The cycle of denial and shame felt by Cornell’s Jane Doe follows a typical pattern for sexual assault survivors, experts say

Immediately after Katiana Soenen says she was sexually assaulted as a freshman at Brown University in 2021, she struggled to understand what had happened and questioned her own actions.

“I spent the first kind of like two hours after really trying to figure out if I had done something wrong or what I might have done to have caused it,” Soenen said.

A friend picked her up from the house where she says it happened and drove her back to her dorm. A few hours later, Soenen called him and described the encounter, saying the experience did not feel right.

He responded: “Katiana, I don’t think that was consensual.”

Hearing that from someone else helped her solidify her understanding of the encounter.

“It wasn’t really until he told me that that it hit me: This wasn’t a consensual experience.”

When Soenen learned about the alleged gang rape of former Cornell student Jane Doe at a fraternity house in 2024, she says she immediately saw parallels between herself and the anonymous student, particularly in her progression from denial and shame to acceptance and reporting.

“I saw a lot of myself in Jane Doe,” she said.

As new information emerging this week raises questions over how the Cornell case was handled by the university and law enforcement, national outrage and demands for accountability have also reignited the conversation around sexual assault on college campuses .

In the three weeks between when the former Cornell student was allegedly gang raped and when she described the night to campus police, Doe appeared to wrestle with shame and her stance had evolved on whether an assault took place, according to records obtained exclusively by the New York Times and corroborated by Doe’s attorney.

In an article published Thursday, the Times cited documents from the university’s formal Title IX investigation that shed new light on how Doe initially viewed the night’s events, discussed them with her roommates and communicated with some of the men before she went to university police.

Doe’s attorney, Thomas P. Giuffra, told CNN her reaction represented a “textbook reaction to trauma.”

“Ms. Doe’s internal processing went from denial, to shame and ultimately acceptance that she had been raped by people that she thought were her friends,” Giuffra told CNN on Thursday.

Experts told CNN Soenen’s and Doe’s accounts aren’t unique . While every sexual assault survivor processes their trauma differently, denial, guilt, self-blame and shame are common. Both Doe and Soenen ultimately reported their alleged assaults to their universities before filing civil lawsuits criticizing the institutions’ responses.

Scott Eisen/Getty Images/File

After Soenen was allegedly sexually assaulted at an off-campus residence in May 2021, she says she initially tried to reinterpret the experience as consensual before speaking with her friend.

“I kept being eaten alive by this idea of if he did this to me, he’s capable of doing this again to somebody else,” she recounted.

Soenen says she reported the alleged assault to the university about a week later.

Initially, she believed Brown’s systems would protect and support her. But as the process continued, she says she lost confidence in their response, calling it a “secondary violation.”

“I quickly began to lose that hope,” she said.

Brown has argued the alleged assault was outside Title IX’s scope since it occurred off campus and maintained that staff responded appropriately. CNN has reached out to Brown University for further comment.

Brown discussed options with Soenen, including academic accommodations, counseling, a no-contact order and formal complaint procedures, according to court documents. She ultimately did not file a formal complaint, alleging she was discouraged by the university, which Brown has denied, the documents said.

The second time, her denial was even more pronounced.

About a month after the incident, Soenen said she was assaulted again at an off-campus party while heavily intoxicated. She said she could not confidently identify her assailant, though others witnessed part of the incident and intervened, she told CNN.

Soenen described feeling “so dirty,” wanting to remove any physical reminders and pretend it didn’t happen.

“I really tried to almost convince myself that it hadn’t happened, that it was like a bad dream or something.”

In the Cornell case, Doe told her roommates she had taken ketamine and had sex with multiple men but did not use the words “rape” or “assault,” the Times reported, citing Title IX files.

One roommate said Doe appeared to be “in shock” and was “not really understanding the gravity of what she was saying.” Her sorority sister reportedly told investigators Doe “had not yet processed what had happened” when they met a day later.

After one of the men apologized and said he felt terrible and was too under the influence of drugs and alcohol to “shut it down and kick people out before it got way out of hand,” Doe reassured him that “non of the sexual stuff was illegal,” the Times reported.

Cornell’s investigation found she considered returning to the fraternity house for a Halloween party, according to two sources familiar with the school’s Title IX investigation. Her attorney described that as part of her denial.

Experts describe denial as a protective response: Survivors may be in shock, have incomplete or nonlinear memories, blame themselves, delay reporting or avoid calling what happened to them an assault.

Dr. Rose Olson, a physician and researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, says those trauma responses “should not be used as evidence of fault.” Reactions can include crying, anger, shock, numbness, calmness or even laughter, she said.

Megan Cutter, chief of victim services at RAINN, said survivors commonly call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline, saying, “I think something happened” or “I’m not sure what happened.” They may initially describe what happened as a bad decision or experience they disliked because using terms like “rape” or “assault” can make the trauma feel more real.

It could be attributed to the fawn stress response, in which a survivor may appease or try to maintain peace with the person who harmed them, Cutter said.

Survivors also often “test the waters” by initially disclosing only part of an experience, and the kind of response they receive can shape whether they seek help, said Laura Palumbo, communications director at the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Research into the neurobiology of trauma shows that partial memories are normal because the brain may struggle to process information during a traumatic experience, Palumbo said.

Kim Villanueva, president of the National Organization for Women, emphasized, “It’s not up to the survivor to tell the perfect story in perfect order.”

Because, she says, she had been assaulted twice in a short period, Soenen felt ashamed to ask for help.

“I thought that clearly something must have been wrong with me if it had happened to me twice,” she said. “I was almost embarrassed to even call for help because I felt like that was a stain on my character.”

Soenen also wondered whether saying no differently or more forcefully could have prevented the assault.

“If I had said no one more time, maybe it wouldn’t have happened,” she said.

Soenen considered getting a sexual assault forensic exam but says she was overwhelmed and didn’t understand how the process worked. She worried about who would pay for it, whether it would appear on her insurance and if it would be a repeat of her first report.

“Why is anything different going to happen the second time?” she thought.

After her experiences, Soenen said she rarely left her dorm because she was afraid of encountering the people she says assaulted her.

“Every man who somewhat fit the little bits and details that I remembered, I wondered if it was him,” she said.

For Doe, the documents reportedly detail how rumors about the alleged gang rape led her to fear reputational damage and left her humiliated.

After seeing online posts on a forum about Greek Life alleging Chi Phi members had drugged and gang-raped a sophomore, Doe later told investigators: “That’s the first time I had ever heard the narrative change that I wasn’t a whore and that I was assaulted.”

She was “traumatized, numb and unable to function or accept the horror of what had happened,” her attorney told CNN.

Soenen and Doe are not alone. Only 45% of surveyed students who had reported an instance of sexual assault on campus believed their school would take reports of sexual assault seriously, according to a 2019 study from the Association of American Universities .

Matt Burkhartt/AFP/Getty Images

Soenen’s denial eventually gave way to panic attacks and nightmares. She came to an all-consuming realization: “You can’t just pretend your trauma didn’t happen. Your body remembers those things.”

Eventually, denial turned into acceptance.

“It did turn from this self-protection-based denial into this acceptance of, like, no, this did happen,” she said. “You can’t run away from it.”

Soenen reported the second assault about a week after it happened, she said.

“Maybe if I report it, I can start to regain some agency and autonomy over my life,” she remembered thinking.

In the end, because Soenen couldn’t confidently identify the person she believes attacked her, she chose not to file a formal complaint, according to court documents. Soenen alleges Brown officials were insufficiently responsive to her questions about the process.

The friend who helped her after the first assault encouraged her to open up to her mother. Disclosing the assaults to her parents was particularly painful, she recounted.

She remembers her father crying only twice: “It was when his mom died, and then when I told him what happened to me,” Soenen said through tears.

As for Doe, a few days after the incident, she told a Cornell Health provider she had contracted a urinary tract infection in a “traumatic way,” her attorney said. She began recording phone calls with people involved to preserve information as she tried to understand what happened.

“Let’s be clear that 90% of what happened that night was not consensual,” she later texted one of the men.

Doe reportedly photographed bruises and preserved the dress she wore as potential evidence. She also reportedly went to an emergency room and requested a rape kit and filed an incident report with Cornell police weeks after the alleged assault.

“I can say with 100% confidence I was raped,” Doe said in a November 2024 interview with campus police, according to a transcript obtained by CNN affiliate WCBS.

Villanueva said that’s a common progression for survivors: “That did not happen” to “Did I cause it?” and later, “It was not my fault.”

Soenen’s mother encouraged her to return to the family’s home in Austin. There, she said she underwent intensive treatment, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, and at one point saw two therapists.

After a year away, Soenen transferred to Vanderbilt University, calling it “a space that was independent of all my trauma.”

“It gave me the distance and the space to just focus on myself and focus on my studies and be a student again,” she said. Soenen soon became involved in campus sexual violence prevention.

For survivors like Soenen, some mental and physical impacts improve in weeks or months, while others develop long-term conditions such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, chronic pain or increased suicide risk, experts say. But only a fraction of survivors seek medical treatment, according to Olson.

At 19, Soenen joined three other women in filing a federal lawsuit against Brown, alleging it violated Title IX and Rhode Island civil rights laws by mishandling sexual misconduct complaints. Brown argued Soenen’s incidents were outside Title IX’s jurisdiction because they occurred off campus and that Soenen had no viable Title IX claim.

The court later severed the joint lawsuit into individual cases. Last year, a federal judge ultimately ruled in Brown’s favor, finding no reasonable jury could find Brown’s response to be “deliberately indifferent” and said Brown “appropriately reacted to Ms. Soenen’s reports in a thorough and timely fashion.”

“We never found justice out of the lawsuit,” Soenen said.

Advocacy became one of the most important parts of her recovery, along with her cuddly rescue pit bull Lola, painting and yoga, which she describes as a safe way to reconnect with her body. She now works in sexual assault prevention at the Summer Willis Foundation, she said.

The Cornell case resurfaced memories of Soenen’s reporting process and lawsuit, and her first impulse was to reach out. “I wanted to tell her, ‘I want to be here for you.’”

Cutter said other survivors also saw themselves in Doe, saying the National Sexual Assault Hotline recorded an 83% increase in calls Wednesday as news of the case spread.

The case prompted a painful realization for Soenen: She filed her lawsuit believing it might prevent others from the same trauma, only to see similar allegations years later.

“I had so many layers of kind of heartbreak for Jane Doe, and also kind of this parallel heartbreak for the younger me,” she said.

“This is still happening. Survivors are still being ignored. Survivors are still not seeing justice to the degree that they should.”

Help is available : For help in the US, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or chat 24/7 on online.rainn.org .

CNN’s Lauren Mascarenhas, Isa Mudannayake, Jake Tapper, Danya Gainor, Jason Carroll, Gloria Pazmino, Alex Stambaugh and Jeff Winter contributed to this report.

卡蒂亚娜·索恩 (Katiana Soenen) 表示，她在 2021 年作为布朗大学新生时遭到性侵犯，事发后她一直难以理解发生了什么，并质疑自己的行为。

索恩说：“事发后的头两个小时，我一直在努力弄清楚我是否做错了什么，或者我可能做了什么导致了这件事。”

一位朋友从她所说的事发地点接她，开车送她回宿舍。几个小时后，索恩打电话给他，描述了当时的遭遇，说那次经历让她感觉很不对劲。

他回应道：“卡蒂亚娜，我认为那不是双方自愿的。”

听到别人这么说，她更加巩固了自己对那次遭遇的理解。

“直到他告诉我这件事，我才真正意识到：这不是双方自愿的经历。”

当索恩得知康奈尔大学前学生简·多伊在 2024 年于兄弟会宿舍遭到轮奸时，她说她立刻发现自己与这位匿名学生有相似之处，尤其是在她从否认和羞耻到接受和举报的转变过程中。

“我在简·多伊身上看到了很多自己的影子，”她说。

本周出现的新信息引发了人们对康奈尔大学和执法部门如何处理此案的质疑，全国的愤怒和对问责的呼声也重新点燃了关于大学校园性侵犯问题的讨论。

据《纽约时报》独家获得的记录显示，在康奈尔大学前学生据称遭到轮奸到她向校园警察描述当晚情况的三周时间里，Doe 似乎一直在与羞耻感作斗争，她对于是否发生过袭击的立场也发生了变化，Doe 的律师证实了这一点。

《泰晤士报》周四发表的一篇文章援引了该大学正式的第九条修正案调查文件，揭示了约翰·多伊最初如何看待当晚的事件，如何与室友讨论这些事件，以及在她向大学警察报案之前如何与一些男子沟通。

Doe 的律师 Thomas P. Giuffra 告诉 CNN，她的反应代表了“教科书式的创伤反应”。

“Doe女士的内心挣扎经历了从否认到羞愧，最终接受了自己被她认为是朋友的人强奸的事实，”吉弗拉周四告诉CNN。

专家告诉CNN，索恩和约翰·多伊的遭遇并非个例。虽然每位性侵幸存者处理创伤的方式各不相同，但否认、内疚、自责和羞耻感都很常见。多伊和索恩最终都向各自的大学报告了她们所遭受的性侵，之后提起民事诉讼，批评学校的应对措施。

Scott Eisen/Getty Images/文件

据称，索恩于 2021 年 5 月在校外住所遭到性侵犯后，她说，在与朋友交谈之前，她最初试图将这段经历重新解释为双方自愿的。

“我一直被这样的想法折磨着：如果他能这样对我，他就有可能再次这样对待其他人，”她回忆道。

索恩表示，大约一周后，她向学校报告了这起涉嫌性侵事件。

起初，她相信布朗大学的制度会保护和支持她。但随着程序的推进，她说她对布朗大学的应对措施失去了信心，称之为“二次侵权”。

“我很快就失去了希望，”她说。

布朗大学辩称，由于这起涉嫌性侵事件发生在校外，因此不在第九条修正案的适用范围之内，并坚称校方人员已采取了恰当的应对措施。CNN已联系布朗大学寻求进一步置评。

根据法庭文件，布朗与索恩讨论了多种方案，包括学业调整、心理咨询、禁止接触令以及正式投诉程序。文件显示，她最终没有提出正式投诉，声称自己受到了大学的劝阻，但布朗否认了这一说法。

第二次，她的否认更加明显。

事件发生约一个月后，索恩表示，她在校外的一次聚会上再次遭到袭击，当时她醉酒严重。她告诉CNN，虽然其他人目睹了部分事件并进行了干预，但她无法确定袭击者的身份。

索恩形容自己感觉“非常肮脏”，想要清除所有实物痕迹，假装这一切从未发生过。

“我当时真的努力说服自己，这件事没有发生过，就像一场噩梦一样。”

据《泰晤士报》援引第九条修正案文件报道，在康奈尔大学的这起案件中，Doe告诉她的室友，她服用了氯胺酮并与多名男子发生性关系，但她没有使用“强奸”或“性侵犯”这样的字眼。

一位室友说，Doe当时看起来“惊魂未定”，而且“并没有真正意识到自己所说的话有多么严重”。据报道，她的大学姐妹会成员告诉调查人员，一天后她们见面时，Doe“还没有消化发生的事情”。

据《泰晤士报》报道，其中一名男子道歉并表示他感到非常抱歉，而且由于吸毒和饮酒的影响，他无法“在事情完全失控之前制止并把人赶出去”，之后，Doe 向他保证“所有这些性行为都不违法”。

据两名熟悉康奈尔大学第九条修正案调查的消息人士透露，康奈尔大学的调查发现，她曾考虑返回兄弟会宿舍参加万圣节派对。她的律师称，这是她否认指控的一部分。

专家将否认描述为一种保护性反应：幸存者可能处于震惊状态，记忆不完整或非线性，责怪自己，延迟报告或避免将发生在他们身上的事情称为袭击。

布里格姆妇女医院的医生兼研究员罗斯·奥尔森博士表示，这些创伤反应“不应被用作过错的证据”。她说，这些反应可能包括哭泣、愤怒、震惊、麻木、平静，甚至大笑。

美国反性侵犯联盟（RAINN）受害者服务主管梅根·卡特表示，幸存者通常会拨打RAINN的全国性侵犯热线，说“我觉得发生了什么事”或“我不确定发生了什么”。他们最初可能会把发生的事情描述为一个糟糕的决定或一段他们不喜欢的经历，因为使用“强奸”或“性侵犯”之类的词语会让创伤感觉更加真实。

卡特表示，这可能与小鹿的应激反应有关，在这种反应中，幸存的小鹿可能会安抚或试图与伤害它的人保持和平。

国家性暴力资源中心通讯主管劳拉·帕伦博表示，幸存者通常也会“试探水温”，最初只透露部分经历，而他们得到的反馈类型可能会影响他们是否寻求帮助。

帕伦博说，对创伤神经生物学的研究表明，部分记忆是正常的，因为大脑在经历创伤性事件时可能难以处理信息。

全国妇女组织主席金·维拉纽瓦强调：“幸存者不必按完美的顺序讲述一个完美的故事。”

索恩说，因为她在短时间内两次遭到袭击，所以她羞于寻求帮助。

“我想，如果这种事发生在我身上两次，那肯定是我自身出了问题，”她说。“我甚至都不好意思打电话求助，因为我觉得这有损我的名誉。”

索恩也想知道，如果当时他以不同的方式或更加强硬的语气说“不”，是否可以阻止这场袭击。

“如果我当时再说一次‘不’，也许就不会发生了，”她说。

索恩曾考虑接受性侵犯法医检查，但她说自己感到不知所措，也不了解整个流程。她担心谁来支付费用，这笔费用是否会被纳入她的保险范围，以及这次检查会不会重复她第一次的报案内容。

她心想：“第二次为什么会有什么不同呢？”

索恩表示，经历了这些事之后，她很少离开宿舍，因为她害怕遇到那些袭击她的人。

“我记忆中那些零碎的细节，只要稍微符合某个人的特征，我都会想，是不是他，”她说。

据报道，这些文件详细描述了关于所谓轮奸的谣言如何导致她担心名誉受损，并让她感到羞辱。

在看到有关希腊生活的论坛上的在线帖子，声称 Chi Phi 成员给一名大二学生下药并轮奸了她之后，Doe 后来告诉调查人员：“这是我第一次听到这种说法，说我不是妓女，而是遭到了性侵犯。”

她的律师告诉 CNN，她“受到了创伤，麻木不仁，无法正常生活，也无法接受所发生事情的恐怖现实”。

索恩和多伊并非个例。根据美国大学协会2019年的一项研究，在报告过校园性侵事件的受访学生中，只有45%的人认为学校会认真对待性侵报告。

Matt Burkhartt/AFP/Getty Images

索恩的否认最终演变成了恐慌症和噩梦。她逐渐意识到：“你不能假装你的创伤从未发生过。你的身体会记住那些事情。”

最终，否认变成了接受。

“这种从出于自我保护的否认转变为接受，就像，‘不，这件事确实发生了’，”她说。“你无法逃避它。”

索恩说，她在第二次袭击发生后大约一周就报了警。

“也许如果我举报这件事，我就可以开始重新获得一些对自己生活的掌控权和自主权，”她回忆当时的想法。

最终，由于索恩无法确定袭击她的人是谁，她选择不正式提出投诉，法庭文件显示。索恩声称，布朗大学的官员对她提出的有关程序的问题回应不足。

第一次遭受性侵后帮助她的那位朋友鼓励她向母亲倾诉。她回忆说，向父母坦白这些遭遇尤其痛苦。

索恩说，她记得父亲只哭过两次：“一次是他母亲去世的时候，另一次是我告诉他我身上发生了什么事的时候。”

据简·多伊的律师称，事发几天后，她告诉康奈尔健康中心的医护人员，她以一种“创伤性的方式”感染了尿路感染。为了弄清事情的真相，她开始录制与相关人员的电话通话，以便保存信息。

“我们要明确一点，那天晚上发生的事情90%都不是双方自愿的，”她后来发短信给其中一名男子说。

据报道，Doe拍摄了身上的瘀伤照片，并保存了她当时穿的裙子作为潜在证据。据称，在事发数周后，她还前往急诊室要求进行性侵取证，并向康奈尔大学警方提交了事件报告。

据 CNN 附属电视台 WCBS 获得的一份笔录显示，Doe 在 2024 年 11 月接受校园警察采访时说：“我可以百分之百肯定地说，我被强奸了。”

维拉纽瓦说，这是幸存者常见的心理演变过程：“那件事没有发生过”到“是我造成的吗？”再到后来，“这不是我的错”。

索恩的母亲鼓励她回到位于奥斯汀的家中。她说，在那里她接受了强化治疗，包括眼动脱敏疗法和再加工疗法，并且一度同时接受两位治疗师的治疗。

离开一年后，索恩转学到范德比尔特大学，称其为“一个与我所有创伤无关的空间”。

“这让我有了距离感和空间，可以专注于自己，专注于学业，重新做回学生，”她说。索恩很快就投身于校园性暴力预防工作中。

专家表示，对于像索恩这样的幸存者来说，一些心理和生理上的影响会在几周或几个月内有所改善，而另一些则会发展成创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）、抑郁症、焦虑症、慢性疼痛或自杀风险增加等长期问题。但据奥尔森称，只有一小部分幸存者会寻求医疗救治。

19岁时，索恩与其他三名女性一起向联邦法院提起诉讼，控告布朗大学，指控其处理性骚扰投诉不当，违反了第九条修正案和罗德岛州民权法。布朗大学辩称，索恩的遭遇发生在校外，因此不在第九条修正案的管辖范围内，索恩也没有有效的第九条修正案诉讼理由。

法院后来将这起联合诉讼拆分为多个独立案件。去年，一名联邦法官最终裁定布朗胜诉，认为任何理智的陪审团都不会认定布朗的回应是“故意漠视”，并表示布朗“对索恩女士的报告做出了全面及时的恰当回应”。

索恩说：“我们从未从诉讼中获得公正。”

倡导工作成为她康复过程中最重要的组成部分之一，此外还有她心爱的救援犬洛拉、绘画和瑜伽——她认为瑜伽是重新与身体建立安全联系的方式。她说，她现在在萨默·威利斯基金会从事性侵犯预防工作。

康奈尔大学的这起案件让她回想起索恩当年的报道过程和诉讼经历，她的第一反应就是联系索恩。“我想告诉她，‘我想在你身边支持你。’”

卡特表示，其他幸存者也在多伊身上看到了自己的影子，并称随着案件消息的传播，周三全国性侵犯热线接到的电话增加了 83%。

这起案件让索恩痛苦地意识到：她提起诉讼是希望阻止其他人遭受同样的创伤，却没想到几年后又出现了类似的指控。

“我为简·多伊感到多层心碎，同时，年轻时的我也感到类似的心碎，”她说。

“这种情况仍在发生。幸存者仍然被忽视。幸存者仍然没有得到他们应得的公正对待。”

可以获得帮助：在美国，如需帮助，请拨打全国性侵犯热线 1-800-656-4673 或访问 online.rainn.org 进行 24/7 全天候聊天。

CNN 的 Lauren Mascarenhas、Isa Mudannayake、Jake Tapper、Danya Gainor、Jason Carroll、Gloria Pazmino、Alex Stambaugh 和 Jeff Winter 对本报道亦有贡献。