Breaking the Silence

She awoke staring at the stucco ceiling. Panic set in. What time was it? It was bright outside.

Worried that she was late for work, she leapt out of bed.

It was then the whole world began to spin as the blood ran to her head, feeling like she had been hit in the head with a baseball bat. Running her fingers through her matted, golden blond hair, she tried to piece together the night before.

“How did I get to bed?” The 25 year old college student scanned the room, finding her undergarments strewn across the floor.

Anna, who asked her real name not be disclosed, looked down at herself confused. She was still in her party dress, and her mouth had a left over acidic taste of vomit.

Something wasn’t right.

Opening her bedroom door, she heard muffled voices coming from the next room. Shakily making her way into the hall, she met a familiar face that shot her a smug look. His eyes held her frozen stare. A flash illuminated a darkened corner within the black hole that had become her memory of the night before.

Queasiness overtook her as her body began to tremble, and the world as it was once known to her, came crashing down. Anna had been sexually assaulted.

Anna’s assault falls into a drastic 91 per cent that goes unreported to police, according to Statistics Canada in 2003. Sexual assault is a silent predator within society that continues to go unspoken and often hidden or ignored. It’s not the kind of talk Canadians are interested in having at the dinner table.

For Anna, as with many other women and men in Canada, sexual assault carries a plague of many social stigmatisms and misconceptions, causing victims to minimize the seriousness of the situation.

Kate Adcock and Shannon Clark, of Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse (CCASA), say this is a common response for victims of sexual assault. They say it is a form of self protection, helping the victim cope with the extreme violation they have just undergone.

“People naturally want to make sense of what happened,” says Clark, a volunteer program coordinator. “They want to be able to have an answer.”

However, minimization often leads to self blame.

“To blame yourself gives you some power and control,” says Adcock, a sexual assault worker.

In Canada, 39 per cent of women have experienced at least one form of sexual assault, and four out of five post-secondary students have experienced violence while dating or in relationship. Of that number, 29 per cent were sexual assaults, according to a 1993 Health Canada report.

A fact sheet sits between the two CCASA workers. The sheet dispels common myths related to sexual assault.

The rape law in Canada changed in 1983 to a sexual assault law, because rape is often associated with a much more violent offence implying penetration. The current sexual assault law now contains three levels of assault encompassing a wide range of non-consensual sexual activity including intimate partner assault, says Clark.

“The language around sexual assault is about identifying that it is an assault using sex as the weapon,” says Clark. “It’s a violent crime regardless of how much physical force is needed.”

Society has a difficult time understanding that sexual assault has nothing to do with sex. It’s motivated by beliefs of entitlement and total disregard for victims rights, says Clark.

Adcock says it is the most intimate violation that can happen to someone.

“It’s about power and control,” she says. “It’s physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually even, such a violation.”

On a table outside the 7th floor elevators of CCASA, is a gold fish bowl, overflowing with folded, vibrant pieces of paper, featuring positive affirmations. Each one is designed to inspire the subconscious mind into manifesting positive life changes.

One reads “Today I will be vulnerable with someone I trust.”

That can be a terrifying and often threatening experience for a survivor who was assaulted by someone they knew, and worse yet, who was violated in their own home.

As with Anna’s case, her assailant was a friend that was brought to her home by another friend. It was a party. Everyone was just there to have a good time.

One too many drinks later, Anna awoke on her bathroom floor, with no recollection of how she got there. “I remember being escorted by a girl to my bedroom,” says Anna. “When I got into my room he was in my bed.”

Anna told him to get out, but he insisted he was only looking for a place to crash for the night. Reluctant but too incoherent to argue with him, Anna nestled into her bed, passing out again.

The rest remains brief flashes of haunting memories.