Opinion
Strength in Solidarity
By Elizabeth Lvov '17
November 17, 2016
Tags opinion
When I first showed up to what we would later call “Group,” I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had been invited by Melodie Rosen ’18, a friend of mine, who I had met when she directed a subversive play about blow jobs the preceding semester and cast me in one of the roles. I showed up barely on time; everyone else was already there, five other girls I hadn’t met situated in a close circle on beanbags on the floor. Melodie smiled at me warmly. “I’m so glad you came,” she said.
We went around the circle and gave the standard introductory information: our names, our class years, our majors or what we were leaning towards. It was stiff and somewhat strange; we didn’t really know each other, but we all knew what we had in common. I think we were all wondering who would bring it up first. After we had said all of our names, the first and final awkward pause of our months-long conversation happened. At my tentative suggestion, we went around in a circle once again to say what we each hoped to get out of the group. And then, unprompted, we just kept talking. After that point, it has been almost an entire semester, and that conversation has seamlessly and effortlessly continued, in weekly (and sometimes biweekly) meetings that we all eagerly show up to.
This group was formed explicitly by survivors and for survivors. It functions as an affinity space that allows survivors to speak and to know that they are being heard and fully understood. It’s a group that prioritizes giving each survivor the space to say however much they want or need to say. It provides strength in solidarity. Going in, I thought that it might be solemn, even grim, everyone going around and recounting their personal tragedy with a nearby box of tissues while everyone nodded, tight-lipped. But in fact, the atmosphere of every meeting is like the best part of a sleepover: it’s cozy and really fun.
At first, we didn’t talk about our specific experiences, but of the things surrounding those experiences. We talked about the campus atmosphere, about the administration and about the micro and macro repercussions of rape culture. We talked about things entirely unrelated. We talked about our weekend plans and our schoolwork and our hopes for the future. We talked about ourselves. We complained, and we joked around, and we lounged about. Eventually, fragments of our stories emerged, but they emerged aspieces of much fuller narratives. I know these girls now, and I know them in a way that is based on who they are as people rather than in a way that is based on the trauma that brought us all into one room together. We understand each other. We lift each other up. We laugh so much.
Last semester, when I realized I had been assaulted, was one of the most difficult times of my life. I felt intensely isolated with this newfound information about myself, and every day for two months I would wake up with an awful feeling in my lungs. At the time I conceptualized this feeling as an imaginary evil gnome sitting on my chest, but in reality I was in the grips of the worst anxiety I had ever experienced. My closest friends tried to understand what I was going through but didn’t really get it and were alienated by a version of me that didn’t have the wherewithal to ask about how their day went. I went to the Counseling Center and felt an obvious yet off-putting one-sidedness to the conversation; I felt strangely pathologized in the process of receiving sympathythat was certainly sincere, but not particularly useful in alleviating my loneliness.
Members of the administration were also sympathetic to my case and made me aware of my options, but didn’t particularly urge me to file a formal complaint. I ultimately did not choose to file the formal complaint that could have (only maybe) prevented my rapist from receiving his Hamilton degree at the end of that terrible semester. I felt that I lacked the support system to feel even okay, much less the support system to undergo the emotion- ally arduous process of potentially securing some type of retribution. I knew that statistically, I was far from the only one going through this particular type of pain. But I still felt almost completely on my own.
This is not to discount the wonderful people that did their part to make last semester an experience of which I still have good memories; the people that made the prospect of returning to Hamilton after a restorative summer a much less daunting one. I still wear a huge soft grey scarf that Rachel Wilkinson ’16 knit for me after I told her what I’d been through. Despite the peers, professors and supervisors that were so kind to me, I felt nervous about coming back, and the first few weeks of this semester weren’t easy. But things have gotten way better.
This semester, largely because of Group, I feel so much more than just okay. I wake up feeling like myself. I have found a support system, and the best part is that I function as a part of it. I don’t feel like I’m demanding unreciprocated care as much as I feel part of a tiny ecological system of mutual needs and offerings. This is a group of healing and recovery, and it is worth noting that this group has been the perfect source of encouragement to its members who choose to invest their energy in activism. All of us went to watch the electrifying speech group member Charlotte Bennett ’17 gave after the HSMB report email to the student assembly, and a video of that speech has garnered just under five thousand views on Facebook. We all sat near her, teary eyed and beaming. We filmed her with shaky hands like proud moms. Bennett has now added the cofounding of SMART, the latest student-led initiative to battle assault on campus, to her already impressive resume. Good things happen when a group of survivors decide to meet at least once a week, just to talk.
The Wednesday after Trump was elected we decided on an emergency meeting. I walked across campus in a total haze, but when I sat in that circle I felt like all the grief of the day was lifted from my shoulders in almost instantaneous relief. We talked, and we didn’t get any happier about the election results, but we did get less afraid. It is incredibly empowering and life-affirming, to be a part of something significant with people who are so lovely and so strong. I look at the first-years in our group and feel something fierce and bright in my chest. I look around at everyone and I feel warm and safe. It is so nice to be so thoroughly unalone.
If you are a survivor of sexual assault or dating violence, you are absolutely wel- come and encouraged to join this group. Please reach out to me at elvov@hamil- ton.edu or to Melodie Rosen at mrosen@ hamilton.edu. You can also message either one of us on Facebook. We want to hear your story and we can tell you ours.