Finding Healing From Sexual Assault Part 1 - Leila Sommerfeld and Kathleen Terrill

and so I went to sleep that night and I told myself no one ever has to do I'm never telling anyone this was such a shattering experience it was so to be that sheltered little girl and to have something like date rape which that term in and of itself was foreign to me it shattered everything that I knew to be true about the world I lived in welcome to the focus on the family broadcast helping families thrive what a heartbreaking comment it is horrifying to hear how many girls and women are sexually assaulted like kathleen was the statistics are shocking on average a woman in America is raped every minute of every day but the numbers don't reflect the shame anxiety and the broken lives that victims face afterwards I'm John fuller and our host Jim Daly was out of town when we recorded today's focus on the family I sat down with two courageous women Kathleen taro and Lila Sommerfeld they told their stories of hurt hope and healing after sexual assault we'll be discussing some very mature topics of course so I suggest you direct smaller ones out of the way as you watch this video and now here's my conversation with Kathleen and Lila Lila let's start with you many many years ago an awful thing happened to you and it it just changed your life forever take us back to that time and tell us when that was and what the circumstances were and what happened okay well it the event happened the year that John F Kennedy was killed I remember that distinctly and I we lived way out in the country we didn't have any neighbors I could see some neighbors below us there were canyons and but we couldn't talk and so our house is pretty isolated and a neighbor I didn't know I mean it was way far away had broke into my home and raped me while my children were in the house just a few feet away in another bedroom and both of the doors were open and I was so fearful I didn't resist because I was so fearful that they would be harmed or they would see what was happening I knew what was going to happen it puts so much fear into me I didn't want to be alone at night and I always begged my husband to come home before it got dark and I used to carry a gun with me when I go out to feed the horses I mean it just how much it paralyzed me so you were in an isolated location and the rapist broke in in the middle of the night your husband wasn't home he know he ironically had gone to Mexico Mexico with my father to pick up a car my stepmother had died down there and so he wasn't expected to be back before midnight and I don't know how this person knew that he was coming back early I have no idea but it was a nightmare that wouldn't he turned off the lights to the house you know up there they did the power yes he turned off the power and he ran through the front door in the back door and being very loud I mean very loud I thought that was gonna wake the children and we had dogs and they were barking and barking and then he came up from behind me and grabbed me and pushed me into the bedroom and so I just I just didn't want my children to see or hear anything yeah in fact I think in your book beyond our control at one point you said you felt more like a criminal than a victim right especially when I was asked for polygraph of course I understand they do that all the time I didn't at the time and I thought guys I couldn't they tell by the way I looked and acted but and of course I passed it but I did and then it was just a really hard thing and then when I first went to to go before the judge I was by myself and I don't know how I didn't have my husband go with me yeah I was I was intrigued by that part of your story that you grew up in a dysfunctional home and you would kind of always taken care of yourself and so I I didn't have any close relatives I didn't have anybody to talk to my older sister was out of town and all of that led to you being in a courtroom by yourself yes coping by myself and you know you didn't want to go to your pastor and you didn't want to tell everybody for some reason we just feel shamed or embarrassed in your book Lila you described something that you call an alarm reaction state we said that affected you quite deeply yes we go into post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic stress you're constantly looking over your shoulder you're constantly jumping at things and and of course you're very suspicious and this became not just a little episode but it became kind of an umbrella took over my life and for years I would sleep with my gun by my bed look I'm by my bed like my car keys I was determined to make a quick getaway mmm and of course now I I know Jesus sir I don't you know Jesus but at the time I was so it's so traumatized I couldn't even think about Jesus or God or I just wanted that gun I used when my husband was out of town one time I slept at the front door with those things the gun the keys in this kind of PTSD effect on you and your emotional well-being and your physical health took a toll on your marriage as well didn't you toll on my marriage and I you know at the time I didn't realize and in my book I say I didn't realize my husband who is going through this also in a different way different were his reactions his well he he tried to be loving but he didn't he didn't know what to do with me and I really if that had happened today I would have been in counseling I would have been in support groups I would have but I would have had a Christian support group and I you know I think I went to a psychiatrist