Man, first my Grandma, and now another downer post. Sorry. I'm still a generally happy person, just encountering sadness lately.
I don't want to talk specifically about work, but my husband and I have both noticed in the last week the saddest trend -- many adult victims of sexual violence have a history of being victims of sexual violence.
I'm dealing with an adult woman who is the victim of a recent sexual assault. Sad. But I just found out that she was first raped at age 7. I mentioned this to hubby and he said he was surprised I'd never noticed that before. I guess it's less that I hadn't noticed it, but more that I hadn't thought about it. He said he sees it all the time -- adult victims who've been victimized before.
It's such a horrible cycle. Some people are victimized again and again. I wonder what causes that. I would assume it has to be outside factors (it's not that these people (women) are particularly beautiful or anything), but is it? Do victims somehow subconsciously put themselves in positions to be victimized again? Are they more willing to tolerate that behavior? Does it all relate to economics? How can the cycle end? Or better yet, how can the cycle never begin? I just don't understand, and sometimes I remember to thank my lucky stars that I've never been victimized like that.
The statistics about domestic violence and sexual assault are scary of course, as pretty much everyone knows. I once had a relatively minor "domestic" incident with the guy I was dating when I was in high school -- we broke up immediately afterward and though I missed him, I knew better than to ever go back to him after that had happened. And the incident was really minor -- a shove, no injury resulted or anything, but I knew enough to walk away. And I guess technically I've probably been verbally or emotionally abused by some ex-boyfriend, but it seems that lots of juvenile relationships end with ugly things being said. I wouldn't count that, at least it's nothing compared to the physical sexual violence some women suffer, often beginning well before adulthood.
But I really wonder how this keeps happening. Is it common that someone is victimized repeatedly (meaning as a child, and then in a wholly unrelated incident(s) as an adult)? Or is it just that most the adult victims I encounter have this pattern? And for the few child victims I encounter (very rare), does this mean they are essentially doomed to a life of being victimized? Is it just women victimized as children who continue to be victimized while men victimized as children instead become victimizers? Why do these patterns persist?
Sad. I wish I could fix the world.
One of my ideas if I ever rule the world is to run criminal DNA checks on every single corpse so we can at least close down some open cases, though it's too late for justice. If only there were some way to stop these sad victimization cycles too.
What a thought-provoking post. I do think that part of the problem is that once someone has been sexually abused their idea of "normal" is forever altered. If that person can't get the help they need to let them see that the abuse was 1) abuse and 2) not their fault, they go through life with a skewed view of the world and their place in it. They don't feel that they deserve more, or they feel that they've somehow brought it on. Or, they don't have the resources (monetary, mental, etc) to leave.
ReplyDeleteIt's such a sad cycle.