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Elizabeth Grattan Testimony: OHSB 162
The following is an abridged version of live and submitted proponent testimony for Ohio Senate Bill 162.
February 19, 2020
Good morning and thank you for allowing me to speak today on behalf of Ohio Senate Bill 162. My name is Elizabeth Grattan and I am here as a concerned citizen — I’m also here as a friend to those who have suffered sexual assault, some you have heard from or will hear from today and others who may still not have found the courage to share their story.
Because the truth is, most won’t share their story. At least not publicly. They may share it with close friends, sometimes they will confide in their family, but for most all victims, the details of the violence they endured only exists in their memories — in solitude and in nightmares and in fear — fleshed out in their day to day as either self destruction or self preservation or, in some of the worst cases, an end to the life they lost along the way.
For all that is the incredible resilience of the human being, over a third of sexual assault survivors will contemplate suicide, with over 1 in 10 going as far as attempting this early grave. Some succeeding in that path.
To say that rape is not deadly, is a gross oversimplification that ignores the actual lives we have lost.
Of those who do survive to breath another day — it’s a world of mourning. Mourning the life that once was. Mourning what they would or might be. Mourning the person they knew prior to the violence — a person they forever now have had to bury.
Rape kills you.
Only you are still breathing. Your heart is still beating. Your children still relying on you to pack their lunch, your boss still demanding you get the project done, your professor still requiring your paper turned in, your bills still showing due dates, your neighbors still bitching because your trash can gets in their way. You figure out real quick… the world doesn’t give a damn and time isn’t going to stop for you to grieve everything you know changed.
This is probably why these victims suffer post traumatic stress at such significant rates — 94%. That’s higher than combat veterans.
