From Soldier to Advocate: One Woman’s Journey to Empowering Sexual Assault Survivors

 

In the Interview Room

 

“I feel, as an advocate, you’re the middle person between the perpetrator, the nurse, the police department, and any legal ramifications a person has to go through.”

The middle person. A soft cushion. A safe space.

The world can seem a harsh place for victims and survivors of sexual and domestic violence. But advocates can provide safety and comfort for those who seek services after experiencing an assault.

Tracey Bettis has been a volunteer sexual assault advocate for SafeHouse for 8 years, and she’s sitting across from me in the dimly lit SafeHouse interview room. This is the very room where Tracey has heard the stories of countless sexual and domestic violence victims—people who have come to SafeHouse for a forensic examination. But today, instead of listening and advocating for a client, Tracey is sharing her story for the SafeHouse website.

As we sit together in this intimate space, Tracey’s voice carries the weight of experience. “Everybody wants something from a victim,” she tells me. And it’s true. It is the nature of survivorship. We who serve victims—from law enforcement and lawyers to victim services organizations like SafeHouse—all ask that victims give us pieces of themselves in order to do our jobs and serve them well. We need their stories and their bodies. We also need their consent to use those things to collect evidence, provide care, build a case, or to prosecute an abuser.

“Everybody wants something from the victim,” Tracey says again. “But I don’t. The only thing I want to give [them] is whatever [they] need. And then, based on their reaction to me, is how I go about giving them what I feel they are asking me for.”

Sexual assault survivors come to SafeHouse for many things, but a forensic exam with a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) is usually at the top of the list. A forensic exam is a compassionate and thorough medical examination designed to support survivors of sexual assault and physical domestic violence. It includes a full physical examination, careful evidence collection, and emotional support, all conducted with the survivor’s consent and comfort as the top priority. The aim is not only to gather forensic evidence but also to provide crucial medical care and connect the survivor with additional resources.

When a person comes to SafeHouse for a forensic examination, there is an advocate like Tracey assigned to be with them for every step of the process, providing information and reassurance throughout. The advocate ensures a survivor’s needs are communicated and respected at every stage of the process. Tracey is SafeHouse’s longest standing and most experienced advocate. But how did she get here?

 

Journey to Advocacy

 

Tracey served in the military for 23 years, deeply committed to her soldiers and driven by her desire to make a meaningful difference in their lives. She tells me stories of deployments, of long days and tough decisions, and how she always sought to ensure her team’s safety. But there were moments when her experience as an NCO was overlooked, sometimes at great cost.

Why was she ignored? I wondered. Was it because she’s black and a woman or because she was enlisted? Tracey doesn’t speculate. Instead, she tells of an instance in Afghanistan that sticks in her memory. The officer in charge ordered a helicopter payload of fuel to be delivered onto a narrow ridge where a truck was stationed. Tracey knew the maneuver was risky and spoke up against it, but the operation went ahead. She watched as the helicopter missed the target, and the fuel slid down the mountainside.

“When people stopped listening, and started making decisions that I knew would get soldiers killed, I knew I had to make a change,’ she says. But she wasn’t ready to give up on helping people. She’d seen so many service men and women struggling with finances, mental health, childcare, and with simply not having enough support.

“I wanted to be a part of anything that could help somebody.”

She decided to go back to school and began studying social work at the University of Montevallo, thinking that would be a good fit and a way to make a difference.

One day SafeHouse staff members came to speak to Montevallo’s social work students. They provided a briefing on SafeHouse services and volunteer opportunities, including advocacy. Tracey was immediately struck. She says it felt like she was receiving a calling. “I thought, ‘that’s for me!’ And so, I went through the training [to become an advocate]. And from there it was just like, ‘I’m ready. Let’s go.’”

 

Connection is the most important thing

 

Good advocacy requires walking a narrow path. An advocate must foster a personal connection with a client while simultaneously leaving herself behind. You have to be able to read a person, Tracey tells me. An advocate must have good intuition, to be able to operate on feelings and vibes. Tracey is clear. You have to feel with a person, to offer empathy and understanding. But you can’t make the situation about YOUR feelings.

Sometimes it’s hard to forge a connection. Trauma can shut a person down or cause them to distance themselves from the present moment. Often the only way an advocate can reach a client is through personal connection.

“When I have a person that is really distant, I can feel it,” Tracey says, thoughtful. “They feel disconnected; [they’ll think] ‘Who are you? You wouldn’t understand [my situation].’” Somehow Tracey must let the client know that she does understand and that they are not alone. Tracey is a survivor herself. She’s been there. It is a moment that calls for extreme care.

“I’ll give them a situation. But I might not let them know it’s a situation that I may have been through or that I may have experienced with someone else. I put it to them in a way that they’ll understand.”

“You’re drawing from your experience without making in personal,” I say.

“Right,” says Tracey. “Exactly right.

First impressions are everything when it comes to helping a victim. When Tracey is acting as an advocate, she is the first one to greet a client as they come to the door. “I’ll be the first one to brief them and let them know what’s going on.”

