Assault survivor recalls her journey
In 2011, Natasha Simone Alexenko appeared on the HBO documentary Sex Crimes Unit in which she shares her story of being brutally raped and the 15 years it took to bring her assailant to justice. Before it aired, Alexenko and her mother watched the film, which includes a scene where Alexenko’s underwear and rape kit are held up to the camera.
“My mom and I looked at each other and we were like, ‘Ehh, there it is. What are you going to do?’ Your underwear is out there for everyone to see and there’s nothing you can do about it,” says Alexenko, who was raised in St. Catherines and now lives in Long Island, N.Y.
Alexenko and her mom joked about being relieved that she hadn’t been wearing a thong or granny panties that night. But amidst the much-needed levity, something else was happening inside Alexenko. The moment was over, and it felt like a purge. That sense of relief would help motivate Alexenko to leave her position as a museum director and to start Natasha’s Justice Project, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating the backlog of thousands of unprocessed rape kits across the U.S.
It also helped Alexenko find courage to write openly about her life in a new memoir, A Survivor’s Journey: From Victim to Advocate, which she calls a love story to people like her mother, who believed and supported her.
Initially Alexenko decided to write A Survivor’s Journey because of the many questions about her own recovery she’s asked at speaking engagements, especially on college campuses. “There is a stigma around sexual assault. We’re not able to have the dialogue. It’s one thing to tell the story about what happened, but what happens after,” she says. “How did I feel? How did my relationships with others change? How did my relationship with men change? Those kind of questions are the things people wanted to know, usually for themselves.”
Alexenko feared that because she was speaking openly about her rape it might signal to other survivors that she had fully recovered. A book would allow her to share more details of how the assault continues to affect her life. She may have looked calm as she eloquently testified before Congress in 2015 alongside thenvice-president Joe Biden, but behind the scenes Alexenko was coming to terms with the fact that she was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I didn’t take a magic pill and here I am,” she says. “I wanted to make sure other survivors knew that I struggle and I am definitely nowhere near perfect and I have a long way to go.”
When writing the first draft of the chapter that details her assault, Alexenko enlisted help because it was too tough to write on her own. In 1993, she was a 20-year-old NYC filmmaking college student living in an apartment building that had been approved by her protective mom for its location and secure entrance.
Alexenko describes this time as magical, conjuring the kind of Narnia-like world she imagined as a book-reading kid. That fantasy was snuffed the instant a stranger raped her at gunpoint in an empty stairwell. Her recollection of the event is horrific: she prefaces the scene with a warning, explaining that she describes the night in such detail to diffuse the shame that she felt living in secrecy for so long.
Alexenko also opens up about the invasive four-hour rape-kit exam, and how her body turned into a crime scene. As the results sat unattended on a shelf for nine years, she lived in a nightmare limbo, trying to mask the pain with various vices. Then she received a call from the New York City District Attorney’s Office informing her that the DNA in the kit would finally be tested. In 2007, the DNA was matched to her rapist, who was convicted the following year.
Although justice was served, Alexenko still felt a lingering disconnect and sadness until she committed her life to Natasha’s Justice Project and working to ensure survivors are part of the national conversation and not just used as “tear-jerker props.” Canada is also on her radar these days. “I can’t tell you how many survivors from Canada who have reached out to me and said I haven’t heard anything about my kit,” she says. “It’s the exact same story. The exact same circumstances.”
Despite the book’s subtitle, From Victim to Advocate, the two labels don’t land on opposite ends on the spectrum for Alexenko. Sometimes a story from another survivor will trigger memories, but she credits her advocacy work for helping her through.
“I found my purpose,” she says. “Even though it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do and certainly not the most lucrative, I feel really fulfilled.”