I frequently speak to students in college Victimology courses. I get invited because I am an interesting mix: lawyer, mediator, and repeat victim. I share my story openly because I know what it is like to feel like no one understands, that I am in this all alone, or that I am somehow defective and deserving of the pain that gets inflicted on me.
I still sometimes experience the frustration of loved ones trying to be supportive, yet tiring of the limits on their support or simply mucking it up despite their best intentions.
I remember the isolation I can easily slip into, if I am not managing my mind around upsets.
I have learned how to free my emotions, but contain my thoughts. I can now confidently remove myself from most people and situations that put me at risk for further victimization. I value myself more than ever, and I didn’t get here alone. I doubt I could have.
I’m also not sure I could have gotten to this more peaceful and powerful place without the help of professionals trained to move people like me through specific experiences like mine. Don’t get me wrong. I have amazing friends and family members–both given and chosen–but they didn’t always have the training and experience needed to move me forward. They tried, but they often said things that had me question who was at fault, whether I deserved the crimes, or if I was too much of a burden because I couldn’t just “get over it”.
My loved ones had their own lives and challenges to address, and sometimes being confronted with mine reminded them of the ones they had intentionally avoided. Others were too ill, too tired, too drunk, or too guarded.
In some ways, it was selfish of me to expect them to take responsibility for my healing.
Intellectually, I knew this by the time I was violently assaulted in January 2014. But it took years of abuse, multiple sexual assaults, and a suicide attempt for me to even consider getting assistance. I only got it after my suicide attempt because the hospital wouldn’t discharge me without an agreement to counseling.
My tough girl attitude and I went to therapy for several months before I accepted that having a road map to healing was actually a very good idea. Thank goodness, because when I was raped years later by a man I had once dated, I was already a lawyer. I knew the courts weren’t going to provide me with the healing I needed. They did the best they could under the circumstances in 2014, but as a rape victim, I felt like I was on my own for justice. There would be none. The healing, however, I could begin again…as I often had in therapy.
Yes. Again. Often. I have gone more than once. It was indeed humbling to go once, and it has been each time since then. Sometimes even I think, “Are you serious? We’re back here again?” But I now see counseling like I do an antibiotic. Why delay my healing? You need not delay yours, either.
There are a number of resources to help you free your emotions in healthy ways, explore what you need to feel powerful again, and move you beyond the crime(s) that you did not invite or deserve. Please, take advantage of them:
- The New York City Anti-Violence Project provides free and confidential assistance to LGBTQ and HIV-affected people through a 24-hour bilingual hotline, counseling, support groups, legal representation. and individual advocacy.
- The Crime Victims Treatment Center helps survivors of interpersonal violence heal through crisis intervention, individual and group trauma-focused therapy, legal advocacy, complementary therapy, and psychiatric consultation.
- The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision allows crime victims to use their touch-tone phones to make toll-free calls to get information about convicted felony offenders in the custody of the state’s prison system.
- Landmark Worldwide offers personal and professional development through workshops, seminars, and courses that are especially helpful in putting your past in the past and leaving it there.
- Mount Sinai Hospital’s Sexual Assault Victims Intervention program provides free services that address the needs of survivors—especially women and girls—with limited resources or limited access to them.
- The New York City Crime Victims’ Hotline can refer you to agencies that provide individual counseling and supportive therapy.
- The New York City Family Justice Centers offer free counseling to victims of domestic violence, elder abuse, and sex trafficking.
- Safe Horizon Counseling Center provides counseling services to victims of crime with Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and most private insurances.
- My online Third Ear Conflict Resolution school gives people a semi-private environment to practice difficult conversations regarding emotionally-charged issues, such as crime, suicide, gender, race, religion, and disability.
- The New York State Unified Court System provides information on crime victims’ rights throughout a criminal case, including the right to submit a Victim’s Impact Statement.
Are you unsure if a crime has been committed?
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention defines sexual violence as any sexual act committed against someone without that person’s freely given consent. Sexual violence includes:
- Completed or attempted forced penetration of a victim
- Completed or attempted alcohol/drug-facilitated penetration of a victim
- Completed or attempted forced acts in which a victim is made to penetrate a perpetrator or someone else
- Completed or attempted alcohol/drug-facilitated acts in which a victim is made to penetrate a perpetrator or someone else
- Non-physically forced penetration which occurs after a person is pressured verbally or through intimidation or misuse of authority to consent or acquiesce
- Unwanted sexual contact
- Non-contact unwanted sexual experiences
Are you unsure if the sexual act was consensual?
New York State defines affirmative consent as a knowing, voluntary, and mutual decision among all participants to engage in sexual activity. Consent can be given by words or actions, as long as those words or actions create clear permission regarding willingness to engage in the sexual activity. Silence or lack of resistance, in and of itself, does not demonstrate consent. The definition of consent does not vary based upon a participant’s sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
Nance L. Schick, Esq. is a New York City attorney and mediator who focuses on keeping people out of court and building their conflict resolution skills. As a survivor of abuse and crime, who also grew up poor in Kentucky, she went to law school to deliver on the liberty and justice for all that was promised. In addition to her law license, she was trained in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation (ICERM). She is creator of the Third Ear Conflict Resolution process, author of DIY Conflict Resolution: Seven Choices and Five Actions of a Master, and an award-winning entrepreneur, who has been featured in a number of global publications.