As Tracey sees it, her job is not necessarily to make the client comfortable, though she tries. Sometimes it’s impossible for a client to attain comfort. Her goal instead is to help them relax enough to accept the services available if they choose. This means putting them in the driver’s seat, letting them call the shots and dictate the pace. She says, “I feel like that’s how you set the tone for the client and let them know [the exam and everything that comes with it] is here for you. This is not something that is taken from you.”

Revictimization is a theme that comes up several times in our conversation. Tracey is hyper aware that, even with safeguards in place and with patient well-being centered in the work we do at SafeHouse, the process—of obtaining a forensic exam, reporting to law enforcement, and evidence collection—can be triggering for someone who has just experienced an assault. She takes every pain to keep her clients informed, and to make it known that the exam is in their hands.

“I can relax their mind and let them understand we’re not going to revictimize you. We’re not going to ask you a thousand questions. And if you say stop, we’re going to stop,” Tracey says.

 

Advocacy: what does it take?

 

I ask Tracey how new advocates can work to build rapport and connection with their clients. I expect her to give me a list of practical tips on starting conversations and easing clients into the exam process, but she doesn’t.

“First of all, get to know yourself. Because if you don’t get to know yourself and get to know your strengths and weaknesses and what your biases are, then you won’t be able to connect with anyone.”

Know yourself. For Tracey, self-knowledge is second only to connection when it comes to advocacy work. For example, if you’ve ever been through any type of violence yourself, she says, you should do some soul searching to figure out if advocacy is really for you. If you react with judgement or lead with your own pain when you’re with a client, “you won’t be able to get that client back.”

Not every person has the willpower to hear a brutal story and remain calm. It’s not a bad thing to feel for other people. But advocacy is never about the advocate. And an advocate’s tears don’t belong in the interview room or the exam room. Tracey has a plan in place for those really difficult cases.

“Sometimes I’ve had cases where, if it gets too much, if I feel like I’m about to cry or I’m getting emotional, I will say, ‘let me go out here and grab something real quick for you.’ I’ll go out and then come back in, and they won’t ever know [that I was feeling emotional].”

“You don’t want to make the client responsible for your emotions,” I say.

“Exactly. I do want them to see in my face that I feel their emotions, but I don’t want my energy to transfer to them. Because they’re already feeling that bad energy, and I don’t want to add to it.”

Tracey is very clear that good advocacy means leaving biases behind. “You have to understand, you’re not going to have just straight female clients,” she says. “Do you have religious or other biases that will interfere with your being able to connect with the client or give the client care without judgement? Once you come in the door, self is out there.” She points emphatically out of the room.

And it’s not just about sex or sexual orientation. “If somebody comes in and says I got drunk with this person, or they walk in with a miniskirt on and a cut off shirt, are you going to think that’s inappropriate?”

It doesn’t matter. Tracey says. Because you’ve left yourself outside. The worst thing an advocate can do is make a client feel judged. “You must have the empathy and heart to do what’s right and not make a person be a victim again.”

 

Dealing with Prejudice

 

“I’m from Mississippi. I was born in ’69. So I grew up in that time frame where [racism and oppression] were changing, but they were still there. [As a black woman] instead of being called “young lady” you were just a girl. Even if you were an adult woman, you were still a girl. That aggravated me. That used to bother me. But I’ve gotten to the point where it doesn’t faze me anymore because I grew up knowing who I am.”

Tracey is trying to explain to me how she deals with the racism she has experienced both in the military and as an advocate. Prejudice is baffling to her.

“I’ve never understood in my whole life, what my skin has to do [with anything]. Because my skin is this color, you don’t like me? Why? My blood looks like your blood. If you need blood, I can give it to you. You say you believe in God? Well. God made us all. Why does my outer make you cringe and you hate me, but you say you got love and you trust in God? God doesn’t come from this hate.”

Despite wondering about the “why” behind racism, Tracey moves through the world with an awe-inspiring kind of grace. She spent her military career acting as a foil to the beliefs of white soldiers who grew up steeped in racism, sometimes with members of the KKK in their families.

She says, “They’ve never been around black people. All they’ve been told is ‘black people stink. They’re this. They’re that.’ And of course, when they get around black people, they realize it’s nothing like what they’ve been taught.” And so, she taught them herself.

As an advocate, she has faced clients who walk through the door carrying their own set of biases, right alongside their recent trauma.

“A person will look at me [with an expression that says] ‘I don’t want her to touch me,’ or, ‘I don’t want her to talk to me. I don’t even want her to listen in.’ And if they don’t want that, I’m not going to take that personally. I’ll just walk out and say, ‘Ok. Whenever you feel comfortable, you just let me know, and I’ll do what I need to do.’”

One client told the SANE (sexual assault nurse examiner) directly that she didn’t want Tracey to be near her. And when the ambulance arrived to take the client to the hospital due to some health concerns, she shouted, “Y’all don’t have BLACK paramedics in here do you? I just don’t want a black person to touch me.” It made the attending paramedics uncomfortable, and they came up to Tracey whispering, “we’re so sorry.”

