Susan Kryhoski: Healing in a Collective Community of Survivors

The power of speaking out against sexual assault

Susan Kryhoski suffered repeated sexual assaults from a trusted pediatrician when she was just 11 years old. Decades later, Susan is pursuing justice and has filed a legal claim against the hospital that employed the now-deceased doctor. As part of her healing journey, Susan has become an advocate, helping other survivors find their voices so they can begin to address the trauma they endured. “What I have learned,” Susan says, “is the only way you can truly heal is to talk about the trauma.”

Attorney Karen Barth Menzies says, “If survivors can gain the courage to say it out loud, even to themselves, and then to another person, that is what generates a discussion in the community and starts to reveal other survivors that are out there. Then you have a community of survivors supporting each other in a way that no one else can.”

When Susan began the process of filing her lawsuit, she discovered another woman had filed claims against the same doctor. Since speaking out publicly, other survivors of her predator have reached out to share their experiences and lend their support. Susan describes the feeling of learning there are other survivors as “bittersweet.” Susan says, “It is such a multi-faceted grief. It is grief for her. It is grief for me. It is anger. And it is validation.”

In this podcast, survivors are referred to frequently as “women,” especially because all the known survivors of this particular predator are women. Each participant in this conversation understands and respects that sexual assault survivors are men, women, non-binary, and trans. The themes in this podcast are relevant to all survivors, regardless of the pronouns used in this conversation.

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Here is a transcript of the Unsilenced Survivors conversation with Susan Kryhoski:

Shawn (01:27):

Karen, we're talking to Susan and you've just got some interesting news that you told her. Would you recap what Susan's just discovered?

Karen (01:38):

Yes. We just had two more survivors of her predator – this doctor – come forward, really to support Susan. They were young girls and he was their pediatrician, and he assaulted them, and they stumbled on information about Susan and her case coming forward and kind of opened, not surprisingly, some old wounds and even a path to understanding what actually happened to them. And they felt compelled to reach out to me to offer any kind of support that they could give to Susan in her journey and her healing process, and to thank her for coming forward, having the courage to come forward publicly and seek accountability.

Shawn (02:31):

I have a question for you, Karen. Did they know that there were other survivors before they reached out?

Karen (02:38):

No. Other than Susan, they were shocked to hear about Susan, and that was a big part of our conversation as well. When I told them that we've now got at least five or six others that we've spoken to since Susan's case was filed, and we were on video and watching the reaction in her face to hear that there are others as well, is that, and we talked about it, that bittersweet, “Oh my God, I'm not alone.” And there's some amazing comfort in that, but also sadness that it happened to others as well.

Shawn (03:15):

So, Susan, my question for you is twofold. One, how does that make you feel knowing that your courage to stand up for yourself and to speak out publicly has allowed other people to know that they're not alone, and then two, to encourage them to reach out and lend their support to what you're doing?

Susan (03:49):

Oh my gosh. I mean, honestly, my first reaction, anytime that I hear that there's been a victim, honestly, of any sexual violence is heartbreak. And then on top of that, that it was the same predator, Dr. Silverman. It compounds it even more because, gosh, it's really, it's hitting me because hearing it all for the first time. So I'm kind of processing through it out loud. So while I can't change what he did to myself or these women, I am so grateful that I'm being given the opportunity and the platform through the legal system, through Karen, through you, to try to give these women some sort of peace and justice and closure because there is healing in a collective community of women.

(05:17):

When you are processing through trauma and childhood trauma and sexual assault, there is a, there's, I don't say an evolutionary part of your brain that tries to tell you just so you survive, that it didn't happen, or maybe it wasn't that bad, or maybe you're overreacting or just bury it. Don't tell anyone. All these things go through, and that is, I've said before, that is what ultimately ends up being the demise of your mental health and your physical health. So the fact that I can serve as a, I don't want to say a voice and a public face of what has occurred to all of us, oh my gosh, it honestly makes every uncomfortable conversation, every anxious thought, every decision that I've had to deliberate on, all worth it. This is not just about me, it's not. It's about all of us. For all of us, there is a reckoning.

(06:52):

I do believe that. I do believe that all of the brave women that have come before me that are working now to seek justice and to change legislation and to raise awareness, I do believe that we can make a change. I do, and I am. My goal is to pave the way for the future and for any woman who's been victimized, that when they are trying to come to terms with what has happened to them, they don't have to seek out news articles and hope something pops up that there'll be a better way. But I'm happy to be laying down the brickwork for this particular particular …

Shawn (07:55):

Predator. Yeah,

Susan (07:56):

Yeah. This monster right now, myself, these women, this hospital, the insidious nature of the coverup of the grooming, the orchestrated abuse, all of it. All of it, I mean, all of it.

