The Forgotten Survivors of Sexual Assault and the Effects of a Broken System

My name is Carrie Ray, and just to be very clear my life matters. It matters that I survived, that I healed, that I am healing. It matters that I am remembered by the people who are dedicated to serving both the perpetrators and the survivors of sexual assault. It matters that I am not another forgotten about victim of sexual assault by the broken system that monitors the perpetrators.

I was cleaning out my bathtub with a loud bathroom fan on when I felt this coldness around me, my instincts told me to turn around and there he was standing in the doorway of the bathroom staring back at me. That is where my survival instincts turned back on and it has taken me years to shift out of survival mode. One thing about sexual assault is that it never leaves your memory. No matter how deep the healing work is the visions are always there locked in as core memories. There to remind you of your human experience and how drastically life can change without a choice in the matter.

My ex and I broke up after I caught him cheating on me. He then physically assaulted me and kicked in my face for me wanting to leave him. I bled out from my face, covering a body sized towel in red crimson blood. I thought that was the worst of the breakup, I thought that was as bad as it could get in saying goodbye to someone who I thought loved me. Who I thought I loved. Someone I had vulnerably shared my deepest trauma as a teenager with, after having been raped by my brothers friend and never reporting it.

That was clearly not the worst that it could get, that was not the deepest the pain could go from that broken relationship. You see little did I know my ex thought he could get away with raping me, all because I had previously shared with him that I never reported it when I was raped as a teenager. How do I know this fact? He admitted it out loud, I had to hear how he planned to rape me and that he thought he could get away with it, he even added in an I'm sorry for raping you please forgive me, I love you, and take me back into the mix. This is after deciding that if he couldn't have my pussy no one else could and trying to physically rip it out of me. This, all after we had gone our separate ways because there was no repairing the damage from his initial cheating and abuse.

There are days where I can still feel the coldness from it all. The feelings of being violated all across my body after having my identity shattered once again. What teenager deserves to lose there virginity to rape? What young early twenty year old deserves to have that vulnerability in sharing what happened to her in her teens, used to another's advantage so they can too try to get away with raping you? Nobody deserves that, I definitely didn't and yet it was an unchosen part of my path. A path that I now get to turn into a healing purpose. Where I get to speak up for the injustices of the system that is supposed to be here to protect and serve both the victims and the perpetrators of these heinous acts.

Fast forward, to a few weeks ago when I got a notification from the Ramsey County Police Department sexual crimes unit advising me that my ex was now residing there. Mind you his Parole officer is out of Stearns County which is an hour and a half away depending on traffic. Keep in mind he has been in and out of prison, ever since his early release for good behavior. Even though he was given the maximum sentence he got the perk of getting out early on parole. Since his release he has continuously violated parole and has harmed at least one other woman that I know of. The thing about healing is that I learned to have compassion for myself which has allowed me the capacity to have compassion for both of my perpetrators as well.

So to continuously see this pattern of him going in and out of prison and being allowed to live in a city that his parole officer isn't even within arms reach of has reached a point where I have had enough. I don't understand how a system that is supposed to be monitoring him weekly is properly keeping tabs on him from that far away. In which I learned that they aren't, that there has been other attempts to transfer his parole down to Ramsey County and Ramsey County Parole according to Stearns County Parole has declined to take him on due to him living in a homeless shelter and them not wanting to foot the bill. Where Ramsey County states he should be formally transferred there for proper monitoring from Stearns County but hasn't been. Do you see the problem with the two messages I received? It is beyond disturbing that my safety, the safety of others and his reintegration into society and access to proper care and being monitored in accordance to the guidelines of his parole aren't of value because of a county not wanting to foot a bill. Whether he is homeless living in a shelter or living with a loved one, the county he resides in should be the county monitoring him. Not a county so far away they only monitor him once a month, as I was recently advised.

This is sickening to me, it really is beyond sickening that my survival, my fighting to heal myself and keep myself and my family safe doesn't matter to a system created to serve me and others like me. That the healing of my perpetrator, his ability to have access to proper monitoring and care doesn't matter to the system that is supposed to be setting him up for successful reintegration, mental health care, chemical dependency monitoring, anger management and services... for all of it.... To hear the parole officer tell me they forget about the victims in this process, that he had forgotten about me as it has been over 15 years since it happened. To hear that and know that other victims of these crimes and myself are forgotten about in the lack of after care and monitoring of our perpetrators- that f*cking hurt and there's no sugar coating it.

