When writing moves us to struggle against a taboo, especially one that demands silence, we can expect powerful resistance.  It is natural to feel alone, even besieged.  The resistance to our words comes both from ourselves and from others.  If we respect the struggle of our readers to understand with us, so also may come the strength to write.

   —  Migael Scherer

In August 1992, Migael Scherer published her memoir Still Loved by the Sun.  An account in diary form of the days following a rape and the author’s recovery from trauma, the book won a 1993 Martha Albrand Special Citation for Nonfiction as well as a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association award. Also published in paperback from Plume, it is still available through Gift From Within on their gifts page.

Recently, I talked with Migael Scherer on the subject of how writing makes a difference.  She told me that she believes without doubt, that writing “opens up the world in a way you can’t control.  But if you succeed, you understand more about what you really experienced.  You don’t know until you write what you understand.”

“I may live it,” the author said, “but I don’t know what I have learned until I write about it. The magic of manipulating the little black figures on the screen is the honoring of where writing will take you.  At first, it’s just me, figuring things out, as a sailor keeps to the routine of maintaining a sailor’s log.  But this is how I understand where I am right now and what is going on right now. ”

Here are some excerpts from Chapters 4 and 14 of Still Loved by the Sun that reveal something of the process Scherer describes:

From Chapter 4:

TUESDAY, APRIL 12
I find myself these days avoiding something I feel compelled to do in order to move on:  to write the physical and emotional details of February 9.  I feel that if I do so, for myself alone, I will be able to control the flashbacks a little better, to let go of that day.  If I cannot loosen its grip on me, at least I can loosen my grip on it.

 From Chapter 14:

THURSDAY, JANUARY 27
Last night was broken by dreams and wakings.  In one dream, I attempt to shave my legs with the blade of a scalpel.  I am in high school, getting ready for a big dance.  In a room full of showers, I cannot seem to find one that works.  My legs are as hairy as a man’s. I retreat into an old car with reclining seats.  Through the closed windows many young men cajole and threaten.  They want me to come out. I want to stay inside.

In another dream I sit at a desk, writing.  The computer is so tiny my hands strike the wrong keys.  The screen is almost impossible to read.  I have so much to express, but cannot overcome the machine to do so.  I work in a small, octagonal room, covered on the outside with cedar shakes.  The entrance to this room is narrow and short, the width of my head and the height of my shoulder-span.  I am born into my writing room.  Only men and women my size or smaller can follow me into it.

Even before her process resulted in a published account of her difficult life experience, Migael Scherer’s writing gave other people the clear message that she was willing to talk and explain and open herself up to what other people needed to know about a profound experience.

After her rapist’s trial, she was furious about the way a particular journalist had covered the trial, and Scherer wrote a letter to editor of the city newspaper.  After it appeared unsigned in the paper, the prosecutor posted it in his office so people could see how tough it is to be in a trial.

The journalist had taken the one mistake Scherer had made as a witness and wrote, “Despite the victim’s numerous errors of eye color, the jury still convicted him…” The way she covered the trial, Migael maintains, caused all the women in the rape victims’ support group she attended to say they would never report crimes to the police. Seeing a victim criticized for her memory of what happened felt so awful that they preferred not to prosecute. A journalism teacher herself, Scherer felt devastated about the fact that she hadn’t taught her own students about the care required in reporting on events in which private citizens have suffered huge losses.

Scherer later wrote a letter to the editor that centered on what individuals can do to help victims and to help in the fight against violence. This time the paper ran her signed letter as a special editorial. Radio stations and other newspapers were interested in talking to Scherer, especially since the Community Protection Act had now been passed.  She heard from many people who had been victimized and learned what a huge problem misrepresentation in the press had become.  Scherer began to see that her letters had a voice and were messages in a bottle. Now she experienced the release of being heard.

These letters “allowed me to harness my feelings and chip away at the community’s dead silence, and I could organize my thoughts and shape my response,” Scherer told me.  “I wanted to give people positive things to do to assuage anger. After reading my first letter, some people said, ‘You are mad; what are we supposed to do?’ The point became to give people direction. After a murder, mutilation and rape of a little boy, sex crimes became high profile, and we didn’t need more fuel on the fires; people needed immediate things they could do. I organized my opinion piece with these headings:  “Stop the violence before it begins,” “Challenge the myths about sexual assault,” “Stop making excuses for sex offenders,” “Share survival stories,” “Care for the victims of sexual assault” and “If you are a victim. ”  Under these headings, I wrote from my research and experience.  After my second letter, my support group thanked me for writing, saying that people need to understand how to help victims.”

After Still Loved By the Sun was published, a law professor at the UW began using the book for her criminal justice class because she believed if her students understood survivors’ experiences, they would understand the impact of sexual violence on people. Ultimately, Roger Simpson, now Director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, heard of my work.  He employed me when he was teaching his ethics class how to cover criminal violence from a perspective not usually heard. Journalists go to same sources a lot leaving many voices unheard. He had done work training journalists on how to cover AIDS in a way that brought out the voices of quickly dying victims when people commonly thought, ‘It’s a gay disease so who cares?'”

“Working on how to cover sexual violence, he called the Rape Crisis Center in Seattle and they called me because of my second signed letter to the editor.  Since I was willing to speak out, I went to his class with the Crisis Center director. Since I would be talking to future reporters, I brought copies of my letters to show the difference–from pissed off to more thoughtful.  I wanted to show them how the manner of the coverage made a difference to the victim of violence. Few at that time considered that aspect of journalism.”

