The Stories Will Find Their Way – Kacey Silverstein

The Stories Will Find Their Way
Written by Kacey Silverstein 

I write this at the end of a long workday. I have sat with women in the grief and despair that rape brings and I have answered the crisis line, always wondering what will happen to the person at the other end. It’s about 5:30 now and my co-worker and I are both clicking away on our computer keyboards. Today is one of those days where I wonder if this fight will ever end? I wonder how many more stories of rape and torture I will carry in my heart, how many more rallies I will attend, how many more articles I will write in April to help raise awareness of sexual violence. On days like today, I wonder how much more any of us have left to give?

I was having coffee with a friend and colleague the other day and she asked me if I thought that patriarchy was a system that could ever be defeated? I was surprised that she asked the question because when I look at her, I see her interrupting patriarchy on a daily basis. She is a therapist and one of the best I have ever seen. She walks hand in hand with trauma survivors as they find their way out of the violence. She listens to their stories, laughs with them, cries with them and bears witness to the pain that so often stays hidden. Most importantly, she sits with them in the silences—I’m talking about the silent space beneath words where the wounds reach deep into the core of your being. She sits in that place day after day and she wonders if patriarchy can ever be defeated? I wish she could truly know her worth. I wish she could know that what she does, what she gives day after day is changing the system.

I met with a student yesterday who stumbled into my office on her lunch break. She has been through such trauma during her four years on this campus. She is a survivor of rape and a testament to the power of the human spirit to overcome against all odds. She came to talk about her plans after graduation. I was listening to her talk and realized how scared I felt for her to go out into the world on her own. I know she will make it, she will do great things but I want to be able to protect her. I have always wanted to protect her from the nightmares, from her rapist, from the violence that is lurking. It is always lurking. But I know that in a few months she will be gone from this place.

I’m telling you these stories because they need to be heard. We talk so often about the fight and the struggle and the rallies—all of the actions we take to end violence against women on this campus and around the world but I think we need to talk about what is at the heart of it all. This work will break your heart. Rape will break your heart. Torture and abuse of women will break your heart over and over. To sit with women in their grief like my friend or to survive the violence or to question the system takes the heart of a warrior.

I once heard a Native American Proverb that said, “It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story.” There are thousands, millions of stories of rape out in the world now. They are told in rape crisis centers, battered women’s shelters, between friends over coffee, in the dark of night over the wires of a crisis line, in rural villages, in police stations, in college dorm rooms, in high school bathrooms, in refugee camps. These stories are as essential to our existence as food or air or sunshine and we cannot forget that –we cannot forget to listen.

I read today about another domestic violence shelter closing its doors because of lack of funding. A few minutes later I received an email announcing that President Bush’s 2009 Budget proposes a $129 million cut in Violence Against Women Act funds, caps Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding at the lowest level in 6 years, does not provide any increases for Family Violence and Services Act (shelter) funding, and ELIMINATES the $2 billion dollars in the VOCA reserve. There are many ways to silence the stories. We silence the stories by saying that rape is not  “my” problem, by not believing survivors, by taking away funding from programs and shelters, by ignoring the reality of such a pervasive and damaging violence.

The stories will keep finding their way to the therapists, and the crisis lines, and the rallies. We will breathe them in and out and carry them in our hearts as we go forward in this movement. I think the answer to this whole struggle is in the stories. In the stories we find the deepest grief and the greatest possibility for hope and change. So, during April and every month after remember to listen…who knows what you might hear?