“It offered me a lot, especially peace and clarity.”

Esther* (49) experienced sexually transgressive behavior when she was a student. She tucked the experience away and hid from it, but the memory of that night recently resurfaced. She decided she needed to do something about it, and applied at Perspectief to get in contact and talk with the other person about what happened.

*Esther is not her real name.

“My eldest son who is a student loves hanging out with friends, going out, having fun, with a lot of alcohol. When he would say goodbye to me before having a nice night out, I noticed I couldn’t really tell him to ‘have fun’. It never felt genuine. I also made comments that made him react defensively. This started to drive a wedge between us. And now matter how hard I tried to deal with it in a nice way, I couldn’t do it. 

So I started thinking about it. Where is this coming from? Why am I reacting like this? To be honest, I knew the answer immediately. This is about my own experiences with alcohol during the time I was studying. I thought, you know what, I will call a friend from that time and talk about it with her. 

Worthless evening

I started out by telling her about the most ‘worthless’ evening I had experienced in those days. I drank a lot during my first year of studying, much more than I could handle. Half the night I would walk around in a blur and I couldn’t remember anything of it the day after. Of this specific night, I have basically no memory except that someone accompanied me home. That we suddenly strayed from the road, that a door of a flat building opened, that there was a low staircase, and that some things happened. 

My friend’s face turned red. “How unseemly,” she said, and “How sad that you’ve had to keep this to yourself this whole time”. Because of her reaction, it felt like a little door in my heart was opened. Emotions, grief, and an enormous need to talk about it followed this conversation. 

I called another friend, who I also knew from back then, and was surprised to see that she had the exact same reaction. She advised me to go to Victim Support (Slachtofferhulp), which I did. They then referred me to Perspectief Herstelbemiddeling. I went for it. I thought it would be good to process this experience and the emotions that came with it. 

Push through

What followed was a period filled with amazing, supportive conversations with the mediator. Silvia encouraged me to push through. Because it was not that easy to find the person. She also told me to go about the process carefully, in order to have it succeed. Both people need to feel safe to be able to have an honest conversation, and it was of course important that this person would show up in the first place. The guidance was fantastic, professional, and warm. I could and was allowed to say everything, every concern and fear was taken seriously. 

Nervous

The day of the meeting came, I was nervous, of course. Someone from Victim Support came with me to support me. She kept urging me to remember that I was only 19 when it happened. That was nice to hear. I judged myself, that I should have known better, that I shouldn’t have drank that much, and should’ve had a better understanding of how the world works. “You were only 19,” she kept repeating. That really helped me. 

The person entered the room, almost tripping and bouncing over the apologies he made. I talked a lot, and mainly asked him what memories he had of that evening. That was very clarifying, to understand what part I had in it. We were both able to apologize to each other. Him, because he had noticed some signs that indicated I didn’t really want it, but didn’t listen to them because he was so in love. And me, because I hadn’t clearly communicated my boundaries. We parted ways in a friendly manner and could theoretically run into each other again, without this still being an issue between us. 

Resolved

It offered me a lot, especially peace and clarity. I was able to talk about it with my son. I could explain my behavior to him. Because of this, the unpleasant talk between us was resolved. I informed and kept updating many friends from that time, that I hadn’t spoken to in years. Because of this, our contact has been completely restored, that’s really nice! From the start, I also never mentioned the name of the person involved to anyone I talked to about it. 

When I came back to this city a little while ago, I noticed that it was no longer like ‘my student city’ with memories of drunkenness and bad situations. But just a city, like any other city. This made me realize I had really moved on.”

In the video below we explain how restorative mediation can help after sexual violence. 

Read more about restorative mediation after sexual violence or transgressive behavior on our website. 

Apply for an no-commitment intake with a mediator.