Emily LeBlanc never reported her rape. For over a decade, she hardly talked about it. As a therapist and longtime advocate for sexual assault survivors, she’s counseled hundreds of women through similar experiences. But when a friend assaulted her in 2007, LeBlanc tried to convince herself that what happened wasn’t as bad.
“That’s a thing survivors do,” LeBlanc says. “We compare our stories to others, thinking we’re in some awful Hunger Games of trauma where only the worst story is worth telling.”
She called a Texas-based survivors’ hotline looking for support but it made everything worse. “Legally, he can say he was raped, too,” the person on the line told her, after LeBlanc shared that they’d both been drinking. She hung up, believing it was her fault, that no one would believe her. “It led to the only night in my life where I’ve ever had a suicidal thought,” she says.