once and I didn't talk about my rape oh I talked about my father really so so there you are in the aftermath you've got years of stress and hyper vigilance and panic and fear panic attacks and you're finding nobody is able to and your husband eventually left no actually I divorced him and because I was so I was so distraught in my mind was so I always think I was crazy at the time because I did and checking myself into a mental hospital for three months I just I couldn't cope I couldn't cope but I didn't know what to do and of course the enemy said well you don't he's not helping you so you know maybe he'd be better off without him so what did you do after you left him that I mean did you I try to find a place inside I took the girls got an apartment tried to get a job and go to work but I was in such severe depression like I cried and cried and cried I couldn't stop any woman that has had any kind of sexual assault because for one thing when you go through trauma it changes the wiring in your brain and your brain is not the same it just I mean you can't heal move forward but you'd think differently and you're wired a little bit differently and and you didn't find anybody you could trust you didn't find anything that it would alleviate that pain and that stress me well I did my you know my sisters were very comforting but they both live out of town and my niece who's only 13 years younger than me it's very comforting but again she everybody lived out of town yeah and my two closest friends they were very kind they were supportive of me but they didn't know what to do with me Wow well I appreciate so much your vulnerability Lila and that's Lila Sommerfeld we're also talking with Kathleen Terrell on today's focus on the family and Kathleen your stories is different but you went through a traumatic rape experience as well take us back to that time what life was like before and during and after that event absolutely I was raised in a very loving Christian home I had an amazing relationship with my parents and my sister and just kind of that all-american family environment I was also attending a private Christian school and the senior year of my high school at the age of 17 two weeks before my 18th birthday a group of friends and I were planing to go out for the night and just have just hang out together for whatever reason that night everyone decided to cancel except for this one other guy in the group and this guy was new to our school I knew of him he kind of had that bad-boy image that was very intriguing to the sheltered girl in me so you're a little attracted to that aspect of yes it was intriguing I wasn't necessarily attracted to him but that persona was intriguing to me so he invited me over he said well why don't we just go to my my parents house and we can just watch a movie everybody else is canceled so let's just you know yeah we're ready out of the house let's go ahead and go hang out so I agreed and we went over to his parents house and I believed his parents were home I later found out they weren't and as we began to watch the movie we're sitting on the couch and he began to make advances towards me trying to kiss me and honestly I thought it was hysterical like it was a joke because it was the farthest thing that could be possible from my imagination for what he was trying to do he was probably not impressed by that response not at all I'm sure I'm sure that probably hurt his ego a little hmm and so I laughed and was you know come on what do you do anyway you know we're not like that we're just friends and then we're going back to watching the movie and he tries again and so a little more forcefully I'm like you know come on knock it off it's not like that you know that and then he tries a third time and by this point I'm getting angry and so I shift in my seat and I began to stand up to leave like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tolerate this and as I stood up he then grabs me by the shoulders and forces me to the ground and he forces me to the ground and pins me to the ground and then begins to tear and rip at my clothing to remove them and I remember that moment so vividly thinking this cannot to be happening what is happening right now I just my mind could not comprehend the events that were taking place and so he does he begins to rape me and I remember in that moment tilting my head backwards and there was a clock behind my head and I remember just fixating on that clock tried to put my attention somewhere other than to what was happening in that moment and I remember looking at the clock and fixating at it and then suddenly everything went black and I woke up kinda came to and I'm still looking at the clock and realized 45 minutes has passed and I have no idea I think it was really God's grace but I don't have a whole lot of vivid memories at that 45 minute time frame but 45 minutes had passed and so I stood up tried to gather myself and I drove home I don't remember driving home I don't remember walking into my parents house but I remember going into the bathroom that night and just the shock and the horror as I used the restroom and just found myself covered in all this blood and so I went to sleep that night and I told myself no one ever has to know really I'm never telling anyone this was such a shattering experience it was so to be that sheltered little girl and to have something like date rape which that term in and of itself was foreign to me it shattered everything that I knew to be true about the world I lived in and it's obvious as you