Blog post #13 By Jo Rodriguez
A rapist is a rapist. A pedophile is a pedophile. A monster is a monster. Lets not sugar coat it.
The questions that kept coming to mind after my kidnapping and sexual assault was “Why?” followed by “How could this have happened to me?”. These questions weigh so heavy on a survivor because the fact of the matter is that you just survived what so many others don’t, you never think this could happen to you, or you don’t realize the magnitude of the abuse when you are in it. My abuser had already demonstrated that he was fully capable of hurting me and I knew that I had done the right thing by leaving him. I no longer wanted to be in an unhealthy abusive and controlling relationship. In hindsight, my mind knowing all that I did about him, could still not anticipate that he was capable of so much more and taking it so far as he did.
In the first hours and days after the assault, nothing feels real. I felt like I was someone else, watching my life from the outside. My neighbors and the police confirmed that he had already moved on and was seeing other women… so why? Why take things to the next level? Why destroy our families and change our lives so drastically? We were already living apart and the divorce had already been filed. So why?
Even as I read the coverage in the newspapers, my mind still struggled to accept that they were talking about my life. It felt like a bad nightmare that I could not awake from. I was still numb to it all and conflicted with all that was going on inside of myself. I found myself in unfamiliar territory and felt damaged and overcome with embarrassment. How could I have let this happen to myself, my children, and my family? As days continued to pass, those questions never ceased in my mind. I struggled with all of it so much, I can’t begin to put the enormity of it into words.
After returning to work, I walked into the reality that everyone else had those same questions. Of course, those questions were going on in circles and not in my presence. The speculation and rumors were endless. The consensus was that I had to have done something to deserve all of this. So what was it? I understand that no one knew what I was going through in my personal life or any details, only what had been reported in the news and newspapers. To me, the questions of what could I have done to deserve this should never have taken place.
As much as I want to say that the criticism was just at work, it was not. It was everywhere and weighed heavily on me. Someone said that I couldn’t have been raped by my own husband because we were technically still married at the time. I was asked how could I press charges against my husband. I was told that it was all my fault because I shouldn’t have trusted him one last time on that fateful day. I was called a liar and that I had made it all up. Others minimized the abuse and defended him without knowing all the facts.
Victim shaming, blaming, and intimidation are haunting and cruel. I did all that I could to try and stay focused and hold my head high. These kinds of personal attacks on my character are what I endured as time dragged on for almost 3 1/2 years until it finally went to trial. I had already been forewarned by my attorneys that when I took the stand that it would not be easy. They were right. I spent hours giving testimony and being cross-examined. My abuser had painted a false picture of who I was in order to save his own skin and make me out to be the bad guy.
Every personal medical record about me had been subpoenaed. All of my cell phone records as well. All of this in an effort to find something to use against me. They found nothing. So they grasped for straws and used other tactics, I was made out to be a sex-crazed woman and that the alleged assault that had happened was just a role-playing incident gone wrong. That we had some twisted secret life that no one knew about. Every intimate detail about my sexuality and my sex life was put on full display. I was also made out to be a wife that just wanted to be with other men. The defense became more and more desperate as they failed to prove any of their efforts to smear my name. I was torn apart, humiliated further, and found myself continuing to defend my character. All because my abuser couldn’t and wouldn’t own up to his actions.
My point in sharing these details with you is to give you some perspective on some of the challenges that survivors face and how the way society treats them after can have a lasting life long effect on the survivor. The abuser is a coward and will go to any extreme with no regard to anyone but themselves to make themselves look less heinous. I was a good, faithful, and dedicated spouse and mother. He was the twisted one that was everything he tried to make me out to be. The next time you hear a story on the news about a victim or survivor, choose your words carefully and never make them feel As If There Would Ever Be a Good Reason to have been put through such trauma.
A spouse trying to leave an abusive and controlling relationship never warrants someone trying to take another’s life…period. A survivor should never be made to feel guilty for surviving.
