who knows you and what you were born to do. If someone just popped in your head, then stop reading and reach out right now. It’s some of the best medicine you can have right now.
The second reason I’m telling you this story is that you may still be reading this book without having paused to reach out to someone. Why is that? If it’s because you feel like there is no one you know who you can talk to, that is not true. Pick up the phone and call 800.656.HOPE to speak to someone who will listen unconditionally and without judgment. They can talk you through anything you throw at them and you’ll be surprised at how much better you feel after just a couple of minutes. There’s a reason we always say “you’re never alone”. But if it’s the other reason, the fear that you’re not here for anything, that’s simply not true. Everyone has a purpose in this life and what you’ve gone through has given you all the more authority to help others in any way you can. You don’t have to commit your whole life to the cause. You can do any job you’d like. But if you can help just one victim, just one time, in your entire life? You’ve already answered your own question.
***
This doesn’t mean everyone in your network is going to let you know the purpose of life. Far from it. So I want to prepare you for every reaction I got, for better or worse… or even completely neutral. The reason people react the way they do varies, but in general it’s because we’re all a bit crazy. So don’t worry about that. The most important thing you need to understand is that their reaction have nothing to do with you or what happened to you. They’re a combination of self-preservation and inexperience. Those terms may sound entirely negative, but they’re not in this case.
Self-preservation is our natural state of being. Whether by fight or flight, our instinct is to stay alive. When it comes to the psyche, it’s essentially the same thing. More recently, I was told by a friend that I never talked about what happened to me, and that’s true. But I never talked about it because no one asked. That’s flight. Running away from the problem. Instead of addressing it head on, many people in your life will be content to never talk about it if you never bring it up. Talking about it may hurt them as much as it does you, and what if they try and say something completely wrong? No one is trained for this. So aside from the occasional “You ok?” there may not be much more than that. But there’s also fight. Usually, fight came from my mother screaming at other people that they had no idea what I’d been through as a woman. But a lot of the time, it came from people going beyond, “You ok?” and asking more. They would say how strong I was and that I can get past this and they will be there for me for anything, when really I just wanted them to listen. Sometimes, my story would instill such anger in the person that the need for revenge was actually a possibility, which is never a good idea and will only ruin more lives. But mostly, they just wanted to rant about my attackers being the scum of the earth while explaining in detail what they would do to them should they cross paths.
Then there’s the other thing. Ignorance is bliss, they say. My parents told almost all of their friends and family, and definitely informed the ones that I was closest to growing up. With two glaring exceptions: My grandmothers. This is where the shame comes flooding back again. A car accident, an illness — would those have been kept from them? My parents told me that each of their mothers would not be able to handle the information, that it would hurt them too much. I do understand that now, and maybe I even did a little bit then.
The thought of my Sittoo and Memere hearing that horrible news, the looks on their faces, the sudden pain in their hearts. Sittoo was stronger, but Memere… Although I was closer to her growing up, she wasn’t in the best of health and would eventually die seven months later. I remember looking at her in the open casket at the funeral, feeling like she died without knowing the real me. Wondering what words of comfort she may have had. Yearning for the hugs she may have given. I imagined her tiny body, having shrunk so much in her old age, wrapping her arms around me, while I bent down to reach her as she had done for me as a little girl. The gentle ripples of her soft skin grazing my arms, my face pressed against hers. We’d let go so her clawed hands could hold my head, fingers crooked from years of crippling arthritis pressed against my cheeks, telling me it would be okay. That everything would be okay. That would never happen.
And what if it had? Perhaps it wouldn’t have been that gentle. Perhaps the ache in Memere’s heart would finally match that which flowed through her entire body. Maybe I would be sitting here today thinking that my great tragedy added to her suffering. That my selfish need to share what I went through may have expedited her journey toward finality. I don’t know the answer because I’ve never really thought about it. I don’t know what I would have done because I wasn’t considered in the decision. I will never know because the authority over my story had been taken away from me. Another loss of control, a forcible resignation from the jurisdiction of my own life. Another reason to be ashamed. I’m not going to give you advice on what to do with your story, but I want you to know that it is yours. Don’t let anyone take it away from you or tell you what you can and can’t do with it. Your story is yours and you are your story, and if there’s anything we have left right now, it is our choice.
***
In the years that follow what has happened to you, there will most likely be changes in your life that are beyond your control. And a lot of times, they will be very hurtful. Friends may come and go, even some that you never thought would leave. But they do not assign value to you, they just reveal theirs to you. Although this will always be a part of you, people forget. People want to forget. They may not realize how this has come to shape you and that will really be difficult. Your experience will never be as fresh in anyone’s mind as it will be in yours. And if moving forward, you ever feel that you need to remind someone of how you got be to where you are, why your outlook is the way that it is, or how you now interpret the world because of it, go ahead. In reminding them, you will reaffirm yourself.
