Pia K. Hansen : Attempts at closure can sometimes reopen old wounds

There was a story in Sunday’s paper I tried forgetting about all week, but it kept coming back to me. It was the story about Liz Seccuro and William Beebe. Back in 1984 Beebe raped Seccuro, then 17, at a fraternity house party at the University of Virginia. Seccuro reported the rape to campus police and to the school, but like so many other rape survivors she ended up left to her own devices.

Life was not easy after the rape, but it continued. Seccuro moved on in one direction, and Beebe in another.

Then one day, 20 years later, Beebe wrote a letter to Seccuro apologizing, saying, “In 1984 I harmed you.” The letter was part of a 12-step program Beebe was in, which encouraged him to apologize to people he’d hurt. Seccuro was initially shocked and terrified, but then she decided to begin an e-mail conversation with Beebe.

Eventually, Seccuro called police. Finally, in November last year, Beebe pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery. There is no statute of limitation on felonies in Virginia.

Stunned, I read the Associated Press story four times.

It just never occurred to me that a perpetrator could come back, decades later, and ask for forgiveness. I mean, how cruel is that? Rip off the scabs, cut open the scars and wait for the bleeding to begin again, all in the name of forgiveness and closure – not for the person who was hurt, but for the perpetrator.

If you are family, I can perhaps understand the philosophy behind this idea. But if you are total strangers, I’m not sure it does anybody any good, except the perpetrator.

More than 20 years ago I was in a short relationship with someone I now refer to as “my psychopath boyfriend.” It was a horrifically violent and abusive relationship that lasted only from March to August.

At the time, I didn’t tell anyone exactly what happened. Feeling deeply violated, guilty, raw and dirty, I moved away. First just 50 miles.

Five years later, I put a marriage, a continent, an ocean and hours of counseling between myself and this man who I never wanted to meet again.

I discovered, of course, that physical distance is not the same as psychological distance.

Even today, my thoughts occasionally stray outside the enclosures I’ve spent 20 years building for them, and I wonder where this man is today.

Did he marry? Did he move away, too? Does he think of me? And, of course, I wonder if he hurt someone else.

Because I am a writer – I have a vivid imagination – these thoughts are fictive but not gentle.

Sunday morning a new scenario was introduced into my fictional horror gallery: He could just send me an e-mail wanting to apologize, and once again I would have no control over his actions.

I know the good Christian thing would be to forgive and let go. Heaven only knows I’ve thought about it, and I have so much respect for the parents who stand up in court and hug their child’s killer; I just don’t think I would have the capacity to do so.

And I think of other survivors I know. I think of the survivors of priest abuse I’ve talked to over the years. I think of other women I’ve met who’ve survived abuse much, much more horrendous and humiliating than what I made it through.

And I think of the people I know who have been helped to their own powerful healing through 12-step programs.

And I think of closure.

Some seek closure like it’s something you can pick up at the store, next to the milk, and then grab a pound of forgiveness, just one shelf over, in a blue box.

To me, the only closure involves getting up in the morning and working and loving and doing laundry and letting the cat out and occasionally wrestling with a 20-year-old horrible truth, when it falls out of the closet where I keep all the other skeletons.