Telling the Story

By Melissa Marek-Donahue
Contributing Writer

“I get up go to school the school nurse checks me for spots takes me into
custody for breaking the rules no more mom and dad I eat oatmeal
with the people I don’t know the school ladies run tests it’s proven
the headboard cracked my backI still don’t sleep at night I am a pile
of rocks from the riverwaiting on my bed broken the snake will be back
to crawl through the cracks”
                                       
-Christine
Stark, Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation

The sexual abuse of children is a sadly common experience.  Local activist Sherry Lee Short points out that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually assaulted by the time they reach age 18, with a large percentage of those assaulted before their twelfth birthday.  Perhaps more startling, according to the American Psychological Association, only 10% of perpetrators are strangers, meaning that the vast majority of abusers are family friends, babysitters, or even parents.  Short notes, “It’s embedded in our culture, our families, our communities.”

Unfortunately, despite its prevalence, the shame surrounding the issue can prevent its acknowledgment and discussion.  The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry notes that while there are up to 80,000 reported incidents annually, “the number of unreported instances is far greater.”  And much like the children who have been taught to hide the abuse, our society often takes a similar cue, draping the issue in silence. Recently, however, some of the secrecy has been dissipating.  The criminal actions of various Roman Catholic priests and the scandals swirling around Jerry Sandusky at Penn State, Bernie Fine at Syracuse University, and Douglas Perlitz with Fairfield University in Connecticut, have led to public discourse about sexual assaults involving children.  Unfortunately, it becomes easy to lose sight of those who have been hurt as the focus shifts to blame, timelines, and degrees.  As Olga Trujillo, an attorney who works with communities on issues of violence and trauma points out, the discussion tends to be about the perpetrator rather than those who have survived the abuse.

“Everything is about Paterno and Sandusky and what did everyone see – very minimizing when it’s about sexual abuse and rape,” Trujillo notes.  “Victims are trying to have their voices heard.  I want people to see what happens to the victim.”

As activists and authors, Christine Stark and Trujillo are helping to fill the hole in our discourse about sexual violence and bring the voices of abuse survivors to light. Christine Stark’s novel, Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation and Olga Trujillo’s memoir, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor’s Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder, both tell compelling stories of child sexual abuse and one creative method of coping with the trauma, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Nickels, a novel written in prose poetry, weaves an authentic story about Little Miss So and So, a girl who survives abuse at the hands of her father, discussing how she overcomes the violence and incest through dissociation while still sharing the other parts of herself and her world – bi-racial Native identity, homosexuality, athletics, humor, love, and hope.  Stark, a nationally-known artist and activist, shares that she wanted to tell a whole story, acknowledging the interconnectedness between issues like homophobia, sexual violence, and incest.  Stark notes, “I did not want to focus on just one of those issues because for many people, all of them exist at the same time and trying to parse them out does not capture the fullness, difficulty, and complicated nature of [their] lives.”

Unlike Stark’s work of fiction, in The Sum of My Parts, Trujillo tells her own story of staggering sexual violence at the hands of her father, brothers, and others.  “It felt really important to share with people what happens and how it happens,” Trujillo states.  But more than just bringing voice to the violence, Trujillo also shares in detail how developing DID helped her to survive the trauma, and the process she undertook with her psychiatrist to become an integrated person as an adult.  DID, once called Multiple Personality Disorder, is a mechanism individuals use to escape consciousness, often when faced with a situation they would be unable to survive if they were fully aware of what was happening.  Not the sensationalized ‘Sybil’ image we might carry, DID is a spectrum with Trujillo explaining her mind like a house with many rooms, where she could store aspects of her life and trauma, preventing her from being overwhelmed as she kept these experiences from her conscious thought.
       
Stark and Trujillo, who share a mutual respect for their writing and work, have been including each other in readings when the opportunity arises.  On Sunday, January 29, they will bring their voices to Fargo.  The reading has many sponsors:  MSUM Women’s and Gender Studies, MSUM Women’s Center, NDSU Women and Gender Studies, Pride Collective and Community Center, Rape and Abuse Crisis Center, and Zandbroz Variety.  Noting the list of sponsors, Stark says that there are many who are working for human rights in Fargo, and that “it’s important to come together and learn from each other… and how these issues impact folks in the Fargo area.” Trujillo hopes that two of her messages come through the sharing of her story.  First, as seen in her memoir, there are very ordinary things that people can do that have a profoundly positive impact on a child suffering.  Second, it is possible to survive abuse and become a successful, loving person – as Trujillo says, “it gets better.”

For more information about the writers, please visit Christine Stark at http://www.christinestark.com and Olga Trujillo at http://www.olgatrujillo.com.

Event Details:
Reading by Christine Stark and Olga Trujillo
January 29, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Zandbroz Variety at 420 Broadway, Fargo