The system is hard enough in itself to flow through, it is hard enough to get victims to come forward for many reasons, including the fear of retaliation, being shamed publicly due to the stigmas within society and reliving the pain in the publics eye for all to share their opinion on. Why then, should anyone after going through that excruciating process, have their perpetrators be released back into society and then they not receive the proper monitoring and care? How many in this system are left in the cracks being improperly monitored and how many more victims are created from these cracks? Not just sexual predators, but abusers, murderers, any type of perpetrator, how many of them are allowed to be improperly monitored because of a living arrangement and bickering match about funding the parole monitoring fees?

What is your life's value to you? Is it four hours a month and a few follow up calls? Is it $1,000 or $2,000 a month? What is it?! I can tell you I value my life much more than this broken system does, I value the life of my perpetrator even more than the system does as well. It took me far too long to get to this space of compassion and forgiveness to keep sitting in silence as this cycle continues on. When is enough enough? He gets out, he's improperly monitored, he violates and is finally caught breaking the rules of his parole and goes back in, only to get back out and do the same thing. What kind of reintegration and parole care is that? What type of healing can happen if there is no accountability from the system or that is being required of the perpetrator? The system is failing both the perpetrators and their victims with the lack of follow up care.

It is inexcusable. There is no reason that my pain and the proper after care for my perpetrator is disregarded because of two counties parole offices not being held fully accountable for their responsibility in keeping the community, the victims and the perpetrators safe. I sent a request in to discuss this with the MN Governors office, I have yet to receive a response back so I decided to take it one step further and write about it here. My voice, my life, my survival, my purpose from my pain will not leave this world in silence. My life matters, my safety matters, the safety of others matters, the healing of my perpetrator matters, his monitoring and successful reintegration matters.

To go through these experiences and then be left to figure my healing process out on my own has been a journey that I nearly didn't survive. I have had days where I fantasize about just no longer breathing because the pain can be that excruciating to bear. It took me up until a year ago to come into deep healing of my sexual trauma woundings. To shift my life out of survival mode and be able to breathe again without feeling like I wasn't worth the oxygen, has been a gift to self I never thought I would receive. I still have days where I feel the tinge of pain from it all, where I briefly forget my worth and want to no longer breathe, and that is all apart of my human experience in healing. These feelings hadn't surfaced for some time until recently in talking with the Parole Officer about my perpetrator's monitoring. That was a painful truth to hear, to learn that my life was forgotten and that my survival isn't valued by the system it was made to protect. The system fails both the perpetrators and the victims by not giving proper aftercare to the victims and by not providing proper follow up care to the perpetrators.

I read this book by John Bradshaw called "Healing the Shame That Binds You", it gave me insight into how someone can commit a heinous act due to the build up of toxic shame within. It allowed me to show myself compassion for my pain, it allowed me to release the build up of anger and shame over what happened to me and it allowed me to have compassion for both of my perpetrators and give them forgiveness. To be very clear forgiveness and healing does not equate to forgetting. Healing is not a straight line and old healed pains have layers like onions that can arise over time. Toxic shame fuels a lot of peoples actions and it needs to be something that is dived into in the healing process for perpetrators so that they can receive more in-depth care. They also need to be properly monitored, held accountable and not left to do as they please when they are reintegrating back into society. That is the easy way out of things, to not care about the perpetrators, to forget about the pain their survivors endured and that is what keeps these cycles of recidivism going. A system that is too easy on the perpetrators and not hard enough on itself for allowing these cracks to continue on, cracks that that they are fully aware of having.

I'm here to have deeper discussions on this all, I am here to create solutions and be a voice for the injustice that is occurring across the board for both the victims and the perpetrators. I am here to say this is enough and the system cannot go on like this as it is because it is broken and it will be fixed. No matter how loud my voice has to become. I am done sitting in silence hoping and praying the system will stop failing me, stop failing my perpetrator and stop failing the innocent bystanders that are at risk because of it. I am more than a quick hashtag breezing through the winds of temporary cares. My perpetrator and all other perpetrators are worth more than a cancel culture and shameful monitoring. I am worth more than two counties trying to fight over who pays for what, especially when my life and the safety of others are at risk. I am here, ready to create change for all the other survivors and their perpetrators who are going through this same or similar cycle from a broken system.

If you are a survivor, victim or however you would like to label yourself I would like to hear from you in the comments or via email (listed below) on your experiences in dealing with the aftermath once your perpetrator was released. If you are a Parole Officer, a Law Maker, a Voice in the System, a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, President, Vice President who can create change I would like to hear from you as well on how can we all come together to work as a whole to create meaningful long term changes because this system has to change. If it is broken in MN then there is possibility it is broken elsewhere as well. I am here to share my experience, my journey to healing, my perspective, and co-create solutions for a system that knows it is cracked so that we can meaningfully fix it together.

Solution focused and ready to create true long lasting change.

Carrie Ray

CEO of Press Into Love LLC

pressin@pressintolove.com

www.pressintolove.com

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