CapRadio’s “After the Assault” is a health reporting podcast series that explores what survivors experience in the aftermath of sexual violence and during police investigations. Our reporting centers the varied experiences of eight diverse survivors from the Sacramento region who we engaged in every step of the editorial process. We spent nearly two years working with this cohort of survivors, meeting with them once a month to ask how their experiences with sexual assault, as well as their subsequent interactions with law enforcement and the medical system, affected their ability to heal. This innovative, community-engaged approach to health reporting turned out to be a game changer.
Episode Five, submitted for this award, examines the impact of sexual violence on a survivor’s mental and physical wellbeing. Our reporting team took a deep look at Rape Trauma Syndrome and the way it affects survivors in the weeks, months and years after a violent incident, combatting the misconception that rape is something one can simply “get over.”
This episode strives to educate the public, including those working in institutions set up to help survivors of sexual violence, on the mental health impacts of sexual trauma and how to be better allies. We collaborated with Sacramento-area advocates, medical professionals and law enforcement agencies to identify best practices for making survivors feel believed and supported, regardless of whether they choose to report the crime.
Our approach to interviewing survivors was rooted in the principles of community-engaged and trauma-informed journalism, which focus on empowering people at the center of an issue to tell their own stories. We had a mental health professional participate in our group meetings, and invited survivors to set agreements and boundaries for our time together. We also gathered their questions and posed them to law enforcement and conducted group interviews in which participants were able to ask questions of one another and of our team of journalists. After several months of building trust with survivors and using their input to shape the trajectory of the podcast, we began recording these group sessions for use in the published pieces.
Themes about mental health emerged early in the process. Survivors told us they oscillated between guilt and shame around their own actions leading up to the rape, and overwhelming rage toward their perpetrators. Many struggled to recall details about the incident or remembered them out of order, a symptom common to both Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Rape Trauma Syndrome.
In Episode Five we zeroed in more closely on the lived experience of surviving sexual assault. This included an explanation of triggers and why they can cause a flood of stress-inducing memories, or flashbacks, even for survivors who are years out from a rape. Survivors told us that sights, smells and sounds that reminded them of their perpetrators could send them into a spiral of depression or anxiety. Many said they were hypervigilant of these triggers, to the point that they would change their route to work or avoid social situations out of fear that they’d see their rapist or something that would remind them of the violent event. They reported trouble sleeping, loss of appetite, high stress levels and spells of lethargy.
We learned that sexual violence can make a survivor feel disconnected from their body or hesitant about intimacy. One survivor gained nearly 40 pounds in the year after her rape, citing a fear of becoming an object of male attention. Another said her nervousness around being touched made it hard to start new relationships.
Survivors also talked about a loss of self-worth and a process of grieving the person they were before the assault. Some reported excessive drinking in the aftermath of the incident, or an increase in reckless behavior tied to a disregard for their own wellbeing.
After the series was published, we heard from dozens of survivors in our listening audience who told us that hearing the episode made them feel less alone. Some told us they were inspired to seek out professional help or to speak up about their struggles to loved ones. Spouses and friends of rape survivors told us our episode empowered them to have more nuanced and supportive conversations about this often-treacherous topic.