go back to that time that the emotions are still churning and that the pain is still very very real to you Kathleen I do believe that the Lord has completely healed me of the pain and God's grace has been profound in my life and how he's brought healing for me the emotions are still so strong because of my my love for other girls but for other women who go through it you indicated Kathleen that you decided nobody ever had to know right why was that was the stigma the shame the embarrassment the shame was immediate the shame was immediate and it was palpable the fear and the shame was completely overwhelming and in that moment my entire world had been rocked everything I knew to be true felt foreign suddenly and that shame in that guilt felt almost like the only thing that seemed real that shame and that guilt were so profound that I clung to those and this seems to be a very common reaction for victims of sexual assault yes that a flood of emotions guilt etc as you've just shared mm-hmm absolutely and it did that cloud of secrecy that desire to keep all of that part of your life hidden did that work for very long well in the coming weeks from my right I began to get sick and as I got sick I never occurred to me it never occurred to me to take a pregnancy test however it was obvious that I had become pregnant wilfy at my ring and that certainly will expose the secret won't it because everybody then is eventually going to find out right and so that's where that fear came from that if I was to share that I had been raped and that now I'm pregnant at my private Christian school that there would be disbelief that no one would believe me that I'm using perhaps rape as a cover-up story and that that would be the cover-up story for the pregnancy and and Lila this is again this is all very common to assault victims leading my recovery classes for at least 15 years and they if they'll write down what they want to be healed of the write-down shame and it's just I you know I think part of that is because until now and they're just coming out against sexual violence and we have a lot going organizations working to eliminate that but I the enemy says first of all the enemy says they won't believe you mm-hmm they'll call you a bad girl well why were you there what did you fight those kinds of yeah why did you go there and so we we think maybe part of us we are to blame maybe you know maybe I should have been more careful or something like that flame did you experience those kinds of thoughts I knew that I was not to blame however there is this kind of twisting of thoughts that the enemy most decidedly tries to do however I knew very clearly I had said no multiple occasions that I had tried to leave and I was physically restrained from being able to fight back however you know that's what rape is it's not a sex crime it is a violent crime and it's all about power and control and that's exactly what - but what took place in my rape and going back then to the the moment that you discovers you were pregnant mhm I'm sure your mind was racing yes did you did you decide at that point to start sharing what had happened no I did not okay so I continued to hide I continued to withdraw I pulled away from friends I did what needed to be done in order to graduate and to finish out my senior year in high school but I did not share the information with anyone I literally lived with that secret throughout the continuation of that senior year in high school it came to my graduation date I'm walking across the stage on graduation day and the headmaster hands me my diploma and shakes my hand and it was almost as if a light bulb went off in that moment I'm standing on the graduation platform with diploma in hand and it's like a light bulb went off and suddenly I became acutely aware of oh my gosh I'm pregnant and what am I going to do now I just got my diploma I had a child I'm gonna have oh my goodness so it was kind of like an in that moment I had gotten to the point where okay they can't kick me out of school now and now I've got to face this thing so I began to research I loved researching I loved gathering information and I began to just scour and research what I felt would be the right thing to do to going forward and I found a what appeared to be a wonderful adoption agency and home out of state and so I I decided that the best and most loving choice that I could make would be to place my child for adoption and so I then knew that I could perhaps continue this story and make my friends think maybe I'm moving out of state to go to a dip College my parents would have to know and so the time came when you chose to tell your parents so I invited my mother to lunch and how long is this after the rape had occurred it had been a few months at this point so I invited my mother to lunch and said I need to share some information with you and I began to share with her about the rape and about my plans to place the child I was caring for adoption and my greatest fear you know throughout this whole time was that no one would believe me and as I'm sharing with my mother who I loved more than anyone she and I were so very close she began to question me and almost um an interrogation style line of questioning just question after question after question and as she's questioning me it it occurs to me that she's trying to find a hole in my story and oh my gosh she doesn't believe me and that was crushing that the one person I finally have confided in the one person I love and respect and honor does not believe me and in that moment my