3.1.1 Barriers to Disclosure

It’s very important that survivors are given the opportunity to process their own experience, without the advocate trying to do this for them.

There are often multiple barriers that survivors face when choosing to disclose a sexual assault and seek medical assistance.

The most common barriers faced by survivors are discussed below.

Not being believed: The fear that they will not be believed is usually the greatest obstacle to disclosure faced by survivors of sexual assault.

Fears that no one will believe them are compounded by any feelings of guilt, shame or self-blame as well as potential embarrassment of talking about what happened.

Additionally, the perpetrator may have told the survivor they won’t be believed or threatened to harm a friend, family member or pet, or to post photos or information online to ruin their reputation if they do not keep silent.

As an advocate, navigating the survivor’s fear that they will not be believed is especially challenging when confronted with untrained healthcare providers who challenge or don’t believe the survivor’s story.

Other people’s reactions: These can include strong responses of sadness, anger, disbelief or wanting to seek revenge.

Unfortunately, strong reactions put the feelings of the person who is reacting before the feelings of the survivor.

When strong reactions come from someone the survivor trusts, the survivor often becomes afraid and starts to doubt of they did the right thing by disclosing.

If this happens, the survivor often then tries to protect the other person because they do not want to hurt them, rather than trying to get the support they need.

As an advocate, supporting the survivor during disclosure is not about you. Your role is to be supportive and helpful.

You may have very strong feelings, which is normal. While you may need to speak with someone about them afterwards, in the moment, it’s essential not to take the focus away from the survivor or their story.

Trauma: Sexual assault is often a highly traumatic experience, so it’s important for advocates to understand what trauma is and how trauma impacts survivors.

Trauma is an experience that overwhelms one’s capacity to have a sense of control over themselves and their immediate environment.

During sexual assault, the survivor does not have control over their own body, and this is, naturally, both upsetting and uncomfortable.

Trauma overwhelms one’s ability to maintain a connection with others, and after sexual assault, when one’s sense of trust has been violated, it can be extremely difficult to trust and reach out to someone.

While you might think that anyone who has been sexually assaulted would want to come forward, in fact, the violation of trust that the survivor has experienced make the very act of disclosing feel unsafe.

Because of trauma, it can feel safer not to trust people and to withdraw into themselves.

Self-blame: Trauma overwhelms one’s ability to make meaning of their experience. Survivors rarely get to ask their perpetrators, ‘Why did you do this to me?’ All the same, these questions take time to go away.

Often, the survivor turns their questions inwards and their experience of sexual assault becomes something for which they blame themselves.

They may think that they were sexually assaulted because they did something wrong, for example, going to the wrong place, speaking to the wrong person or making a wrong decision, but this is not the case.

Self-blame becomes a barrier to disclosure because the survivor may fear that they will not be believed or that they will be blamed for the sexual assault that happened to them.

If the survivor is experiencing self-blame, focus on what the perpetrator did to violate boundaries and commit a crime.

It’s always appropriate to emphasize that the survivor did nothing wrong and that the sexual assault is not their fault.