People Kept Calling C-SPAN To Share Their Own Sexual Assault Stories During The Hearing..

[HipChick]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/briannasacks/kavanaugh-cspan-assault-calls

During Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual misconduct, C-SPAN fielded opinions and statements from viewers from across the country and political spectrum. The calls quickly became powerfully personal.

After Christine Blasey Ford took her first break during her emotional testimony, a 76-year-old woman named Brenda from Missouri called the organization and shared her own story of when she was “sexually molested in the second grade.”

“This brings back so much pain,” she said, her voice breaking. “I thought I was over it, but it’s not. You will never forget it. You get confused and you don’t understand it, but you never forget what happened to you.” Stunned, the C-SPAN host listened and then thanked her for sharing her story. Then, more people began to call in to recount their experiences with sexual assault from their childhood, teen, and adult years.

A 26-year-old named Jessica called to say that she was sexually assaulted when she was 19 and in college.

Right after her, Michelle from Florida called in to talk about a night when she was 12 and sleeping over at her best friend’s house.

“Around 4 in the morning in the dim light of the night-light, her 17-year-old brother was hovered over me on the other side of the bed with his hands in my underwear and fondling me,” the 53-year-old recalled. “And I remember being so frightened and not wanting anybody to be upset because I love this family a lot.”

Her daughter, now 23, is also a victim, her mother told C-SPAN. Her ballet teacher abused her when she was 13.

“[Ballet] was something my daughter loved very much and as a child could not make a proper decision [to tell someone],” her mother told C-SPAN. “I found out when she was 19 through behavior she was exhibiting and she did file a police report. You don’t do that lightly. Because doing it again just lets them win. You get to suffer all over again and you get to relive it. Don’t call us survivors. I call us victims that overcome.”