Let's Relieve Regret: A self-help podcast about forgiving yourself · Shadoe and Victoria

The #metoo episode

·1 hr·3 clips

Victoria describes floating near the ceiling of her dorm room and watching the assault from above.

1. Let's Relieve Regret shifts into a #MeToo-focused episode about Victoria Ball’s assault story and Shadow Ball’s response. 2. Shadow Ball hosts the show, and Victoria Ball is the guest speaking as a survivor whose story has evolved through therapy. 3. The episode asks what it takes to keep talking about sexual assault when shame, denial, and old university culture push people to stay quiet. 4. Victoria says the story happened in first-year university during her first week, when she skipped frosh week for rowing team tryouts. 5. She explains that she made the varsity A team in a large rowing program with men's and women's A, B, and C teams and about 80 rowers and coxswains. 6. Victoria describes rookie initiation as a highly sexualized event with lingerie, oil wrestling, and public objectification. 7. She says a rower from her hometown, older and on the men's A team, fed her drinks and took her back to her dorm room. 8. Victoria says she blacked out, remembered floating near the ceiling, and woke up with pain and the feeling that something had happened. 9. She says she denied it at first, then blocked the memory for about four months before it came back around March or April. 10. Victoria later talked to teammates and says about 70% had similar experiences of waking up in a bed or after a blackout. 11. She says she later found out there were bets around who could hook up with lightweight women rowers under 130 pounds. 12. Victoria calls that pattern gamified and says it felt like the men's rowing team was keeping track. 13. She says a boyfriend from back home accused her of cheating and making up the rape story. 14. Victoria says she became sober about the situation only after years of therapy and calls telling the story part of her healing. 15. She describes a later decision in second year to use a buddy system and make sure girls were not going home with boys at rowing parties. 16. Victoria says she eventually told the head coach and that his reaction was sadness and apology. 17. Shadow describes the conversation as different from a normal episode because she knew Victoria would be sharing a deeply personal story. 18. The tone is conversational, personal, and reflective, with back-and-forth questioning and occasional interruption for clarification. 19. Anyone processing sexual assault, shame, or university-party culture would likely find this useful. 20. Listeners who want light regret stories or no discussion of assault should probably skip it.

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