Shawn (08:23):

And Karen, I have a question for you as an advocate and as a lawyer who represents women in these cases, what is the value when you have someone come forward who wants to lend their support to a case, even if they're not interested in being a part of the lawsuit? They’re witnesses in a lot of ways, and their experience lends more credibility to Susan's experience and to the claims.

Karen (08:57):

Yeah, it's enormous When other survivors come forward to support from the legal front, it should never take more than one. We should believe survivors from the beginning. But the reality is, in the context of cases, having a corroborating story from another person, unfortunately, who was also a survivor and victim of the predator, corroborates the story. It helps establish a pattern of conduct by the predator. These types of predators never just assault one person. They get more bold over time, Susan's predator – over decades – assaulted kids and got more and more aggressive about it, which is where you see the institutions, there's no way they couldn't know about it. But on a more human level, the shared experiences, as unfortunate as they are, that survivors have the ability to be able to resonate with each other in a way that nobody else can understand means everything. It is a huge part of the healing process when survivors don't feel alone anymore with what they're dealing with.

Shawn (10:17):

Susan, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today is you talked about how long you kept the secret of your abuse to yourself and how terrified you were to say it out loud to somebody, but then how important it was to initiating your healing process … t was to say that. So I'd love for anyone who's listening, who is still harboring the secret and thinking about telling other people about their abuse, tell us a little bit about what your experience was and what that meant to your healing process.

Susan (10:59):

Sure. In hindsight, I wish I would've taken the leap many years ago, excuse me, to saying the words out loud, but I didn't because it is, it's scary, and I thought it would kill me. I thought if I said the words out loud of what happened to me, I would die. I would combust, I would collapse. The world as I knew would cease to exist. And that is a very, very common thread that survivors share. But what I have learned, and from where I'm at now, is that the only way to truly heal is to talk about the trauma, because when you're assaulted, it does become a very, I call it, it becomes a cancer, right? And it starts poisoning all aspects of your life, depending on when it occurred. If it was in childhood such as mine, it affects everything, all stages of development, emotional, physical, medical. And it's like, I like to give the allegory of a tree. So if you have a poison at the root and it just keeps traveling through, it's not just going to be isolated to one area. So it's the branches, it's the leaves, it's everything. So as victims are going through their lives and they start experiencing medical issues or addiction or self-harm or suicidality, all of these things are outward manifestations of trauma and keeping the trauma inside because it will kill you.

Shawn (13:26):

And you can't start to get rid of that poison until you open up.

Susan (13:30):

No, no, because when you talk about it, when you say out loud, even if no one is in the room, even if you are sitting in a room and you are alone, and you just say it out loud, you are acknowledging what happened to you. You are taking the power away from the person who did it to you, because the person that did it to you, their goal was for you not to tell people. Their goal was to get away with it, because most likely they have been doing it to other people, and they want to continue to do it to other people. And the way that our world has worked and our society has worked, especially for women, we are not believed, and a lot of behaviors have been enabled over the years. So all of these hurdles have left us in a place where we don't say anything.

(14:30):

So when you get to that point and you say it out loud, that horrible thing that was living inside of you in the darkness, growing and churning and poisoning, just that little bit of light that you are shedding on it, it shrinks it down. It's like, okay, that's not that bad. It's like when you imagine something in your mind that's in the darkness, every kid is afraid of the dark. We don't know what's out there. We don't know what's out there. And then the lights go on, and it's not that bad. So when you say it out loud, when you talk to yourself, you can talk to yourself. You can find one friend, you can find one family member, you can find one therapist, you can write it down. But just taking away, get it out. And every time from that point on, it gets a smidgen bit easier, not what happened to you. That's never going to get easier, but the healing can begin because you get to a point where you stop blaming yourself or being ashamed or worrying about upsetting the people in your life, or how are they going to feel? How are they going to take it? How are people going to view you? And you start getting angry, and you know what? You should be angry. Someone ruined your life. Someone took something from you, someone violated you. That's never, ever, ever. Okay. So be angry, talk about it and find a collective group.

Shawn (16:22):

And once you let those emotions flow, then you let the poison flow out.

