Reagan's Daughter Patti Davis Reveals She Didn't Disclose Sex Assault For Decades

"Your memory snaps photos of the details that will haunt you forever. It blacks out other parts that really don’t matter much," she writes in support of Christine Blasey Ford.
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Ronald Reagan’s daughter was raped 40 years ago. But she didn’t speak of it for several years, Patti Davis revealed in a powerful Washington Post op-ed Friday.

“I never told anyone for decades — not a friend, not a boyfriend, not a therapist, not my husband when I got married years later,” noted Davis, an author. Nor did she remember some important details of the attack.

Both situations are common for survivors of assault, according to experts.

Davis revealed her experience in support of Christine Blasey Ford, the California psychology professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were teens.

Davis’ article appeared while Twitter messages from sexual assault survivors flooded #WhyIDidntReport in response to President Donald Trump’s dismissive comments about Blasey’s experience and his assumptions about the ease of reporting sexual assault.

“If the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents,” Trump tweeted Friday. He also said he wanted to know the “date, time and place.”

In Davis’ case, the attack occurred when she met with a music executive in his office about songs she had written. “He was ... on top of me — so quickly — with his hands under my skirt and his mouth on mine, that I froze,” she recalled. “I lay there as he pushed himself inside me.”

She no longer remembers what month it was, if the executive’s assistant was outside the door, what her attacker said.

“It doesn’t surprise me one bit that for more than 30 years, Christine Blasey Ford didn’t talk about the assault she remembers,” Davis added. Nor does it surprise her that Blasey doesn’t remember where it occurred or the specific day.

“Your memory snaps photos of the details that will haunt you forever, that will change your life and live under your skin. It blacks out other parts of the story that really don’t matter much,” Davis wrote.

Perhaps the “aging men” ready to question Blasey should think about the “courage it takes for a woman to say: Here is my memory. It has haunted me for decades ... you need to know about it now because of what is at stake in this country,” said Davis.

It’s not the first time Davis has challenged Trump’s positions. She wrote in the Post in June that her father would have condemned Trump.

“He would plead with Americans to recognize that the caustic, destructive language emanating from our current president is sullying the dream that America once was,” she wrote.

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