Chapter Eleven: Closure
Chapter Twelve: A New Normal
Chapter Thirteen: Survive and Thrive
Resources
References
I am a crime victim/survivor a few times over. When I was twelve I was a raped by a man who was twenty-eight years old. That night was the first time I ever had a drink in my life, and I was hooked the minute the fluid hit my lips. I wound up blacking out, and a night of innocent roller skating turned into the single worst night of my life. The crime and its aftermath took my life and twisted it into something I didn’t recognize. When I looked in the mirror I no longer knew the reflection looking back. Everything I knew had been shattered, and there were pieces of my former life all over the floor around me and my family. My brother, my parents, and I walked carefully among these shards, fearful that we might find a sharp edge and cut ourselves deeper than we had already been injured. Our home became a live land mine, and none of us knew how to walk around normally anymore.
I had no methods, resources, or understanding of how to begin to heal. I was so lost, and the fact that alcohol was involved in my victimization only fueled the guilt train I jumped on immediately. Instead of turning away from alcohol, I ran toward it. It became the solution to my problems, not the source. I didn’t ease into addiction like some do over years and years of social use—I slammed into it.
My active addiction went on into my teenage years and early twenties. Of course, living a lifestyle of drinking until blackout or running the streets in the middle of the night to purchase illegal drugs led me straight into additional victimization. For many years I had a hard time deciphering what was truly my role in the victimization. It wasn’t until I found recovery by going to a rehabilitation center that I realized that no one had the right to harm me, regardless of what I was doing. My addiction and victimization were so intertwined that it took me a long time in recovery to untwist all my false understandings and come to a place of peace and forgiveness with it all.
I wound up going to college to become a drug and alcohol counselor. I wanted to give back what I had found, which was a way of life I never knew was possible. It was a life free from addiction and full of possibility. As I progressed in college I began to learn about victims’ rights, a concept that was foreign to me. I never knew crime victims had rights. Even as a victim, I had never had anyone educate me on these things. I learned that in the early 1980s a movement brought about a bill of rights for crime victims, and that each state in the nation had its own version of these rights.
I was intrigued, and upon graduation I sought a position working to create change for crime victims in my state. I lobbied for legislation and did a lot of educational planning in my first job as managing director of a statewide coalition. I was then hired as the executive director of a nonprofit organization that provides direct services to crime victims in Dauphin County, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Victim/ Witness Assistance Program provides services to more than eight thousand victims each year, and I am in my eighth year working with this amazing program. It was in my work with this agency that I began to discover how much victims’ services had to offer. In my first year I responded to more than twenty homicides; provided death notification, crisis intervention, and supportive counseling; assisted with body identification and transfer; and linked families and loved ones to victims’ compensation. I’ve worked with victims of theft, rape, domestic violence, homicide, assault, and other crimes.
I wanted to write this book not only from the viewpoint of a survivor of crime, but as a person in recovery and as an executive director of a program that works directly with crime victims. So often when my agency is working with clients, we discover that substance abuse or addiction is an underlying factor—whether the client is struggling or the offender was addicted at the time of the crime. I wanted to create an easy-to-follow guide that would allow people to understand not only the trauma they are experiencing, but also how the criminal justice system works and is expected to treat them. Additionally, I felt a strong need to address the co-occurring substance abuse issues.
When attempting to heal from victimization, it is easy to fall back into old patterns of addiction, or, if you’ve never experienced problems with alcohol and other drugs, to now find yourself using substances to cope. This book is intended to serve as an educational resource that will walk you through your pain, help you navigate the criminal justice system, and give you helpful guidance on dealing and healing. As a survivor myself, I wish a resource like this had been available when I needed it. I am humbled to be in a position to provide this guide to you, and I hope it helps you as we all trudge along this journey together in one way or another. May peace be with you.
I want to express sincere gratitude to the staff at Central Recovery Press for believing in me and my writing; in no specific order, their fabulousness is made up of Nancy Schenck, Patrick Hughes, Valerie Killeen, Bob Gray, Helen O’Reilly, and Dan Mager. To Thomas Woll and Kae Tienstra for working so hard to promote my work.
Thank you for believing in my work and making it better. Thank you to my agent, Devra Ann Jacobs, and my manager, Phyllis Parsons—two amazing and tireless women.
As always, to my amazing, supportive, and loving family, James and Pat Storm, James Storm, Jr., Brian Storm, and my two awesome nieces, Cheyanne Storm and Amelia Storm.
Fianne Van Schaaik, for your unconditional love, your honest critique of my writing, and your unwavering support. You have believed in me at times when I haven’t believed in myself. You are forever my cheerleader; thank you so much for that.
My staff of amazing advocates who in many ways have inspired so much of what you see on the pages of this book. The dedication and hard work you bring to the job every day are beyond admirable. You are my family and I love you all.
Last, but never least, to each and every person out there who has been victimized in some way, you are never alone. There is a way to heal, and your life can be amazing again—I promise.
Today you are on a new path, one that you wouldn’t and couldn’t have chosen, one that is unfamiliar and scary, and one that undoubtedly you would give anything to venture away from. There will be questions at every turn you encounter. Your balance is off, and the once-stable surface beneath your feet suddenly feels like it is caving in. You feel yourself sinking, shifting, changing. You open your eyes hoping it was all a dream, only to be smacked with the reality of daylight and the brutal realization that it wasn’t. Nothing looks the same through your eyes anymore, as though someone put a pair of glasses on you that you cannot take off, and you can only see the same horrible show over and over again. You are a victim or you are a witness to victimization.
Everything you previously knew and felt and thought fades into the background as the victimization stands out as the only reality. Your life today operates as only two segments: before the crime and after the crime. There no longer is a gray period, only black and white, before and after.
Just when you thought recovery couldn’t get any harder, life on life’s terms happens, and sometimes that means someone perpetrating violence upon you or your home. One of our most fundamental rights as citizens is to live in peace without the threat of violence and crime. Unfortunately, at times our rights may be compromised. Too many of us have been victims of a violent crime, or know a family member or friend who has been.
If you’re reading this book, then either you or a loved one has been the victim of a crime and you are seeking help. Make no mistake about it; even if your loved one is the victim, you too become a victim of sorts. You see, feel, and hear the pain the primary victim goes through,