…from a crisis counselor

I have been a sexual assault crisis counselor for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) since May 2008. It was the only way I knew how to stay involved with the issue post-graduation. At the University of Maryland I had played a key role in organizing a Men of Strength Club for men to talk about masculinity and gender-based violence and had taken part in advocacy and outreach campaigns for about two years.

I started getting involved in women’s rights issues and specifically sexual assault after reading about a 14-year-old girl, Abeer, who was raped and murdered by U.S. soldiers in Iraq. If that weren’t enough, her entire family was murdered with her, and the house was burnt down to hide the evidence. After reading about her story, crying, and wanting to hate, I was able to redirect my anguish into activism by connecting this issue to the larger anti-war struggle I was deeply involved in at the time.

Despite my background as an activist, it was only recently that I began to advocate as a counselor. I wrote the following (excerpted) message to my fellow volunteers at RAINN:

I know this is beyond what we’re expected to do, and it’s not a good idea in certain cases, but I often find myself doing this not necessarily because I think I know all the answers but because often visitors come looking for at least a starting point that will take them in a new direction. Sometimes it’s not enough to send them elsewhere (to counseling, another hotline, etc.) when what they need is someone to thoughtfully and compassionately listen and guide them to a better understanding of both the nature of their problems and how to solve them. Call me an idealist, but I believe that everyone is capable of overcoming their misfortune and that they usually know what they need to do in order to recover but lack the knowledge or the courage necessary to take the next step. Sometimes I devote a significant amount of time in the session to boosting their confidence and pulling them out of the victim role.

I have found that once visitors allow themselves to slide into the victim role, the whole world becomes the perpetrator, and they are not equipped to take on the entire world. What’s worse is they become the victim of their own negative energy. They tell themselves that they deserve what happened or that even if they did stand up or say something, nothing would ever change or it would only make matters worse (they often say this when it doesn’t appear that things could get much worse). I believe that this mindset is more dangerous to their lives than the assaults themselves.

The question I have is, “what more can we do to not just assist these people in their recovery from past assaults but to empower them to ward off any potential future attackers as well as to empower them to ward off the negative thoughts and feelings that give rise to despair and helplessness?”

I’m asking because I clearly do not have the solution. However, my attempts at aiding women in this way have been very successful so far, ending mostly with words of gratitude and concrete future steps toward recovery.

I should point out that my thinking on the subject of empowerment falls within the Gandhian framework: I oppose violence and strive to discover win-win solutions, often through reconciliation, rather than outcomes that would benefit one party at the expense of another. If there is one fundamental concept I would like to impart on others (not just RAINN visitors, but EVERYONE), it’s that interpersonal relationships do not function solely through power and control.

A week later, inspired by a counseling session occurring on Gandhi’s birthday, I wrote this follow-up:

Ok, I’m going to go ahead and be more specific because a particular visitor the other night is the perfect example of what I was trying to get at before.

It was a middle-age woman who came asking what to do about an old boyfriend who’s back in her life all of a sudden, and hurting her very badly. She didn’t want to call the police because she has kids and doesn’t want to involve them in any legal entanglements. She was also hoping to have a more peaceful resolution and just get the man to stop. She tried talking to him face-to-face, but that only led to another attack.

I could already sense that she was brave and resourceful, so I told her that she did have an option that could potentially, at the very least, not lead to an even worse/more violent outcome and possibly dramatically improve the situation. The option was to use nonviolent resistance.

I have only brought this up as a solution to a few other women in the past, and they were slow to take to it…if they did at all…but she seemed to believe it would work. I told her simply to look the man in the eyes the next time she sensed he would attack her, show no fear, and say something to the effect of “I’m a human being so please treat me like one” or “would you treat your mother/wife/sister” this way?” I assured her that even the cruelest man would respect boldness and courage on the part of his potential victim and that by the mere act of displaying boldness and courage, she would cease to be a victim.

This response may sound unusual, but it’s a tried and tested technique that’s designed to appeal to the potential perpetrator’s sense of decency. While the potential victim may be physically weaker, she has a key advantage in that her position is the moral one. By standing up to the madness, she is also allowing the potential perpetrator to see the evil of his actions, and she is simultaneously taking him out of the perpetrator role by assuming that he really does NOT want to hurt her if given the chance to see and reconsider his initial course of action. Other responses, such as begging for mercy, would only reinforce the victim/perpetrator dichotomy because it would cede power to the potential perpetrator with no attempt at accountability.

In this particular case, the visitor said she had never even thought of trying something like I suggested before and that her usual response was to submit and hope she survived. My assumption is that this is what many women do in her situation. I would like to change that as the default response.

— Matt Johnson, Washington, D.C.