Dear Andrea Leeb,
“There’s a part of me that wonders if I’ve made it all up,” I said to my therapist this past winter. In a way, it would be easier if I did; I wouldn’t have to flinch when anticipating being intimate with another person. I could chalk it all up to an overactive imagination and move forward with ease.
It’s more difficult to reckon with the fact that an assault did happen, and that we must move forward with these memories and work to heal ourselves. When you recall your experience with a therapist, writing, “She hadn’t understood me. My memories were not lost or blocked. They were consciously buried in the vain hope that someday I would forget them” (215), I can empathize with the hardship that is opening up. Talking about trauma, especially sexual trauma, with others feels like hitting one roadblock after another.
My first encounter with assault was at fifteen, behind the heavy black curtains keeping the audience from seeing past the cardboard Greased Lightning and plywood, late-1950s high school set. A male cast member wrapped his arms around me in the dark while my back was turned to him. He set his hands on my barely post-pubescent breasts and squeezed, his hands pressing into my nipples. I didn’t yelp. I didn’t turn around and cuss him out on the spot. I didn’t report him to the director or stage manager. Instead, I gasped and froze.
Already a “mover” and not a dancer, my poor attempt at completing the choreography to “You’re the One That I Want” was undetected. My castmates didn’t notice my stiff movements. The following day, between our matinee and evening performances, I chugged an iced coffee from the Cumberland Farms across the road from our theater in an attempt to energize myself from my lethargic state. While I was pulled out of my depression for the afternoon, my heart rate rose, and my fear of the groper intensified.
Instead of telling my long-standing therapist about the encounter, confessing to my parents, or conversing about groping and other unwanted acts, I chose to shove the memory down. When I first admitted to the act having occurred, I decided to make up an alternate ending: that I had punched Danny Zuko in the stomach and bolted away from his embrace. I had buried the groping and nipple-gripping down in favor of a “stronger” narrative. I created a new story, as you did with your diary. We rewrote our experiences in order to feel safe.
At fifteen, I did not know that I would face another, more harmful episode of sexual assault at the hands of a romantic partner. I did not know that I would admit the backstage fondling in a poem first, before sharing with a social worker. I expected that people wouldn’t believe me, but I don’t think I fully realized how ill-equipped those around me were to listen to my experience(s).
I understand completely when you write, “Listening to him, my body became rigid. I am not confused, I wanted to scream at him. And why aren’t you asking me about the other times? There’s years and years of touching. But I knew it was pointless. No matter what I said, this man wouldn’t or didn’t want to believe me…
He put his pen and pad down. ‘As I said, young women often get confused’” (187).
Much of the time, I was met with blank stares and hums or frowns. There were plenty of comments along the lines of “I’m sure he didn’t mean it.” I didn’t want sympathy, and I still don’t. What I want is for children to stop experiencing these acts, and for those who listen to them recount them, not to dismiss their stories. I do not wish to hear about another teenage girl confessing her confusion, fear, and disgust through a poem or piece of personal writing before she is taken seriously by the adults around her.
“Without documentation, the past could be easily forgotten” (250), you write about your mother’s purposeful misremembering. I wonder if this is why we write? Why we are pulled so strongly to create proof — to have a written testimony of the events?
If so, we should continue to write, continue to speak up, and push for others to believe our testimonies. It should be our words that prove our stories. I am grateful for your story.
Thank you for the work you do on and off the pages of Such a Pretty Picture.
Very sincerely,
Carlin Steere
