*Trigger warning that today’s post contains a story of sexual violence.
Through very little thought or planning on my part, my work life fell into place and eventually developed into a career plan.
When I was twenty, I started working in a clerical job at a federal law enforcement agency, and over the next eight and a half years, I progressed from clerk to stenographer to secretary. At my supervisor’s suggestion, I started taking college courses at night so I could eventually get a degree and become an agent.
I wouldn’t say I was passionate about the work, but it was a steady job with great benefits and would provide a solid retirement when I turned fifty.
After a year of night classes, I decided to quit my job and go to college full time with the intention of coming back after graduation. All was going according to plan until one Friday night a few weeks before I was due to leave my job to start college. On that night one of the men I worked with, a man I trusted, raped me, and my life would never be the same.
Because he had a badge, there was nothing to be done; he would say it was consensual, and there were no witnesses. He would face no consequences, but my life was forever changed.
I did leave that job and carry through on my plans to go to college, and after graduation I did apply to return as an agent. I was accepted and awaiting the day I would leave for training.
Despite intensive therapy throughout my time in college, as the date for training school neared, I began to be more anxious. I spiraled out of control, and I entered the land of “what ifs.” What if I saw him again? Or had to work with him? What if another man even touched me inappropriately? What if…?
As my anxiety levels rose, I realized I had to abandon my plan of becoming an agent. I had to give up a career that offered meaningful work, good benefits, and secure retirement. I withdrew my application, and, once again, I felt untethered.
It took me years to get back on track, and I ended up in the nonprofit sector where I worked mostly with other women serving vulnerable people. My vulnerability resonated with the people I was serving, and I felt a passion for helping people find their voice, perhaps because my own voice had been silenced by rape.
I didn’t think much about the career I had lost until I turned fifty and remembered that I could have retired then with a secure pension and great benefits. But because of the derailment of my career, I knew I would have to work for many more years.
In fact, I stopped full-time work just short of my 70th birthday.
Rape is a topic that does not come up in polite conversation. The very word is a conversation stopper. Beyond saying, “I’m sorry that happened to you,” people usually don’t know what else to say. I get that. It is like many other unexpected, life-changing things that happen to people—cancer, suicide of a family member, mental illness, etc. Awful things sometimes happen and leave us at a loss for words.
When the #metoo movement started, I remember saying out loud to no one in particular, “Me, too.” That was a lightbulb moment.
More than forty years after it had happened, I could see how being raped not only changed my life, but also gave me something that I could share with other survivors. I not only survived being raped, but I was able to reinvent myself, and I went on to live a full, productive life of meaningful service in the nonprofit sector.
Suddenly, I had found a deeper passion.
I signed up to be a Survivor Speaker at our local resource center for survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault. I wanted to speak to other survivors to let them know they are not alone and there is help and hope.
Over the past two years, I have shared my story with many different groups of people, and I have seen how talking about being a rape survivor can be a conversation starter for other survivors and their loved ones. I have heard “me, too” from people I have known for years, but I did not know this part of their histories.
Now that I have found my voice, I want to get involved in law enforcement reform and use my experience to help create a system where victims are believed and offenders are held accountable for their actions.
