Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
“I had that feeling you get — there is no word for this feeling — when you are simultaneously happy and sad and angry and grateful and accepting and appalled and every other possible emotion, all smashed together and amplified. Why is there no word for this feeling?
Perhaps because the word is “healing” and we don’t want to believe that. We want to believe healing is purer and more perfect, like a baby on its birthday. Like we’re holding it in our hands. Like we’ll be better people than we’ve been before. Like we have to be.”
–Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things
The 3rd annual Voices of Healing event will take place this Sunday, April 23 at 7:30 pm. Voices takes place at twilight in the Amphitheater (Rain Location: Upper Tarble) and is an opportunity for anyone at Swarthmore who has been harmed by sexual assault, unhealthy or abusive relationships, or non-consensual sexual experiences, whether or not they identify as a “survivor,” as well as significant others, allies, relatives, and friends, to openly share their stories and journeys of healing. These stories come in the form of written reflections, poetry, journal entries, dances or songs, meaningful passages that resonate with one’s personal experience, and more.
Voices of Healing was started three years ago as a collaboration between student activists and volunteers, the violence prevention educator/advocate, the WRC, and the Title IX House in order to provide a space where people could tell stories to reduce the isolation that often accompanies being impacted by sexual and intimate partner violence. As Gloria Steinem said, “Every social justice movement that I know of has come out of people sitting in…groups, telling their life stories, and discovering that other people have shared similar experiences.”
As this storytelling event has grown, we have received a lot of questions about the word “healing” and what feelings are “allowed” at this event. Like the quote above, we do not believe that healing is perfect and pure. Rather, it is complex and multifaceted. It can include (but is not limited to): anger, sadness, trauma, depression, and fear. It can also include (but is not limited to): connection, gratitude, acceptance, and hope.
We have seen these same tensions— what is healing? Is there a “right” way to heal? What is surviving? Is there a “right” way to survive?— all year long in the students that we’ve worked with, many of whom identify as survivors themselves. Several weeks ago, the 10-12 members of our Title IX Student Advisory Team had an emotional conversation about healing and the goals of events like Voices. What happens when we, as members of the same campus community, assign different meanings to the idea of “healing?” What happens when we require different things to survive? What happens when some of us are proud of the progress that has happened at Swarthmore, and others of us are angry and disappointed about change that is yet to come, and others of us feel both?
What we came to realize through our conversations is that Voices of Healing is a space for any and all of these feelings. It is a space to acknowledge that healing looks a little more like this:
And a LOT less like this:
Most of all, Voices of Healing is a space to practice being a supportive community. To listen and learn from one another. To hear stories and experiences that may be silenced. To acknowledge the complexity of surviving when difficult things happen to us. To be in awe of the depth and courage of those we share campus with every day.
Please join us this Sunday, April 23 @ 7:30 pm in the Amphitheater (Rain Location: Upper Tarble) to give voice to the struggles and triumphs of healing, in all of its complexity, and to help contribute to a more supportive, thoughtful, and loving Swarthmore.
We do not often have opportunities at Swarthmore for people to be their most bare, vulnerable selves and to be “held”—both literally and figuratively— by their community. We hope that this will be a moment for all members of our campus community to show up, support, listen, and “hold” those impacted by sexual assault, unhealthy or abusive relationships, and non-consensual sexual experiences at Swarthmore.
Voices of Healing is great, but you can’t fiat that there is trust in a community. It feels disengiuous when the administration hosts events like this without engaging with very specific, very public criticisms that cause survivors harm in their daily lives. Voices of Healing has a place in the Swarthmore survivor community, but right now I think it should take a back seat to commitment to change.
I attended Voices this year and it was really powerful. I’m grateful it happened. Nina Harris mentioned in her opening remarks that Swarthmore isn’t always fertile ground for healing, which I really appreciated.
But, concurring with Anon ’16, I was disappointed that there was no real acknowledgement of the institution’s historical (if not current) mishandling of sexual violence cases in the intro remarks. I’m not expecting or asking that Title IX staff publicly denounce the college, or personally apologize (my sense is that students are pretty happy with the TIX staff on the whole), but I thought the absence of even one sentence of acknowledgement of Swarthmore’s role in harming survivors, or even a least some acknowledgment of student discontent as it’s showing up in the Swat Protects Rapists campaign, was striking.