I Went Public About My Rape. Shame Won’t Silence Me Again.

A painful and shameful secret I held onto for 52 years is now out in the world.

HuffPost recently published my essay about being gang-raped as a freshman at a fraternity house at Syracuse University and my subsequent dismissal from art school.

I had kept silent about what happened to me for more than half a century, until the “Cornell Seven” case prompted me to finally speak publicly at 71.

The response has been overwhelming in a way that surprised me. I had hoped other women might recognise themselves in my words, but I hadn’t imagined how many were waiting for that recognition.

I now realised I opened a door into a crowded room of women who had been waiting, in some cases for a lifetime, to speak.

I felt emboldened to help others find the courage to use their voices, but I never expected to be admonished for using mine – especially by a health professional.

I recently had a routine visit at my medical office that turned out to be anything but routine. My regular internist wasn’t available until January, so I scheduled an appointment with a nurse practitioner. I was happy to be seen by her, as my past experiences with 50-something women had only been positive.

I sat in the sterile exam room in the familiar flimsy, light-blue disposable gown. I scrolled through my iPhone to pass the time and marveled at how my social media accounts had exploded with messages from women responding to my essay and sharing their own accounts of sexual abuse. My heart was racing.

After the nurse practitioner knocked and entered the exam room, she sat down at the computer and scanned my lengthy medical history.

Without looking up, she casually asked how I was doing as she typed on the keyboard, and I softly said I was fine, though I admitted I was experiencing some anxiety.

I told her about my recently published piece and the flood of responses I had received. I also explained that I was nervous about an upcoming radio interview in Syracuse about my essay.

A half-century later, that college freshman’s voice would finally be heard in the place where the attack occurred. It was bringing up a boatload of feelings.

As I spoke, the nurse practitioner shook her head disapprovingly. Her eyes stayed locked on the glowing screen, but her brow furrowed and her lips tightened.

“You should have kept this to yourself. WHY would you write about it?” she asked incredulously without making eye contact with me. “You should never have talked about your rape!”

I suddenly found myself transported back in my junior high school health class, watching those grainy, black-and-white mental health films about dating and danger.

Her stern, scolding voice echoed their somber narrators who had warned me that danger was a girl’s responsibility to avoid, that being sexually assaulted meant a girl had failed, and that good girls carried their shame in silence. They taught me never to speak of what happened to me – no matter what.

But that was decades ago. So much had happened since then – too much for me to stay quiet now.

I tried to explain that although writing the essay had been difficult, I felt proud of it. I explained that I am a writer and artist and telling hard truths is central to what I do. It had taken me over 50 years to finally tell this one and, now that it was out in the world, there was no going back.

The words kept tumbling out. I told her my story had allowed other women to open up about their own experiences. Still, she wasn’t moved. She believed women simply shouldn’t talk about these things publicly.

I was shocked that someone in her position – someone who is supposed to be helping people – was saying what she was saying. However, it was suddenly perfectly clear to me why I had kept my assault secret for so long. And I understood why I was right to finally speak out.

Despite what this woman believed, the story that had brought about my deepest shame was now a lifeline to others. Hundreds of women had written to me and entrusted me with deeply personal accounts of sexual abuse and assault. Some were strangers. Others, surprisingly, were women I had known for years, but we had never discussed what had happened to us.

Many were my contemporaries, women in their 70s and even 80s who had carried their secrets through marriages, motherhood, careers, and entire lifetimes.

A 55-year-old woman in Virginia wrote, “I am so sorry this happened to you. I never once thought to report any kind of sexual harassment or assault growing up because I always felt shame and embarrassment that I’d somehow brought it on to myself.” I read echoes of this comment in dozens of other messages.

These women’s stories were heartbreaking, intimate, and sometimes hesitant. I recognised the silences between their sentences as clearly as the words themselves. I was struck not only by what they told me, but by how urgently they seemed to need to tell it. Decades of silence were finally giving way to words.

Many had come of age without the language to name what had happened to them. Others’ messages were filled with self-recrimination that was eerily familiar to me. Some had been drinking. Or had worn a too-tight sweater. Or perhaps there’d been some kind of “miscommunication”. Or they told themselves they hadn’t said “no” firmly enough.

Some had believed they couldn’t have been raped because they knew the assailant. They thought it couldn’t be a “real rape” because that involved an attack by a stranger in a dark alley, right? They had so many excuses and ways to write off what happened as anything other than what it had truly been. This is how we learned to see what happened and how we were taught to see ourselves.

In these women’s words, I recognised all the lessons that had made – and kept – us quiet. And I recognised those lessons in the nurse practitioner’s response.

We had all carried a deep shame that didn’t belong to us, but now that we’d seen the truth, we refused to carry that shame any further, no matter who disagreed.

I initially told my story because of Jane Doe’s. I saw myself in what she said happened to her at Cornell. And I realised it was time to tell my own truth because I want to help create a culture where a woman and her story are met with care – and the people who hurt her are held accountable.

We obviously aren’t there yet, but I truly believe this is the way forward.

To learn that my speaking out helped another woman, much less many of them, was more than I could have imagined during all those years of silence and shame.

I know that I cannot undo what happened to me, but at 71, I can decide what I do with my voice now. No one, including that disapproving medical professional, will stand in my way now.

I spent so long being afraid of what would happen if I told my truth. Now I am realising what can happen because I did.

Sally Edelstein is an award-winning, nationally exhibited collage artist. Her essays have appeared in The Ethel, N.Y. Daily News, Ms Magazine, Independent, Next Avenue, Kveller, and she is the author-illustrator of This Year’s Girl ( Doubleday). Her short film “Perpetual” won Best Narration at the New Bedford Film Festival, and she writes the long-running website Envisioning the American Dream. She lives in Huntington, New York, with her dog Moe.

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• Rape Crisis services for women and girls who have been raped or have experienced sexual violence – 0808 802 9999
• Survivors UK offers support for men and boys – 0203 598 3898