Last September marked the second year of my volunteer work as a victim advocate with my town’s sexual and domestic violence center. It took me two years to gather the courage to apply, but the training and experience has been invaluable. I’ve learned a lot about people, their coping mechanisms, their values, and what they may need from me. I’ve also learned how to set healthy boundaries, how to practice self-care, and what loving myself means to me.
Two to three times a month, I pick up a call bag from the center, which holds a cell phone and binders full of state and national resources, as well as notes on issues that have arisen lately, such as prank callers or recent assaults in the area. Then, from 5 pm to 8 am the next day, I sit at home and wait for the phone to ring.
Most nights, I’ll get one call. Maybe two. Sometimes none at all. A call may last two minutes, if the caller just needs a phone number, or if a hospital is calling to activate the sexual assault response team (SART), or it may last half an hour – after 30 minutes, it’s likely the caller needs more than a volunteer advocate can provide, at which point we suggest they come in during office hours to talk to staff.
Now that I can drive (only six years late!), I can also be an in-person advocate. IP advocates are part of the SART, and will go to the hospital to be with a victim during their exam, if the victim chooses to let them. The advocate will sit with the victim, explain what they can, and advocate for their autonomy and self-determination during the medical exam, as well as dealing with family and friends that may also be in the room.
Sometimes this calls for some delicate diplomacy, if loved ones appear equally or more traumatized than the victim, or start questioning the victim, implying what happened was their fault. You have to remember that this is part of the “just-world” fallacy under which most of us operate – the idea that you get what you deserve, and you deserve what you get. It’s how we convince ourselves we are safe, because we believe we would never make decisions that would lead to harm. We would never leave our group of friends at a party, or invite a classmate into our dorm to study, or drink too much at a friend’s house…right?
When a survivor starts working with our center, it’s because every decision they made allowed them to get to that place. Whatever choices they made, however they feel about them – if they froze or fought back, if they consented under pressure, if they had sex with their rapist afterward – are the choices that allowed them to survive and seek help in healing.
Many people in Alcoholics Anonymous say they wish everyone could attend group sessions, regardless of their history with alcohol. I’ve heard the same said about individual therapy, and I’ll say the same for the advocate training we received. I consider myself an empathetic and perceptive person, but our training taught me what it means to listen – I mean really listen – and to be part of someone else’s healing process. It taught me how to take my own ego and desires out of my role as a support person. It taught me how truly exhausting it is to navigate the legal and academic system after an assault, and how I can begin to fill in the gaps. Everyone needs to know what sexual and domestic violence looks like, what role they play in perpetuating that violence, and what role they can play, if they so choose, to end it.
Staffing my organization’s table at the university’s volunteer fair the other day, I had a lot of free time to think (funnily enough, not many people enthusiastically approach a rape and domestic violence center’s table). I realized that, outside of my role as a sexual and domestic violence advocate, I have had five women and two men disclose to me their experiences with rape and sexual abuse. At least three were victimized as children. I know one rapist – at least, I have heard of him victimizing more than one woman, both in and out of intimate relationships. These numbers do not include survivors I know who haven’t shared that part of their life with me, nor does it include those (survivors and perpetrators) of whom I’ve only heard rumors, or whose behavior leads me to suspect they have probably victimized someone.
I am not a social butterfly. I don’t have a lot of close friends at any given point. But anecdotally, I can tell you that the statistics do apply: One in four women, and one in six men have experienced sexual abuse. This number is probably higher, considering the vast majority of rapes go unreported. The statistics on child sexual abuse are even harder to collect, and range from 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys to 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys.
My education as an advocate and therapist means I feel fully capable of dealing with my own emotions about disclosures from loved ones. I have an amazing organization with whom I can process at any time, which I did, privately with the volunteer coordinator, at our latest meeting. I never want anyone to think they are burdening me by sharing that part of their life.
Honestly, my one overriding emotion concerning disclosures is gratitude. Gratitude that I exist as someone people feel safe talking to, gratitude for my training, gratitude that we live in a time where beliefs about sexual violence are changing, and that there is hope.
There’s anger, too, and immense sadness. You can’t ever get away from that. Surrounding myself with this work, my first thought after a disclosure is often, “I’ll kill the bastard.” How dare someone hurt my friend like that and still be breathing? How can it be possible that there are so many victims, yet only 3% of rapists will ever face legal consequences? How can perpetrators live with themselves?
But these are questions that I can never answer, and so I try not to ask them. I try, instead, to figure out how my words and actions can serve the greater good of eliminating sexual and domestic violence, how I can be there for my friends who need me, how I can exist as someone who makes the world safer for victims and survivors, including those who never disclose to me or anyone.
Volunteering as a victim advocate is far from a thankless job. Our center’s staff are overflowing with appreciation at every meeting, and are always available if a volunteer needs to process a difficult call. Some callers can’t thank us enough, but even though most don’t, we know that sometimes, the simple act of picking up the phone is the most important thing they needed.
If you’re interested in becoming a victim advocate, or helping your local center in some other way, here are some places to get started:
RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network)
National Domestic Violence Hotline
Some centers (like mine) aren’t affiliated with RAINN and won’t show up in their database, so you can always do a Google search for sexual and domestic violence centers in your state or city.
Image by Hamed Saber