Susan (16:26):

Because you stop taking it out on yourself once it's out there and those words are out there and you start empowering yourself and stop blaming yourself and stop trying to punish yourself because of what somebody else did to you. Or you stop feeling gross. I mean, honestly, I have said it before, but it's another byproduct is who you thought you were or who you felt that you were, or an innocence that you had, or an autonomy that you had that's gone, and you feel gross. That is a very rudimentary term. I know, but I know that word resonates with a lot of people. So once it all starts coming out verbally, and you start talking and you start getting angry, and you start feeling like, okay, no Uhuh, this is not okay. And the goal is from that point and to find whatever means of recovery that suits for you. Everybody has a different means, but we're kind of getting to a point where we do have trauma-informed therapists. There is EMDR for memory recall. This is kind of coming into our vernacular and our society and the mental health world where we're not trying not to just treat the symptoms. We're trying to get to the root cause of why people such as myself are going through all of these devastating crises.

Shawn (18:24):

Yeah. Karen, I want ask, as an advocate, and as a lawyer, you have had a lot of conversations with women telling you about their experience. I suspect that some of those conversations, you're maybe one of the first, or not the first person that they've spoken out loud to about what's happened to them. Based on what Susan said there, I was curious what your experience has been

Karen (18:53):

Listening to Susan and talking to survivors. I think the clearest path that survivors take is incremental. It's hard to say everything at once, but if you chip away and start saying it out loud piece by piece, then as Susan said, the light starts to shine in and perspective starts to come into play. But I think with survivors, they keep it to themselves for so long and because they don't want to be defined by the assault. And so it's important for survivors when they have a chance to talk to somebody about it and they're ready to, it's somebody that they can trust. It's somebody that will give them the time that they need to start to approach what happened. Sometimes it needs to be in a very slow, gentle way to be able to get there, because it is so difficult. And that's the nature of trauma. It takes you right back to the time of the assault, but beginning to chip away and start to talk about it is the first step towards putting it into the past, into the proper perspective and have it stop taking over your life.

Shawn (20:06):

Susan, I have to ask, when was the first time that you learned that you weren't the only person to be assaulted by that doctor?

Susan (20:18):

The first time that I learned was when Karen and I were … Karen and … I had reached out to Karen, and Karen fought for my case to be filed. And then we found out that there was another woman who had filed a case or was filing a case. Right, Karen? I dunno if it was right before, no, it was actually a year before mine. So that was the first time that I found out. And I mean, honestly, it knocked the wind out of me. I cried, and it was such a multi-multifaceted grief. It was grief for her. It was grief for me, it was anger, and it was a validation that I … God … this person, this institution, they are as bad as I've known my entire life, my experience and my, what happened to me. All I have is my word. Like Karen said, that's unfortunately not really good enough in a court of law. Now, there needs to be a lot of people, or at least more than one.

Shawn (22:09):

Well, it certainly helps when there are more voices, especially when the evidence, Karen, is so difficult to produce, especially with cases that are as old as Susan's. One thing that I'm thinking of here, Karen, you and I have talked to survivors … who their predator is not in the news necessarily, or might not be in a position of authority. And when the survivor speaks out, it's not through a lawsuit or in any way that's public, but even within circles of people who know each other, we've seen survivors tell a friend, and then that friend says, “Oh, I had that experience with him.” Or “I know somebody who told me they had an experience with them.” And then that same, it's not public, but that same sort of realization, all those emotions that Susan was describing come out on the same level. And I think, Susan, tell me your thoughts on this, but I feel like if there's a survivor who hasn't spoken out loud about this or told anyone about her experience, there's sort of an obligation that she has to herself to begin the healing process by doing that. But also, I think your experience taught you that these predators almost always never do it one time. There's a pattern of behavior, and is there some responsibility if you're willing to take it, or at least some comfort in knowing that if you speak out even to your personal circle, that there's a chance you might be helping somebody else start that process too?

Susan (23:55):

Oh, 100%. I mean, yeah, the position of the predator or the institution or the group or the circumstances is not always going to look the same. And we do know that for someone to commit these heinous acts, there is a pretty, I don't want to say standard, but there's a course of action that is very familiar. So there's grooming involved, there's inserting themselves in, it may not be a position of traditional power, but in a position of power over somebody else. And that could be anything. And especially when you're dealing with children, especially when you're dealing with women in general, I'm

Shawn (25:04):

Sure in any power disparity,

Susan (25:05):

Any power, it doesn't matter. Even if it's a family member, we're always telling our children to respect adults, believe adults, hug your family members. And that's not necessarily something either. That is a good way to go about things. I think a blanket, a blanket educational piece that I believe that we do need to bring to children is that they have autonomy over their bodies. Even. It doesn't matter how old they are, they don't have to have physical contact with anybody that they don't want to. And just because somebody is an adult, it does not mean that they inherently know more than you, that they have trust and no secrets. If somebody tells you to keep a secret, and it's not somebody that, not your mom saying, don't tell your brother when I got him for his birthday, but something that

Shawn (26:16):

Secrets that you feel are wrong, and you have to honor that feeling inside of you.

