Quoted in USA Today for Lasting Effects of Sexual Assault
Part of the Debate on the Kavanaugh Sexual Assault Allegations.
“Shame and the fear of not being believed contributed to author and former attorney Maria Leonard Olsen not speaking about her own rape for 20 years. She finally told a close high school friend decades later, who confirmed Olsen's account to USA TODAY, and later worked with a therapist.
"As a survivor of rape in high school by a boy who went to an all-boys Catholic school, when I was a student at an all-girls Catholic school in the Washington area, (the Kavanaugh allegations) made me feel the feelings again," said Olsen, who wrote about her experience in her book, "50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life."
Olsen, who worked for the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, says this is a human issue, not a partisan one, and comments she's seen casting Ford's experience as old and irrelevant have left her unsettled.
"I applaud Christine Ford for coming forward. ... I can’t think of a single woman who wants to relive such a painful experience," Olsen said. "What seems like a teenage indiscretion can have very long-lasting effects. For instance, when my daughter reached that age, I became hyperanxious and hypervigilant again. I’m someone now who can’t sleep without doors locked, I’m hypervigilant around men in general, and those are lifelong effects of something that happened when I was not an adult."
The way in which the Senate handles Ford's allegations may be seen as a defining moment, just as Anita Hill's testimony was.
"(Ford's) story, her voice and this issue should not be brushed aside because it not only does a disservice to the individual but it does a disservice to all the women who are watching what's going on now," Olsen said. "It has the potential to drive women back into the shadows or to embolden women to seek the help that they need for having been harmed even decades ago. So this is a critical point in the #MeToo movement, I believe, and it should be handled very carefully.""