mother looked at me and she said you were not going to place this child for adoption you were going to have an abortion and in again this is my mother who is a godly woman we were in the charge just an amazing Christian family and to hear those words come out of her mouth like my world was shattered in the darkness I had been living in just grew immensely in that moment and was that then what you had to do yes have an abortion so I I was shattered and I did not say no and I remember that clinic so clearly you know showing you know you have a sonogram done but yet at that point in time this screens turned away and there's I'm not able to look at the screen there's no sound of the heart be there's no evidence shown to me of the life that was growing inside and so we go through with the procedure and I remember the sound so clearly and just feeling so absolutely alone an interesting part to the story is there was a chair in that room and I remember just needing something to focus my attention on and feeling so alone and so I sat and you know as the procedures going on I'm staring at this chair in the room many years later the Lord took me through an amazing ministry time of healing and it's called Kairos in our church it's an appointed time with God where you get to just come and experience his love wash over you and I remember in that time I said to the Lord you know I know your word is true and your word says that you never leave us and that you never forsake us and when you show me God where were you when I had that abortion and he instantly gave me the most beautiful picture it was a picture of him Jesus sitting in that chair in the abortion room mm-hmm and he was holding my hand in his hand one hand was on top of my hand and the other was underneath my hand and he was stroking my hand gazing into my eyes in the midst of this procedure taking place and he spoke two words to me that forever wrecked me he said I understand now was he saying the abortion was okay absolutely not but he understood me and he didn't run away he understood my pain he understood what was I was experiencing and showed me that he was there with me through it all well you two both have tremendous stories of of pain of difficulty that's a beautiful illustration of God being there although he probably didn't feel like he was there at the moment there are women listening right now who have gone through abortions and they don't they don't have that kind of closure than you had Kathleen or Leo women who years later are still wondering why didn't God stop that how do you grapple with those questions well God doesn't stop everything he doesn't stop everything but like Kathleen said he is there and when people said to me where was Jesus I can tell you where he was he was standing in the doorway of my children's bedroom protecting this so they would not hear or see anything that's where he was and my my I was I truly believed now you couldn't have convinced me of it way back then but I believe now God does allow some things to happen in order for the healer to be go on and become the healer and people like Kathleen and I and hundreds of other women have gone on to have their ministry to reach out to women who who are still in pain and have covered everything up and come to classes and seek healing and find Jesus at the heart of it then is a really profound way to wrap up this part of the conversation and we want to come back next time and talk more about how God shows up in those moments and and we'll look forward to that conversation exercise what a profound way to wrap up the first part of our conversation with Kathleen and Lila and if the stories that these women have so courageously shared today have stirred something in your heart and mind if they brought up some pain in your life let me encourage you to reach out to us here at focus on the family we have caring Christian counselors and they're waiting to hear from you they'll listen to you they'll pray with you they'll offer hope and encouragement I'd also urge you to get a copy of Lila's book beyond our control restructuring your life after sexual assault now if you can give a gift of any amount to focus today we'd love to send a complimentary copy of that book as our way of saying thanks for joining the support team of course if you can't afford to make a gift as jim has said others will cover that so please let us know we'll send a copy anyway we want you to have this resource we'd also love for you to join our pro-life movement we're calling it see life clearly and you can start by going online and signing the declaration for life that's a way you can publicly show your passion and support for bay babies and moms with unplanned pregnancies like Kathleen sign it and tell others to sign it we'd like to take a million signatures to Washington DC and then finally we have a major event on May 4th a live from New York we're in Times Square on the big screens we're going to be showing a live 4d 3rd trimester ultrasound so everybody can see God's handiwork find out more and get in touch with us by calling 800 work click the link on your screen on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team thanks for watching and I'm John fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ you

Channel: Focus on the Family

Views: 18,107

Keywords: focus, on, the, family, focus on the family, sexual assault, survivors, rape, healing from sexual assault, healing, drepression, ptsd

Id: diDxOdHFLcc

Length: 25min 47sec (1547 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2019