Casual Friday: Coming forward and breaking the wall of silence

Sept. 28--Dr. Elizabeth Black is a physician.

She is a military veteran, a wife and mother who loves art and music.

Black also is a sexual assault survivor.

She has shared her stories before of abuse as a child and the insensitivity she has experienced at times as an adult. Perhaps it's why Black was a voice of reason over the weekend when a meme mocking those who come forward with sexual assault allegations was posted to the Nez Perce County sheriff's personal Facebook page. The sheriff's wife would later take the blame for the posting, but the damage was done and the reaction on social media led Black to again share her story.

Craig Clohessy: The insensitive posting on Sheriff Joe Rodriguez's Facebook page seemed, at least on social media, to be a boiling point in our community. Can you talk a little about the depth of the problem and really what the problem is?

Elizabeth Black: I'm sure that current events make us all aware that sexual assault, abuse and harassment is far from an uncommon situation, but it should be recognized as having epidemic prevalence in our society. There's lots of disagreement about the phrasing used and some politicizing. ... The scope of the matter is that many people in our society walk around with histories of not just one episode of assault, abuse or harassment, but recurrent episodes. (There's also) ongoing incidents in ways that their community members interact with them that make them feel uncomfortable. ...

More people are walking around with these stories than we realize. And the reason for that is because people don't come forward and disclose. Particularly not in social settings. Most of us who have been survivors of assault, abuse or harassment want to go about our lives functioning in the professional environment, functioning in the personal environment. ...

The #MeToo movement has been one that women have been champions of ... but this kind of insensitivity is applicable to all people. The difficulty, I think, is it gets wrapped up in other issues that women have regarding biases in our society. You know, male, female biases, but I think the issue here is it gets woven or tangled with gender issues but also woven and tangled with political ideology. ... It's especially harmful and difficult when people use them as weapons, ideological weapons against one another. In my experience, sadly, both political parties have been guilty of doing that, of minimizing experiences that go on that affect one party politically and exaggerating experiences that affect the other. ...

CC: You've had your own personal experience with sexual abuse and assault. Would you share your story with Tribune readers?

EB: ... (As a) young person I had many experiences of being inappropriately touched or handled by adults, sometimes babysitters, sometimes friends of the family, and some of these instances were relatively minor, but all of them were uncomfortable. ... It was a difficult thing growing up as a girl when you begin to have that early puberty and all of a sudden the boys aren't teasing you or being mean to you anymore, but now they're touching you. ...

When I was 7 years old ... I was living with my mom and she had mental health issues. ... I was basically getting up, taking care of myself, oftentimes coming home and taking care of myself and not having a lot of parental supervision. ... I went to a school for advanced children ... and we had to take a special school bus to go there. ... There was a vestibule of the building that the bus would pull up in front of, it was kind of like an apartment building, and when it got very cold that winter we would shelter in that vestibule while we waited for the bus. There was a man, I assumed he was the janitor. ... One day I was there bright and early and it was super, super cold and he said, 'Did I want to come inside and get warm?' ... I did get molested in that boiler room. Although it wasn't severe, it was certainly terrifying because even at 7 I think we have a sense that those things can go horribly wrong and I'm pretty sharp, so what I did was not fight or scream, I sort of normalized it. I think this is what happens, what women learn to do. ... I pretended as though what he was doing was OK. And then I don't remember, it's hard for me to go back into this detail, but I think I said something like ... I'm going to be late for school, the bus is going to be ... I was scared, like what if he doesn't let me go? But he did. ...

I didn't know how to feel about it. And I think my mom must have noticed. So I disclosed to her ... and she ended up telling her boyfriend. ... He was ... very, very angry. Now, of course, he was angry at the person, but he sometimes was a person that was more aggressive and that I was afraid of. ... I felt like he was angry because of something I had done. I had made a mistake, something happened, I got myself into trouble. And now there was rage. There was rage in the household.

... And then (they wanted to go to the police to report the sexual abuse), but by then I had been so scared that I just couldn't. ...

CC: Black shared more experiences she had with sexual abuse and harassment before age 12, which caused her to grow up faster than children should. It also made her cautious and constantly on guard.

