“Why would someone wait this long to report their story? When police stations are in place and there are laws to protect survivors, why won’t they utilise these avenues?” It makes logical sense. After all, these entities exist with the sole purpose of protecting these women.
However, the questions reek of ignorance and privilege. The intricacies of sexual trauma demonstrate how the social, economic and political spots occupied by the survivor can have implications on their physical and mental health.
When an individual is subjected to sexual trauma, their body senses danger. The most natural response is a stress response, a.k.a. ‘fight-flight-freeze’. A stress response is the body’s way of protecting itself. The autonomic nervous system moves blood to our arms and legs so we can combat the danger we’re about to face. Freezing is a stress response such that, when the body and brain feel so overwhelmed by the attack, any hope of escape is drastically weakened, causing the body to become stilled.
Now, despite the body’s best efforts at self-defence, the violation occurs. Sexual trauma happens, followed by powerlessness, helplessness and an internalised sense of failure. The last leads to shame, guilt and anger, and encourages self-blame. In all, it is a disempowering experience and, soon, an inerasable traumatic memory.
Defending against perceived threats
Most survivors have more than one such experience, some from as early as their childhood. The human brain is fully developed only by the age of ~24 and trauma before this age has the capacity to impact brain development. Mental evolution begins in utero. As it continues, it shapes who we are, how we interact with the world and our attitude towards ourselves. Some studies (such as this) have shown that when an individual has experienced severe trauma as the brain is developing, it can result in altered brain structure, deregulated activation to stimuli and cognitive and emotional impairments. This influences how people emerge into adulthood.
Such people can also end up in a pattern where they are vulnerable to repeated sexual abuse that can continue to increase post-traumatic stress and have an adverse impact as they interact with the world – but for no fault of their own. Shamed into silence, survivors may deny their trauma, try to escape these memories, maintain a self-determined safe distance from their perpetrators and do their best to lead independent, ‘trauma-free’ lives.
Additionally, the degree of marginalisation is attached to the survivor’s various identities: gender and sexual, caste, class and even religious identities.
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“There’s bullying at every stage. School, family, friends, college, work, social spaces, public transport, etc. There’s also a lot of fear – of being out, of being pulled over by the mob, of not being able to ever settle down, of families disowning,” said Roshan Kokane, a student and activist. “Queer people are more susceptible to drug abuse so that also triggers a lot of mental health trauma.” He added that “some are also sexually abused because LGBTQ individuals are always sexualised in our society so predators see them as easy targets.”
The LGBTQIA+ community is more marginalised than that of cis-gendered women. Rigid gender roles and the imposition of heterosexual narratives on those who reject them, bullying, colonisation of their bodies and a lack of positive representation instigates a harmed sense of self. They are survivors of consistent psychological violence and suffer ostracisation within their families and close communities – entities that supposed to be protective.
Their trauma is complex. When an individual is conditioned into feeling disempowered for who they are, it diminishes their self-worth to an alarming degree. They could start accepting abusive behaviour as if they deserve it, leading to more post-traumatic distress and which is also constantly dismissed by survivors and those around them.
“The savarna ideal speaks of a culture shaped by caste and class hierarchies in which Dalit women are not welcome,” said Christina Thomas Dhanaraj, a consultant with #DalitWomenFight. “Yet every day, in many ways, we are asked to aspire towards this ideal. I don’t think even the most anti-caste of us realise what effect centuries of devaluing can have on a Dalit woman’s sense of self, mental health and confidence.”
She described the cumulative as “a war” on “their bodies” and “their humanities”. “The incessant indifference to our pain, the invisibilisation of our labor, the disregard to our stories and, more importantly, the discounting of our emotions, including that of love,” she added.
Shaming survivors for standing up for themselves
The marginalisation of the Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities begins at home. Discrimination, public shaming, erasure of caste and no accountability among upper-caste people can add layers of trauma to their individualised and collective experiences in society. Their oppression has been persistent, and silence could be practiced as protection by survivors. Their lives are repetitively endangered; privilege dominates their access to resources and not their rights. Systemic oppression aids the benefits of the upper castes and isolates the lower-caste communities. The law has not been on their side just as much as the people outside of their communities haven’t been on their side. The system has failed them on all fronts.
Finally, survivors with disability status are already desexualised in our society, and which can and does lead to an additional component of struggle: of naming sexual violence when it event occurs. Individuals with a disability status are not commonly perceived as competent and self-reliant. Actions are justified in the name of ‘helping’ them and their disability is used as a vulnerability to exploit. It is heinous. However, if survivors are constantly shamed for standing up for themselves, are desexualised repeatedly and gaslighted in interactions, they are left to battle a trauma that encompasses physical, sexual and psychological violence at once.
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Effectively, all survivors are battling more traumatic experiences than what are advertised. They may have an inchoate awareness about some of these experiences because that is how their brain is trying to protect them. The human body’s only job is to protect us. In fact, many post-traumatic responses are simply the result of the brain trying to shield us from harm. The concept of danger is so deeply ingrained in us and distinguishing between what is safe in reality and what is not is a long process in trauma recovery, which is only further protracted when we tack on the fact that survivors are also members of a social/cultural/political system that is constantly failing them, and what you get is simply re-traumatisation.
Why would a gay man inform a policeman that he has been raped when the policeman is going to demonise his sexuality? Why will a Dalit, Bahujan or Adivasi woman inform someone in power that she has been assaulted when they won’t give her narrative the space it is due? Why will a cis-gendered woman try to take action when she knows that due process will fail her and when the pursuit of legislative justice will consume years of her life? How will a survivor report their disability when their perpetrator could be their caretaker, someone they’re dependent on? Attaching a black and white approach to justice threatens the lives of marginalised communities because it is a form of violence.
So, why would someone wait this long to report their story? When police stations are in place and there are laws to protect survivors, why won’t they utilise these avenues? Now you know.
Ruchita Chandrashekar is a licensed clinician in Chicago where she works with participants of a federally funded programme. Her expertise lies in LGBTQ+ mental health, sexual trauma and complex trauma recovery, mood disorders and personality disorders.
Read The Wire’s extensive coverage of India’s #MeToo movement here.