Rape is an anti-social phenomenon that needs to be dealt with extreme care since it not only has drastic effects on the victim but also on the colleagues, peers, family members and community people in their proximity. This is a book reaction paper on "Lucky" written by Alice Sebold, in which she recounts her experiences of the rape and her journey to recovery after that. The further sections of the paper would discuss her tragic encounter and her dilemmas in the efforts to counter the debilitating effects, and eventually overcome them, which is a lesson for all. Issues to be Addressed

Reaction to Ms. Sebold's Journey After Rape

The short-term after-effects of Sebold's rape include shock, physical problems, soreness, and difficulty in walking. The long-term effects are disbelief, shame, guilt, depression, fear, anger, and sexual problem such as diseases or infections caused by forced sexual harassment, relationship problems, and flashbacks from the nightmare she had experienced. Other spiritual and emotional effects include loss of control, disorientation, aloofness, sense of vulnerability showing weakness, trying to stay away from social and personal engagements, numbness, change in her perception of the world, helplessness, and blame (Joyful Heart Foundation, n.d.).

Since she had to face her traumas on her own, Sebold's view of the world changed drastically from that of an enjoyable and lively place as depicted or believed to be, in prose and poetry (as she was studying "writing"). She even indulged in expressing such desolate, demeaning, and negative ideas in her writings, poetry, and novels. It was probably her way of venting her feelings that she could not share with anyone. She seemed to have no confidante, who could be trusted with her feelings. Her traumatic feelings overwhelmed her, making her weak and vulnerable -- a feeling she thought would never leave her, and one that she would have to endure alone. Her family seemed incapable of providing emotional support and empathy and providing her with the necessary strength to overcome the continued feelings of despair and delinquency, and move on with life. As such, she became more withdrawn and shared little with others.

To her credit, however, Sebold moved on with her life, though she found herself entangled within those sordid memories of the incident. Once she came across her rapist and all those memories came back in torrents, numbing her all over again. Moreover, when she learnt of a similar incident with another girl in her college years, she took it personally, and was traumatized again being reminded by memories of her tragedy. evidently Sebold tried to keep herself busy in writing, and the type of writing she chose for this purpose mostly involved rape victims, through which so that she could express her own experiences and the aftermath in the form of stories. The novel called "Monsters" detailed a rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and passionately wrote her novel each day about such violence. After several revisions, it was transformed into "The Lovely Bones," which became a bestselling novel.

Some of the rape effects depicted aloofness, which was quite apparent as she used to live in a cabin in the woods without any electricity (Pennsylvania Center of the Book, n.d.). This reclusive living showed that she wanted to be on her own, bereft of company and social encumbrances whereby she sought to avoid facing the guilt and shame that overpowered her. As is often the case, she got herself into drugs and started experimenting of heroin. She sought succor and escape from her continued desperation through indulgence into such activities and 'bad' company to help her forget about the trauma; soon after that, she ended up joining a troubled Manhattan crowd.

However, in keeping with her positive traits, Sebold also tried involving herself into positive, meaningful activities such as writing that freed her from the guilt and shame as she wanted people to be aware of this very common societal problem. She became a professor at Hunter College. She moved to California and became the caretaker of Arts Colony where she earned $386 a month. It is clear that Sebold had been trying hard to make a comeback to a normal life by letting go what she had gone through; for that, she tried both good and bad paths so that she might find her inner peace. Her writings, however, mirrored her view of the world -- as being filled with violence,...

I think it is very hard for any rape victim to conquer his or her fears so soon and start life in a new dimension.
One Family Member and his Importance to Ms. Sebold's Recovery

Sebold had been through a traumatic experience when she was raped and in the aftermath, when she was trying to recover from its after effects. In such grave times, a serious, sympathetic, and strong physical and moral support is needed, by those affected, but unfortunately Sebold could not find one. Sebold's family seemed distanced from her, in terms of her needs and right strength and support. Her mother suffered from anxiety, her father is distanced, her sister is too perfect to be involved in Sebold's matters; the family setting was incapable of providing any meaningful support, leaving Sebold to fight for her right all alone. She was thus isolated from family as well as societal ties on the recovery journey. Thus, she was required to fight her own battles in facing the society that she had come to abhor over and above facing her tormentor in the judicial proceedings on her own.

None of Sebold's family members showed any signs of care towards her when she needed them the most and led Sebold to believe that if she tried to contact any one of them, they would be of no use to her since they would not understand her. Hence, Sebold chose to take a stand for herself and recover herself from the greasiest fear of her life. She had to face her enemy, her rapist in the court case hearings and was reminded of that ordeal every time she saw him. She could not tag along any of her family members for her support in the court at that time. She was also reminded of her rape and faced a fresh bout of trauma when she heard that her friend had been subjected to similar traumatic, brutal experience, and again, she could not ask for any solace from her family members. This made her strong as she was able to stand on her own feet all by herself and she recovered well since she was able to find a husband who was supportive enough.

Two Things Learnt about Rape and Recovery Process

Cognitive factors play a major role in facing and overcoming fears of the rape victim. Sebold faced fear, anger, confusion, despondency, and failure when she was sexually violated. Research suggests that trauma recovery process that involves reprogramming, integration and habituation of the images that took place on that incident day helps the victim gain normalcy and overcome the fears that set in. It directs the victim to a restoration stage of self-security (Chivers-Wilson, 2006). One thing that I learnt from rape and its recovery is that in today's highly advanced world where 'freedom of speech' and 'openness of media' is encouraged, we should take benefit from these two features since they can educate us about vices of the society that we remain ignorant of till we actually face them. Sebold did not know anything about rape until she became a victim herself. Today's children should be taught at a very early stage about the 'good touch' and 'bad touch' so that sexual harassment can be avoided from a very early age. Moreover, several attempts are now in practice to teach people on ways to fight the rapist.

Further, I learnt that the recovery process is the hardest for a rape victim, as was evidenced through experiences Sebold underwent. The victim has to be strong and believe in oneself to overcome the fears and distress faced after rape. towards healing and recovery, there are certain steps such as nurturing yourself, acknowledging that it happened, discover your inner feeling and trying to get out of it by talking or writing about it, learning what other victims must have experienced in similar cases, since that would give the strength to support oneself and stand up against it (Gagnon, 2015). The victim must be able to talk about it to someone as soon as possible since if she does not, she would be continuously harassed by her own psychological feelings such as depression, fear, anger, confusions and detachment from the relationships. In some severe cases, the victims try suicide.

For future, I learnt that rape is not the end of the world; although recovery can be the most arduous part but it is still possible. It takes all the courage of the victim and the willingness to fight the feelings of self-blame, guilt and shame since the victim feels that it is his or her fault. The first thing in recovery…