Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/118258
J ennifer Conlin was just shy of 17 when an innocent day with friends morphed into a dark event that would embed itself into her life for years to come. It was "senior ditch day" at her suburban Chicago high school. Like kids across the country, Conlin and her classmates, all good students, decided to play hooky for the day. They went to the beach and then hit downtown. Eventually Conlin and the boy who lived just down the block ended up at her home watching TV. It was about 9 p.m. and her mother was already upstairs sleeping. "We just ate cereal and watched television," she says. "One thing led to another and we started necking." When he got more aggressive, Conlin told him "No," and pushed him away. But he yanked her jeans off and assaulted her. "I wasn't crying, but my voice wasn't coming out. I was totally frozen," she recalls. Conlin's experience is tragically common. According to the most recent study released by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in five women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape over the course of her lifetime. But the pain and fear don't end when the assault does. In fact, when the moment comes that they're supposed to report it to authorities—or even confide in a loved one—many survivors realize the emotional turmoil has just begun. All Conlin knew about rape victims at the time was what she had learned from seeing them on TV. "Up until it happened to me I always thought, 'Why were those girls so stupid? Why didn't they fight or get out of there?'" she explains. But after it happened, she understood the paralyzing fear—and how that fear could keep a victim from reporting the crime to anyone days, months, or even years after the assault. Many studies estimate that more than half of rape incidents are never reported. "It's the most underreported, un-discussed crime in America," explains Kelly Anderson, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center. And one of the consequences of victims' silence? The Rape Abuse and Incest National Network estimates that 97 percent of rapists never step foot inside a jail for their crime. "Most sexual assaults are not reported to police and those that are rarely result in justice being served," Anderson explains. But the ramifications aren't just legal. For the survivors, tucking the incident away eventually begins to take an unexpected toll. April 2013 bravamagazine.com 61