Here are excerpts from Scherer’s workshop notes for her presentation to that class:

Mine was what is known in the business as a “clean” case:  the assailant was a stranger who used a weapon and inflicted visible injuries.  By contrast, most rapists are known to their victims, and most leave no serious injuries.  The time and place were unambiguous (to say the least; re. friend’s remark about being in a bar).  From the perspective of police and prosecutors the trial went pretty smoothly.  Not so for me.  For me, it was like a replay of the assault.  Even so, I accepted that the maze of the criminal justice system would be hard on me.  I had no quarrel with the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof.  What I did not expect, and will not accept, is how the news coverage made my experience worse.

Days after his conviction for my rape, the assailant pleaded guilty to burglarizing a seventy-five-year-old woman in north Seattle (the molesting charges were dropped).  Suddenly infused with energy, I wrote a letter to the Times editors.  It was published:

Editor, the Times:

I am the woman Steven Spellman raped and robbed in Ballard last February. After testifying for part of a morning, an afternoon and part of the next morning, my eye inadvertently fell on the headline of Julie emery’s article (“Wrong man being tried for rape, says defense, Oct. 6). The pain I felt reading those words was immediate and intense. For me, that headline ripped the fragile scab from a deep wound.

Ms. Emery probably did not write that headline. Yet she wrote the lead from which the headline was taken. What was the reason for applauding the accused over his victim?  Surely the Times is aware of the statistics on rape. Few are reported, few go to trial, fewer still result in conviction. Many rapists are allowed to plea to lesser charges in order to spare the victim further anguish. The trauma of rape is devastating — I know. Why did you twist the knife?

Despite the love and support of friends and family, despite consistently respectful treatment by the Seattle Police Department, despite my confidence in the investigators and prosecutors, I was sick with fear as I walked to the witness stand. Testifying recalled all the violence and horror. Yet I testified willingly. I did it for myself, for those who trusted me to be strong, for the safety of my community. I did it for Julie Emery.

Only after the jury delivered a guilty verdict could I bring myself to read your coverage of this trial. Sadly, the cynics were right:  In cases of rape, the victim is often treated with unnecessary skepticism by the press and the public. Who knows how many women following this case in your newspaper have no decided not to report or prosecute?

God help us all when innocent victims of any crime are so cruelly discouraged from seeking justice,

(Name withheld), Seattle

My story didn’t end here, of course.  I carried on with the hard work of recovery, through depression, anger, and much therapy.  I never got myself back, not the person I was, but I did integrate the assault into my life, and became whole.  The process took me three years.

I no longer feel the outrage or anguish I expressed in that letter.  But what I will not let go of is the reaction of the nine other women in my rape support group.  After following my case in the newspaper, all but one of them said they were glad they hadn’t reported their assaults.  The one who had gone to the police regretted it; her case had been covered on the Sports page–the assailant was a well-known athlete–and had resulted in an acquittal.  What keeps me in this work is the haunting knowledge that, in hurting me, the news coverage hurt others, and thereby harmed the entire community.

After that class, I routinely worked with Roger and started to consult at the Dart Center and became the Director of the Dart Award for Excellence in Reporting on Victims of Violence. (http://www.dartcenter.org/). Our contest has existed for 10 years, and I’ve directed it for three.  I choose the judges and facilitate the judging process.  Our project promotes what we consider good reporting by bringing it to the attention of the industry with an annual award. Winners’ articles have to have been published in the year the award is given. Ultimately, our winning articles will become anthologized (to read the winning articles and runners up for this year and past years click on http://www.dartcenter.org/dartaward/index.html),  and we will have a body of work out there that speaks to the issue of reporting the real human damage of violence.”

“If I had not written that first unsigned letter,” Migael believes, “and the next signed one, I would not have gotten the broader involvement that I have now.  If we don’t pay attention to survivors and victims, we are siding with the perpetrators and are not providing an accurate look at the cost of violence. For example, victims of rape have a 25% higher chance of suffering from depression, a five times greater chance of having drug problems. To see the cost of violent crime, we must report on the experience of victims.  When journalists look at what they value–accuracy, context, timelines, balance, and access, they can use these principles to change the frame of reporting.”

****

Have you watched your time with grandchildren dwindle after your own child divorced?  Have you been angered by the President when he said he would not pay attention to popular demonstrations?  Have you been a victim of crime or the media like Miguel? Have you suffered a personal loss and then dealt with people’s insensitivity to your grief?  Have you lost a job as a result of something you can tell others to avoid? Have you been labeled and treated according to the label rather than according to who you are?

I hope all of you writing from your personal experience will take the letter idea to heart and ask yourselves what you have suffered and would like to speak out on to a community beyond your closest confidents.

Find out what publications and newsletters the group you wish to address reads.  Use some of your writing time to create valuable “messages in a bottle” and to research editors who might publish them. Writing a letter to reveal your insight and finding an audience who will appreciate the words, you can offer something much that is constructive to readers whose behavior and opinions you want to change. If writing convincingly requires research beyond your personal experience, you will gain an opportunity to expand your horizons.

Publishing letters that utilize your first-hand experience and the information you gather, you may find yourself becoming more involved in your selected community.  Additionally, when your writing supports and enlightens an audience, you will definitely realize a new depth in what you have learned from your personal experience.