Supporting Survivors: the reality of violent crime
Grace Myers, Managing Editor
The kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart shook the nation. A young girl taken from her home and tortured for nine months. Outrage was everywhere. Unfortunately, however, Smart’s experience was not an anomaly.
Approximately 1.2 million violent crimes occurred in the United States in 2019, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. The UCR defines violent crimes as crimes that involve the threat or use of force – specifically, murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
With so many individuals impacted by violent crimes each year, what can we as communities, families and friends do to support survivors of violent crimes, especially if we do not understand what they have been through?
“A lot of times, its mobilizing resources, making sure that their basic human needs are met,” says Lisa Snyder, a licensed independent social worker with certifications in both clinical and advanced practice.
Snyder has many years of experience, including five years working as a social worker for trauma and crisis intervention and supporting victims of crimes, specifically children and adolescents. Her first interactions with crime victims would often occur in the patient’s hospital room just hours after a traumatic incident happened for that person. Then, she would help that individual begin the healing process by providing them with a support system and a place to tell their story.
However, the healing process is not an easy journey. In her memoir “My Story,” when reflecting on her time with her kidnappers, Smart writes, “I am alive, but I’m not living, I remember thinking as I walked. I am the living dead. I am nothing but a shell…I don’t know what the definition of despair is, but if it is feeling as if your life is over, as there’s no point to continue because no matter what happens, you will never be accepted or happy again, then despair is what I felt.”
Snyder notes that Smart was not alone in her feelings. Surviving a violent crime is surviving a violation of who you are. It takes away your sense of control which creates a feeling of helplessness. “For many individuals they have to reevaluate the world and how they’ve seen it – they may have thought the world was a good place or they may have not had any bad experiences, so that makes it tough for them,” Snyder says.
That being said, families and friends of survivors can also feel helpless. Oftentimes, they want to help their loved ones, but they don’t know how.
The Rev. Carrie Nettles chaplain and victims service specialist at the Julie Valentine Center (JVC), a private, non-profit organization that provides free, confidential services to victims of sexual assault and child abuse in Greenville, S.C. and the surrounding areas says, “Significant barriers to the healing of survivors [can be] the tendency of family and friends to dismiss or altogether discount the experiences of sexual harassment, assault, and rape. The messages survivors receive from caregivers, faith leaders, community are often deeper wounds than the ones to their bodies.”
Nettles continued by reiterating Snyder’s statements of the impacts of trauma on the lives of its victims. “Trauma distorts or destroys one’s voice, power, and connection to self, others, God and the world. Anything we seek to offer in terms of help should be considered through this lens: is it repairing or redeeming one’s voice, power and connection,” she says.
An example of this disconnection is when church leaders are listed to visit an abuser in jail, but not one person in church leadership reaches out to the family to ask how they are, how the church can support them. Thus, the family feels disconnected from the very community and community support they need during the hardest part of their lives. The pastor and church leaders represent God to the community. By not acknowledging the trauma in the life of the survivor or family, the victims are left wondering where God is in all of this.
Nettles encourages anyone who desires to help a loved one heal do the following:
1. Believe survivors when they tell you someone has abused them; this will help them heal. Remember, many survivors feel as if their power has been taken away. Author David W. Augsburger writes, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”
2. Attend a class or support group for loved ones of survivors (the JVC offers a class called Supporters of Survivors (SOS).
3. Practice patience, you cannot rush or prescribe someone’s healing timeline—doing so will further drive that feeling of disconnection.
Regardless of how family and friends support their loved one, however, survivors of traumatic events deserve to be respected, valued, and heard. When interacting with a survivor of a traumatic event don’t ask, “what’s wrong with that person?” Instead, consider what happened to that person – what have they had to endure?
Jane Doe, a sexual assault survivor says, “I wish that [my family and friends] were more willing to have open conversations about how my trauma still affects me years down the line. I often feel shut down when I try to open up when my trauma has resurfaced. I understand that [my trauma] happened a long time ago, but it can still affect me now, and I wish that they were more receptive about it.”
However, Doe said she would like to encourage her fellow survivors to give themselves grace, adding, “Forgiving themselves for whatever they are blaming themselves for is really important,” because while forgiving herself was the hardest part of her journey, but it was impossible to move past her trauma without that forgiveness.
Unfortunately, violent crimes and traumatic events are not exclusive, they hold no regard for who you are and what you’ve been through and we can always prevent bad things from happening to good people. However, we can be prepared to support those that we were unable to protect – whether that be physical or mentally. We can support the survivors.
