Well­ness Cen­ter In­vites Fe­male Stu­dents to Sex­ual As­sault Sur­vivors Group

MISHAWAKA—On Mon­day, Feb. 22, the Well­ness Cen­ter is be­gin­ning a sex­ual as­sault sur­vivor’s group for women ti­tled “Rise Above.” Meet­ings will take place in the BIG room on the fourth floor of the Aca­d­e­mic Cen­ter every Mon­day through April 19 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sign-ups are not re­quired. The only re­quest is that at­ten­dees make sure to be­gin at­tend­ing on the first or sec­ond week so that they can glean as much from the ex­pe­ri­ence as pos­si­ble. 

Ac­cord­ing to Chelsea Luke, B.A., M.S., the Well­ness Cen­ter’s li­censed men­tal health coun­selor as­so­ci­ate, the group is for any fe­male who has ex­pe­ri­enced sex­ual trauma at any point in their life. 

“It can be past, child­hood, or some­thing more re­cent,” Luke said. “Typ­i­cally, we en­cour­age, if it’s still on­go­ing, that you seek more im­me­di­ate help. But we’re al­ways here to sup­port any woman who is go­ing through some­thing like that.” 

The group is open to any fe­male who has been sex­u­ally ha­rassed or as­saulted, whether through phys­i­cal touch of pri­vate ar­eas or even vir­tual co­er­cion into send­ing com­pro­mis­ing pic­tures, a grow­ing con­cern in a world dig­i­tized by a pan­demic. 

“We need to be more aware of [vir­tual] sex­ual trauma,” Luke said. “That can be very trau­ma­tiz­ing to be co­erced into send­ing pic­tures, and you may think it’s your choice, it’s still not your choice if you’re be­ing co­erced in one way or an­other.” 

The group is pri­mar­ily dis­cus­sion based and is de­signed to be a safe space, a space that is unique be­cause women know that they are con­vers­ing with other women who un­der­stand their ex­pe­ri­ences in a way the gen­eral pub­lic can­not. 

“So of­ten, women who have been trau­ma­tized don’t get the sup­port they need,” Luke said. “They aren’t be­lieved, they don’t have some­one they can re­ally tell their story to, so this is an op­por­tu­nity for them to be able to share if they choose and to feel that em­pow­er­ment from other women who are like­minded and can help them in that process of mov­ing for­ward.” 

Luke said that this col­lec­tive ex­pe­ri­ence can fluc­tu­ate de­pend­ing on the needs of par­tic­i­pants. 

“It’s dif­fer­ent from in­di­vid­ual be­cause it’s the col­lec­tive ex­pe­ri­ence and not just your own stuff,” Luke said. “It’s a lit­tle dif­fer­ent every year.” 

The de­ci­sion was made to dis­con­tinue sign-ups this year in or­der to elim­i­nate as many bar­ri­ers as pos­si­ble. 

“The more there is bar­ri­ers in the way . . . it may have felt like prov­ing them­selves to be in the group, and I don’t want that to be the mes­sage be­ing sent,” Luke said. “I want them to feel wel­comed and heard and un­der­stood. And they may not feel ready to share yet, and that’s okay.” 

Luke said that the sense of ca­ma­raderie the group builds with each other has been help­ful within the group and be­yond the group. 

“I re­ally think it just helps peo­ple to not feel alone,” Luke said. “When we break the si­lence, when we’re able to share the story and it’s be­lieved, there’s sup­port there, there’s trust there, there’s some safety, some sense of safety be­ing built there, there’s some real power in that.” 

Luke re­al­izes this is dif­fi­cult for in­di­vid­u­als to cope with and she hopes they will be will­ing to come and seek the heal­ing that they need. 

“I know this is an un­com­fort­able topic, and I know it’s hard to come for­ward,” Luke said. “And it’s hard to ad­mit, walk­ing into a room and know­ing that the other peo­ple there have ex­pe­ri­enced things in the same na­ture . . . I hope peo­ple feel the courage to walk into that room and then see what hap­pens from there.” 

Any ques­tions about the pro­gram or about the coun­sel­ing and ther­apy ser­vices of­fered by the Well­ness Cen­ter can be di­rected to Luke via her Bethel email, chelsey.luke@bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu, or by call­ing the Well­ness Cen­ter at 574.807.7370.