EB: I did learn, and I was a lot more careful -- I am careful now. I'm always aware. Not only do I watch myself, but I do a lot of event promoting in the community ... (and) there's always a risk involved that something can happen to a person. When I'm inviting people, particularly females, I'm always aware if they have a bad experience. ... On some level, I have a responsibility for that because I've invited them and they feel safe because they know me. And so I find myself following, you know, patrolling. ...

CC: How do we change the culture?

EB: I think you can only do it by breaking the wall of silence. ... That's really the conclusion I've come to right now, is the reason that this is happening is that people have felt so uncomfortable with the disclosures, for good reasons because the disclosures are difficult. ... What we need to do is make room for people to safely disclose so that all of us can understand the scope of the problem. And then we need to be sensitive and respectful with those disclosures. And we need to not stand silent. It would've been much easier for me to not make all those comments (referring to Facebook posts she made following the meme posting to the sheriff's page). I could've got my work done, I could've said the internet sucks right now, which is what people frequently do. ... I think there's strength in unity and there's many, many people who feel this way that haven't yet been in power to come forward. ...

I saw an amazing thing this weekend in the middle of the stuff that sucked. ... I would get private messages, and a person would say, 'You know, you're so brave for coming forward; you know, you're really courageous and your story reminds me ...' and then they would give a disclosure. ... I would see that person appear on another thread and disclose. But I don't think that's the healthiest thing. As a health professional, I don't think that people oughta be compelled to disclose things that are insensitive and upsetting to them in an unsafe space, just as a pushback. ....

CC: How do we support someone when they have reached that point, when they're ready to come forward and talk about their situation? And how do we continue to support them?

EB: When we treat post-traumatic stress disorder or people in trauma, we create spaces where the disclosure is manageable, it's compartmentalized in a space where people feel supportive. ... When someone says 'I'm uncomfortable with something,' it's important to stop. So, that's the first thing, is listen before speaking when people are disclosing or saying they're uncomfortable. ... If someone says they're uncomfortable, whether or not you think they should be, that's not your call. The polite thing to do as human beings is to ... stop and say, 'Hey, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable,' even if you say, 'I don't quite understand but I'll respect it'. Easy enough to do. You probably don't say, 'Stupid people, it's just a joke.'

CC: 'Stupid people, it's just a joke,' also was posted to Sheriff Rodriguez's Facebook page after people began responding to the meme.

EB: ... The meme hit Facebook, and there's some dispute about how that occurred, which to me is irrelevant. It really doesn't matter to me how that occurred, but it occurred. Things have ended up on my wall accidentally and then I figured out that I really had to stop people from being able to post to my wall so I could control that because I want my wall to be somewhere that people can feel pretty comfortable. ...

CC: You've spent some time considering what should be done next.

EB: It came up organically in the course of the conversation, and it was on (former Lewiston City Councilor) Jesse Maldonado's wall, where someone suggested that people oughta go to the sheriff and tell them how they feel about it. ... I don't think that's the most constructive, because I think part of the reason that pushback happened is it's uncomfortable to be told you've done something wrong. And I don't feel like forcing him to, that just doesn't seem constructive to me to force him to hear the discomfort directly. ... I think he can elect to do that if he chooses to, but I didn't think that confronting him as a community was a good plan. ...

I think what's better is to ... elevate awareness that there's a lot of folks that don't understand how to be sensitive to this particular issue. So we thought, what would be the best thing moving forward? I thought ... maybe we should do an awareness event and then I thought, no, this is a systemic problem. ... I don't think ... a one-time music concert or benefit is going to do that, or a one-time class. I think this has to be something that we look at addressing and then maintaining in our community moving forward. ...

It's an ongoing safety issue of awareness and education and then maintaining standards and principles in all areas. And the people I thought would be most important to be leaders in this are law enforcement, health care and helping professionals, right? Support professionals and educators. I think what I'm going to do is start a coalition or committee/task force. I don't even know what we're calling it yet, but I think we should find some noncommittal word. A group. The group.

CC: Sounds like a work in progress.

EB: Absolutely.

------

Clohessy is managing editor of the Tribune. He may be contacted at cclohessy@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2251.

___

(c)2018 the Lewiston Tribune (Lewiston, Idaho)

Visit the Lewiston Tribune (Lewiston, Idaho) at www.lmtribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.