But Tracey told them, “You don’t need to apologize. That’s how she feels.”

“We talked about how, for this kind of work, you have to leave yourself outside the door,” I say, “but this is another level. How do you deal with that kind of meanness?”

Tracey smiles, “She was embarrassing herself, so I let it go. I have dealt with that kind of stuff for so long, I just kind of let it roll off.”

“It takes a certain kind of person to be able to do that. There may be someone who can’t, and I totally get that,” I say. It seems wrong to me to expect advocates to just “let it go” when it comes to prejudice.

Tracey says it’s all part of being an advocate. “You have to be able to flexible, understanding, and know, who you are. There are times when it can be very challenging. You can burn out very easily. It can be draining.”

She explains that you have to lean on your support system and talk things out. But at the end of the day, it comes back to knowing yourself. “You have to have to have to be very aware of yourself. Because if not, I could have easily blown up [at the client].”

“Probably nobody would have blamed you,” I say.

But Tracey just shakes here head.  “For me to do that, now I’m becoming just like the person that abused her.” For Tracey, her position as an advocate is sacred. “A lot of times, the survivor doesn’t feel like anybody is there for me,” she says.

So she shows up and treats clients with respect, even when they can’t do the same for her.

 

Calling Cadence

 

Tracey and I have been talking for an hour. I have kept her for too long. She brought a homemade pound cake for staff, and I know they are all eager to thank her and gush about how delicious it is. So to finish things up, I ask Tracey to tell me a story about a client that really sticks with her.

She speaks about a 19-year-old woman was raped by a family acquaintance and who had come to SafeHouse for an exam with her mother. But her mother’s support was more hurtful than helpful. I’m not going to give many more details, because this young woman’s story is not mine nor Tracey’s to tell publicly. But suffice it to say, mom was making her daughter feel worse by the minute.

Eventually the mother went outside to smoke a cigarette. At SafeHouse, the doors lock automatically, and people must ring the doorbell to be allowed inside. Tracey and the SANE decided “not to hear” the doorbell ringing.

“Sometimes you have to make those calls,” I say, when Tracey pauses to shake her head at her own audacity.

“Yes. I mean. [The client] was crying. We really could not connect with her. [The SANE] was asking her questions and she was getting so frustrated and confused. And really her mother was more of a nuisance that anything. She was not helping. At all. Period.”

It was a tense situation. The client was visibly upset, unsure what she wanted to do, unable to move forward with the exam. But Tracey’s superpower is her intuition. “I can just read a person,” she told me early on in the interview.

“So what did you do,” I ask.

“I called cadence,” she says, smiling.

Tracey became an AIT (Advanced Individual Training) senior drill sergeant later in her career, drilling younger guys. She was in charge of other drill sergeants, but she would still go out for runs. “Whatever I did, they did,” she says.

But in order to keep up on runs, she had to tire the soldiers out first. She put them through various exercises to wear them out before the run. “They never caught on to what I was doing,” she says. And when it came time to run, they would be dragging while she’d be full of energy. “Man, Drill Sergeant is hard!” they’d say. Tracey laughs.

To motivate her soldiers, Tracey would call cadence. A cadence is a call-and-response song soldiers sing while running or marching to motivate, build morale, and keep the pace.

When the young client sitting in front of her was scared and wavering, Tracey just knew what she needed. “I’m going to give you some motivation,” she told her. And just like she did to inspire her tired soldiers on a run, she called cadence for her client:

Here we go.

On a run.

Just for fun.

You can do it.

We can do it.

Oh yeah.

Motivated.

Dedicated.

Here we go.

Pump me up!

I say pump me.

You pump me up.

Come on!

Don’t quit.

Come on.

I say one more mile to go.

The client started laughing. Her whole demeanor just changed. She asked Tracey, “oh my goodness, you really do that?”

And Tracey said, “Yes, that’s what we do!”

Tracey happened to have a picture of herself in her uniform. Normally she doesn’t show it to clients. But in that moment, she knew it was the right thing to do.

“You probably think I’m just talking,” she told the client, “but this is me in my uniform.”

Calling cadence would not be the right choice in most situations. But it was exactly what that client needed in the moment. Soon after, she decided to move forward with the exam and with making a report to law enforcement. Because she completed the exam, this client will have options should she decide she wants to press charges in the future. She hugged Tracey on her way out.

“I enjoy what I do,” Tracey tells me as we’re wrapping up. I’m glad I signed up that first day to come and do this. This has been positive for me to because I went through domestic violence myself and molestation when I was younger. I just remind people how things can happen, and we don’t understand them, but they make us a stronger person. And I feel like after going through all these things myself, it’s just made me stronger. And it helps me to help somebody else.”

 

Thank you for your service, Tracey, to SafeHouse and beyond.

If you want to hear Tracey calling Cadence, have a listen here: