Justice for Sexual Assault Survivors: New Law Offers Healing

It Takes Years continued...

Discrete portions of the brain are responsible for the processing of bodily sensations and memory, but when traumatized, Papamihalis says, experiences can become fragmented and memories are suppressed. “It’s as if you threw a glass down and it shattered.”

That’s why trauma can rise to the surface in unexpected ways at unanticipated times. “Take, for example, a rape survivor who was victimized by an uncle who smoked,” Papamihalis says. “They may only remember the smell of the cigarettes or recall a certain sound. Their body will hold the sensations, but they may not have a linear memory of what happened.” This avoidance is one of the symptoms of PTSD. “The brain tries to protect us from painful memories. Someone might remember bits and pieces of an assault, or they may not remember anything at all.”

For Hoechstetter, the impacts of Hadden’s abuse lodged within her body and psyche took years to be fully revealed. She knew what he had done and felt the impacts of the abuse, but still had to hold down a job, take care of her daughters, and get on with her life. It was only when a relative questioned why women who had been assaulted by Bill Cosby took so long to step forward that she realized she, too, needed to speak up and add her voice to the small chorus of those who had already made claims against her former doctor.

Holding Abusers to Account

Hadden was eventually arrested in 2020 and found to have sexually abused dozens of patients between 1993 and 2012. According to the original indictment, the disgraced doctor “used the cover of conducting medical examinations to engage in sexual abuse that he passed off as normal and medically necessary, when it was neither normal nor necessary – it was criminal.”

Although the number of victims eventually swelled to over 200, many were told their cases were too old to prosecute. Hadden eventually received what Hoechstetter describes as a “slap on the wrist” plea deal in which he lost his medical license, but received no prison time. He was required to register as a sex offender, but only at the lowest level, which kept him off the public registry.