Our capacity to recover from bereavement and trauma
Q: In early January, the science writer Rolf Degen tweeted a 2004 paper by George Bonnano [above] arguing that human resilience is much more common than we think and that we routinely underestimate our capacity to recover from bereavement and trauma. In your book you write that recovery and resilience were implicitly discouraged: “Almost immediately, from the start of this case, I felt the pressure to be damaged.” Your refusal to behave in the manner expected of a traumatised victim has provoked particular anger from some of those who claim to speak for victims of sexual assault. The Oprah Winfrey Network’s Dr. Phil has diagnosed you with “victim’s guilt” and you recently wrote that you’ve been called a Stockholm Syndrome sufferer and even a rape apologist. What do you think explains this kind of hostility and condescension from those ostensibly dedicated to supporting people like you?
SG: It’s extremely frustrating. Why do strangers want to project their own dysfunction onto others? When I told my mother I was okay she never questioned it. My family accepted that easily, but that did not absolve Polanski. My mother showed me that I did not have to accept being used that way and it was worth a struggle to prove that, no matter what the cost to our family. So why do others insist I must suffer, and that if I do not display the correct amount of agony and shame, that there must be something wrong with me? I don’t have to be injured to prove what Roman did was wrong. His intent was certainly not to injure or frighten me. People don’t like facts that don’t fit with their preconceptions. When you see how ugly and spiteful some of these people have been to me it shows that they really don’t care about my welfare at all. So then what is the point?
http://quillette.com/2018/01/31/nobodys-victim-interview-samantha-geimer/