Truth or Dare: What Truth-When?
Who’s telling the truth? Who’s making it up? Most of us have seen movies where the truth takes twists and turns and the cleverest of all detectives finally uncover what you’d never suspect.
Marie: I’ve been asked to write a eulogy for our friend Tara. Some want to say she died of covid, but we, her friends, know she did not. The truth is, she isolated and starved/drank herself to death. No one talks about it, but we all know what happened to her. Years ago, when she was the last to leave work, the security guard decided to have his way with her. In the monumental glass reflections of the lobby, she watched the life being strangled out of her body. She got away but was never the same. Truth or dare? Do any one of us dare to speak the truth, even now? Is it right that Tara passes and her story, the real story, is never told?
Janet: I didn’t dare tell my truth. I was afraid of being blamed, sending my mother into a spiral of failure, or setting my father off in a murderous outrage with one of his rifles. No, I didn’t dare. What I did was hide it and learn to act like a normal 17-year-old girl on the Rally Squad. It didn’t work very well.
The Myth: A person who has really been sexually assaulted will be hysterical.
The U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women compiled the myths and facts of sexual violence in a report.
The Fact: Victims of sexual violence exhibit a spectrum of responses to the assault which can include: calm, hysteria, withdrawal, anger, apathy, denial, and shock. Being sexually assaulted is a very traumatic experience. Reactions to the assault and the length of time needed to process through the experience vary with each person. There is no “right way” to react to being sexually assaulted. Assumptions about a way a victim “should act” may be detrimental to the victim because each victim copes with the trauma of the assault in different ways which can also vary over time.
Janet: My reaction caused a split. I acted fine. The act felt like the real me until it didn’t. I dared to tell my mother just months before she died. Even though I tried to make it easy to tell, I stumbled over the lie I’d held secret for over twenty years. I blurted a tear-soaked apology for not being the daughter she thought she’d had. Her response was a shock. She dared to tell her truth. This amazing singer and actress had built a career on an act. Her talent filled theaters and concert halls but it was an act to prove she was a valued star, not a victimized, raped woman.
Marie: Reporting the truth demands conviction and courage. Silence is the mechanism that springs into gear to protect us in different ways; to protect us from what we think we can’t deal with, protect us from what’s been secret. Truth or dare? Our truth, when we dare to finally tell it, is fierce, it’s brave, and it’s loud. Nobility lies in every one of us.
How hard do we have to be pushed to activate it?