Wednesday, October 11, 2017 // The Statement
6B
Personal Statement: Trigger warning
Editor’s note: The author
of
this
piece
remains
anonymous to protect their
identity.
M
onday
morning.
I
sit
waiting
with classmates for the
professor of our literature
and human rights class
to arrive. “Did you hear
about the shooting in Las
Vegas?”
someone
asks.
I hadn’t. I whip out my
phone to read about an aged
man who was an accountant
and then a murderer before
he committed suicide. I
wonder what matters in this
article. Does it matter to the
victims and their families
that this man used to crunch
numbers at his 9-to-5 or that
he was 64 years old when he
ravaged lives and ended his
own?
Our professor arrives, and
we begin our discussion of
a scene in a novel where a
woman is gang-raped. Her
father wants to talk to her
about it, wants her to seek
justice, wants her to show
him how broken she is from
the experience. She doesn’t.
My
professor
told
us
a few weeks back that
he
believes
in
trigger
warnings, so to talk to him
or email him if we might
have an issue discussing
sexual violence or graphic
violence.
Sexual
violence
is a separate category from
other
violence,
conjures
up other images and other
characters. I try not to think
at all when the topic comes
up for fear of true images.
Photographers,
we
think
of ourselves as magicians
trying to capture fleeting
moments
and
ephemeral
light. Some moments have
enough of their own magic
to stay in the mind. Dark
magic, Sauran-level shit.
I sent him an unobtrusive,
professionally polite email.
“Hey, I have a history with
sexual violence, so I might
get quiet in discussion if
we talk about it. Thanks for
your understanding.” Just
like that, another person
who knows an episode of my
story.
I used to stand in the
shower for what felt like
hours, scrubbing my nails
against my palms, doing
nothing but feeling the heat
of the water gnaw at my skin.
I counted how many people
knew every time I showered.
I named them, murmured
them to myself, lifted my
fingers like a child to count
them on my body. I do
not know why this ritual
mattered to me. I still don’t
know.
And now, I am at the
same table as someone who
knows this piece of me,
discussing the meaning of
a female character’s rape
— what matters when we
discuss this? How can I
abstract a type of violence
I know so intimately? Am
I
imagining
something
sympathetic or concerned
when he looks at me? Can
he see the chill that crawls
under my skin when we
discuss this?
He can’t know that my
father is a crying man,
that I told him I was raped
on a walk in the woods
together. My dad didn’t
bother me or push me
to do anything like the
character’s father. My dad
never told me what part
of him broke or died upon
hearing the news. I’ve seen
him cry at Pixar movies
and
discussing
Martin
Luther King Jr. and when
we visited the American
cemetery in Normandy. I
didn’t see him cry over his
daughter’s rape. I don’t
know his sadness just as
my professor doesn’t know
my sadness as I sit in that
brightly lit classroom.
I wish we all carried this
sadness together, from time
to time. I wish we vocalized
it, spat it out in profanities,
wailed it.
***
My mom visits me on
a
weekday.
We
drink
iced lattes together, go
to Zingerman’s, wince at
the smell of weed in the
elevator of the parking
garage. Her sister comes
into town for the night so we
can have dinner together.
Our outfits always seem
to match — silver jewelry,
polished colors, looking as
if we could all walk into a
meeting with a business
casual dress code.
We all drink Diet Coke
at dinner. We all love the
sweet potato fries and
rosemary
fries
equally
(these things we share).
My
aunt
doesn’t
like
ketchup; I didn’t know. By
dessert we’ve devoured the
topic of my grandmother’s
current living situation.
“It’s just sad,” we all say.
We don’t say that we’re
sad; I know we are.
“I just think so often
about how she must have
been raised, how her life
must have gone,” I say.
I perform the error of
associating her with a 1950s
housewife from time to
time, but then immediately
I recall how an individual, a
woman with a husband and
children cannot be a vintage
trope. I know her complexity
and
persistent
optimism
after spending afternoons
planting flowers in her yard
and taking her out to lunch.
I know the ways she folds
her hands and fixes her hair.
I do not know if she ever
felt pressured by her life to
conform or perform.
I think of this as I sit with
my mother and my aunt,
my women in blood and
conversation. I don’t know if
they know what it feels like
to be forced to submit or if
my grandmother ever knew
such repugnance. I wanted
someone who knew the
feelings of what happened to
me this past week, someone
who understood how my
mind could be rattled years
after a trauma as I sat in that
safe, inviting classroom.
In this way, I feel quiet. I
do not ask. I do not answer;
I do not have answers. We
asked what justice would
have been for the character
in the book, but I cannot
define what justice would
have been in my own life or if
how my Nana lives is justice
for society’s expectations for
women or if my aunt or mom
ever cried to themselves for
the reasons I do.
Now, I do not need
to know. I needed this,
my mom and my aunt
at the same table with
me in a quiet restaurant
on a Wednesday night,
skimming over the topics
of our lives and delving
into them together.
by Anonymous
ILLUSTRATION BY EMMA RICHTER