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The art of healing
As she continues to recover from an assault that occurred almost three years ago, one woman puts a face to her fear of letting it go.
By RODNEY THRASH
Published March 31, 2006
ST. PETERSBURG Kathleen Coulter sits at her kitchen table, fidgeting with her hands the same way she did during the trial. Her auburn hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She is sipping green tea and talking so fast, she barely pauses to take a breath. She will tell her story to anyone who will listen, even the strangers who will come to Survivors Speak, an art exhibit opening Monday at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. The exhibit features masks made by more than 70 survivors of rape and sexual abuse. Some of the artists are as young as 4 years old. Coulter knows that some people think the subject is too painful to discuss so publicly. "People would tell me, 'You really don't have to tell,' " says the 34-year-old flight attendant. "It's been good for me to talk about it. I get stronger every day, which is something I never dreamed was possible. I really never thought I would be happy again." * * * A half-hour past midnight, June 18, 2003. She left a friend's farewell party and pulled her white Miata into the driveway of her West Palm Beach home. Normally, she would talk on her cell phone with a friend until she was safely inside. That night, for some reason, she figured it wasn't necessary. The carport's security sensors flashed. She turned and caught a glimpse of someone ducking behind her car. He was wearing all black - black hooded sweatshirt, black pants and black shoes. He demanded money. She offered everything she had. He forced her inside her home at knifepoint and pushed her to the kitchen floor. He cut her sweater and jeans, covered her eyes and mouth with clear packaging tape. She could barely breathe. Her dog, a stray named Simon, was in the house but enclosed in a crate in the living room. Knowing something was wrong, he scratched and howled through the attack. The man raped her and then spent three hours cleaning the house of evidence. She escaped through a window to a neighbor's home. Her attacker's cleaning was so meticulous that investigators later reported that they couldn't even find Coulter's fingerprints in her house. * * * She couldn't sleep for 30 hours after the attack. "The first weeks and months, I would literally relive it in little two- or three-second increments over and over and over and over for hours and hours and hours and hours," Coulter says now. "Like in my mind, I would see him hiding behind the car, falling on the floor, dwelling on it." She couldn't return to the house, except to pick up a few belongings. Eventually she decided she had to sell it. She says she loved that house. She still misses her garden and planting roses. Almost three years later, she can't live alone. "One day," she says, "might be nice." For a while, she was afraid around teenagers. Her attacker, DNA evidence later confirmed, was the boy next door, a 17-year-old honor student. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 22 years in prison, followed by two years of house arrest and eight more years of probation. In the months after, she contemplated suicide. She poured all of her thoughts, good and bad, into a computer diary. She wrote the first entry at 12:50 p.m. on July 27, 2003, and the last at 4 a.m. Nov. 14, 2005. During that time, she cut and dyed her hair so many times she couldn't remember how it looked originally. "You want to change everything," she says. "Your name. Your state. Your appearance. You just want to leave." * * * Last summer, Coulter did leave. She moved to St. Petersburg with her boyfriend, the same man she was dating at the time of the rape. "We were going to get married," she says, "but now we're not." She wonders if the stress of the last three years put a strain on their relationship. "Who could say? For all I know, it could have been the reason we stayed together as long as we did." She filled her days with activity, including a gentle yoga class for trauma survivors. One day in class, she burst into tears. An instructor sat with her afterward. She retold her story. The instructor introduced Coulter to Family Service Centers in Clearwater, which counsels survivors of sexual abuse. She says she never thought of herself as a survivor until maybe six or eight months ago. "I felt like a victim," she says. "Victim implies you didn't deserve it, and to me survivor sounded like 'It's nobody's fault. Let's just move on with it.' And I wasn't ready to move on because I was so bitter about not deserving it." Counselors at the center are helping her get rid of that bitterness and to move on, slowly. "You can't escape the work that it takes to feel better about it," Coulter says. "There are phases to the grief and trauma process. You can't just say a couple of magic words or meditate. As much as I knew it wasn't my fault, a crime like this just eats away at your very core." Two weeks ago, Coulter and other survivors painted cardboard face masks for the USF exhibit. It's the fifth year the counseling center has done an arts show. Many of the masks are black, dark red and full of anger, even self-hatred. Some show knives jutting from heads. Others have fake blood stains. Coulter deliberately avoided making her mask too dark. Instead, she decorated it with bright colors: yellows, browns, greens and reds. She drew stars and hearts along the sides. She pasted eyes made of round glass stones and feathery lashes. She knows the mask will confuse people, especially those who still consider themselves victims. She says she hopes that other survivors peering through the glass-stoned eyes will see what she now sees. "You can have a positive outcome," she says. "I find it so hard to believe that anyone could have a positive outlook after this. I'm shocked at myself, which is why I talk so much because I fear that there are people who don't know this. . . . I'm afraid for the people who can't see that. They don't have any kind of road map or support groups or people to talk to. I'm afraid for people who don't know that it's ever going to get better. "It's really possible for things to be beautiful again." * * * Nearly a year after she moved to St. Petersburg, Coulter still has a roommate, but she lives in a house with a back yard and her dog, Simon. Since the attack, Simon has been the only constant in her life. She doesn't worry about leaving the front and back doors open anymore. She wants to feel the balmy air wafting through her kitchen. She says she wants the sunlight to find its way inside. Rodney Thrash can be reached at 727 893-8352 or rthrash@sptimes.com.
[Last modified March 30, 2006, 13:52:55]
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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