Susan (26:21):

Yeah. Yeah. We all have that. Even children, they're just little people. They're not, I think people don't give kids enough. I mean, kids are kids, but they have voices too.

Shawn (26:39):

And Karen, as we wrap up here, I'm curious. So you've been in a position multiple times to learn – because often people will reach out through the lawyer – learn that there are other survivors, and get to tell the survivor you're working with that there are other people who are out there. And not only that, but willing to lend their voice. What does that mean to you, and how do you feel when that happens?

Karen (27:05):

I think one of the, how do I want to say it? Every survivor I've spoken to has at their core, the pain at their core is that sense of isolation. A sense of people aren't going to believe me. Self-blame, shame. What did I do to cause this? That's just inherent in sexual assault and victimization because of the power differential. And that's what predators thrive on. And so when survivors come forward to support each other and say, “Hey, you're not alone. It didn't just happen to you. It happened to me too,” they can begin to come to realize that as we've said, that's the start of the healing process to realize you're not alone. And if survivors can begin to gain that courage to say it out loud, even to themselves, as Susan said, and then to another person, and that is what generates a discussion in the community and starts to reveal other survivors that are out there. And then now you have a community of survivors supporting each other in a way that no one else can. And it means everything to the healing process of a sexual assault trauma survivor.

Shawn (28:25):

And it's probably the thing that the predator would fear most in the entire world.

Karen (28:31):

Yes, predators. They rely on the fear and the shame that survivors feel naturally, and that they're not going to get over that. And like I said, the survivors, they don't want to be defined by the assault that occurred to them. They're afraid that they're now, it's going to change their life in a way that they're going to always be labeled. And what did they do wrong? Because sexual assault, it's the only crime that when you report it, you're attacked, you're questioned, and we're well aware of that in society. And so predators rely on that. And they go for years and decades getting away with assaulting others because people are so afraid to come forward. And it's understandable why they are. But once survivors come forward and they start to learn about other survivors that this happened to, the courage and the strength and the healing power of that is hard to compare to anything.

Susan (29:32):

And to add on that, Karen, because you absolutely motivated me to kind of remember what I've been telling myself since we started this journey together, there is nothing that will feel worse emotionally than that, excuse me, than the assault that you endured. Meaning that every feeling that is going to inevitably rise up from the idea of talking about your assault, talking to other people, seeking help, starting to heal, starting to seek justice, whatever that looks like, whatever that shift, whatever that pivot looks like, nothing is going to be as bad as what happened to you. Sitting with emotions is something I personally and a lot of survivors don't do well with. We numb, I numbed. It's a very typical and understandable reaction. Pain comes up, sadness comes up, anger comes up. We numb, numb, numb with whatever device or coping mechanism, dangerous and deadly that we find. So honestly, some of the hardest things that I've had to deal with through my recovery after saying it out loud is sitting with feelings. And that sounds so silly, but it's like I never learned to do that. I never learned to feel sad or be sad and sit with it and then say to myself, okay, this is sadness. It sucks and it's going to go away. This is anger. I kind of want to fuck up some shit right now. I'm going to sit with it and it's going to go away.

(31:55):

It's uncomfortable and you learn every day who you are and what you need. And it is something that I never thought would be possible for me. I didn't think that life was going to be something that I was going to be able to do or have. So I wish there was a voice or somebody telling me when I was 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, that I just needed to, and you know what? If someone said that to me at that age, I probably would've ignored them or laughed or whatever. But I will say that when I did start talking, or at least talking to a therapist or saying it out loud, it was because I did hear through books or therapy or a public figure that had gone through it, and I respected them. Those things that they were saying, that resonated with me. Although I was not ready to accept it or do it for myself at the time, it kind of burrowed its way in. And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Okay. And it took a seed, right? So that's why I do have hope that if someone is hearing this, and they may not be ready to accept it or to take that leap, but I just hope that it starts a garden where there was a poison tree. That is my goal.

Karen (33:57):

And you hear it, Shawn. That's what survivors, they want to seek accountability, and that's why they speak out publicly. They speak out to support each other. It is the heartbeat of the Me Too movement. They want accountability, not only from the predator, but from society. Recognition of all the hurdles that a survivor faces and coming out publicly to support each other in doing that. And really asking for accountability in a way that society itself understands and appreciates, believes the survivors, and recognizes that they were harmed. And that's why survivors join together and support each other.