Health and Psychology

There are moments in history were you realize that something important is taking place. A woman being knocked unconscious and dragged out of an elevator. A football player beating his 4 year old with a switch. And now with the backdrop of 15 women indicating they had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby in the 1980’s, and the abduction, rape and murder of Hannah Graham, the Rolling Stone article on rape on college campuses Rolling Stone article, http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119 highlighting acquaintance rape and what actually happens with post-traumatic stress disorder is one of those important moments. While the article is about UVA, there are lots of college campuses where acquaintance rape is a common occurrence. Perceptions about rape trauma are changing. Just last year US News questioned whether rape was that big of a deal on college campuses. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/10/24/statistics-don't-back-up-claims-about-rape-culture. This is very similar to the 1980’s where child abuse cases were actually starting to be prosecuted and people started to understand that beating a child was wrong.

The Rolling Stone article is unflinching in the description of the horror, the complicity of large groups of people who do not want to believe this happens, and in accounts of the re-victimization of the women involved.

The new DSM-5 has downgraded the diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to make it not survival of a life-threatening event such as rape, or the witnessing of a horrific event such as someone burning to death, but now includes hearing about such an event. So if someone says they read about an event and it bothered him or her, they can now be diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This downgrading of trauma minimizes actual life-threatening trauma.

I sit in my office evaluating a woman who has a tattoo of a bracelet on her wrist, except it’s too low for where a bracelet would be worn. As I look at it I realize it covers ligature marks. There’s a history of drug and alcohol abuse, but in more recent years she’s gotten sober. She now works with women trying to get sober in a residential treatment facility. She didn’t mention child abuse or rape trauma. But I know to ask.

I’m evaluating a man who looks much younger than he actually is. He’s my age. Child abuse laws weren’t on the books in California until 1974. He left home at 17. He has trouble getting along with anyone in authority. He’s had a history of broken bones-“from fights.” He had no medical treatment. He would have been 8 or 9 years old. I just ask if it was from his father or mother. “My father” he says. He’s had years of therapy, 3 failed marriages, countless jobs that ended in him being fired. But I’m the first person who asked, so the first person he’s told.

My own history of child abuse at the hands of my adoptive mother has been described as child torture by a couple of therapists. I’ve had decades of therapy and have written an unpublished memoir about it. I’ve spoken publicly about my acquaintance rape back in the 1980’s. I knew him in high school. We were dating. We’d had consensual sex. There was a rumor he had raped someone he was dating, but I didn’t believe the rumor. He’d never do anything like that, I thought. But he did. And I came to find out I was his fourth victim. I was lucky. My injuries weren’t severe. He and I discussed what happened with me holding a knife for my protection. He agreed never to see me ever again. I agreed not to hunt him down. I’d already talked to a friend who was a police officer and a friend who was an attorney. “These kinds of cases do not hold up well in court,” they told me. I know why people don’t report. I’ve never seen him again.

One of my psychological assistants and I were talking about the Bill Cosby situation. At 6 or 7 women, I’d be prepared to say it might not have happened. But at now 16 there are simply too many. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/bill-cosbys-legacy-recast-accusers-speak-in-detail-about-sexual-assault-allegations/2014/11/22/d7074938-718e-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html The statute of limitations has run out. There’s nothing to gain by them coming forward. The stories are fairly similar. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/lifestyle/bill-cosby-timeline/ So yes I believe it happened.

The second abduction and murder at UVA brought the gang rapes at the fraternities to a tipping point. False reports of rape are not uncommon, but false accusations of rape are relatively rare. An average rapist is an acquaintance rapist and has about 6 victims. Some, obviously have many more.