Anna Navarro is 38 years old and on the day she turned 20, nine men drugged her and raped her. "There was torture and a lot of violence," recalls this Barcelona resident. For more than a decade he kept "total silence". He told absolutely no one what had happened. He remained silent despite the serious psychological consequences that silence added to the situation he experienced. Until, 13 years later, he decided to tell his mother about the sexual assault. Then to its environment. And after explaining it on social networks following the sentence of La Manada, he now wants to offer his testimony openly. Its purpose is to encourage all women who have been through sexual assault to explain it and seek help. For her, the rape and the silence have brought serious psychological problems that make it impossible for her to have a normal life. And that's why he also demands more aid.
"Silence is devastating", repeats Anna Navarro in conversation with La Vanguardia. He says that concealment is "a violence you inflict on yourself", but that he didn't realize it until he started going to therapy, just five years ago. By then, more than a decade had passed since the multiple sexual assault he suffered at the age of 20, and he had already been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. When she told her mother what had happened and took her to the GP, the GP was able to identify the real source of her depression. After three days she was already being visited by a psychologist and therapy began.
Sexual assault has left this woman, who is the mother of a 12-year-old boy, a long list of sequelae. One is the affect on self-esteem: "Neither do you love yourself nor take care of yourself". It's like a hole: "You go through life as if it wasn't yours, you go like a ghost," explains Navarro. He says he doesn't remember many moments in the years he was silent. During the therapy she was warned that when she started the treatment she would feel as if the rape was over. And so it was. "The fears and discomfort multiplied, even though I was well accompanied", she explains.
Post-traumatic stress was added to the depression and he was awarded 41% disability. And to the initial diagnosis after the pandemic has been added agoraphobia, borderline personality disorder, bipolar and schizoid points and dissociation of perception.
Talking about the rape again also had physical consequences: "I vomited daily and lost fifteen kilos." And after the most critical moment of the pandemic, he spent six months in bed. Luckily it's starting to get better now. But it's hard for him to go out. "My life is a roller coaster: days when I have anxiety and days when I'm better."
It was La Manada's sentence that caused him the need to break the silence on the networks. "I was affected by the treatment of the victim, but also how the aggressors were treated", he explains. He wrote the tweet in which he explained his rape precisely on his birthday, the date marked by the assault. "I wanted to stop spending my birthdays crying", he says.
This Barcelona woman is not criticized for her silence, for which society is to blame, but she wants to use the loudspeaker of the media to ask the victims of sexual assaults not to remain silent. Tell someone you trust, be it a family member, a doctor or a friend. He regrets that today more is known about sexual assaults, but he believes that 18 years ago "they might not even have listened to me at the police station". "The trauma makes it impossible for me to have a normal life and I can't work," says Anna. She currently takes about 15 pills a day between antidepressants, anxiolytics and antipsychotics and this medication knocks her over. He is afraid to fall asleep and has nightmares every day.
During his years of silence he went from one occupation to another: "I have lost many jobs and others I have left"; but he explains that since he started therapy he broke down and can't work. Something that he ensures is certified by the reports of his doctor and psychiatrist, for which he has asked for incapacity for work, because he will not be able to have a "normal" working life. But he explains that he is denied because the diagnosis "may not be definitive and I can be cured". "Tell me what magic therapy cures you of rape?", she asks indignantly.
He has had a partner for four years, who knows his story from the beginning. "Thanks to him and my mother I got out of bed", he explains. And it is his son who often finds the strength to move forward. But before getting here, the road has not been easy, because "rape affects you in all relationships: social and sentimental". He admits to having gone through many that were toxic "because you don't love yourself and you don't see a problem if they don't value you".
She believes that now women who suffer a rape like hers don't have more support, just more repercussion. One of the last known, that of an 11-year-old girl in Badalona, left her in bed for a whole morning without being able to get up. Navarro regrets the "institutional violence" to which "especially" women who, like her, have not reported sexual assault are subjected. And she doesn't think they are a recent form of rape: "I have a 60-year-old friend who was also gang-raped," she says. He also regrets that the victim "is not at the center".
He has improved thanks to psychological help. And while he's confident he'll continue to improve, he doesn't think he can fully reinsert himself. "I have a strong trauma". "You don't get cured of this, you learn to live". From 1 to 10 he is now at a 4, but he aspires to pass. In the future, when she is better, she sees herself as able to devote herself to helping other women. "I want to be part of the change, take the positive part out of it, if it has one."
