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"  Photo: via Facebook A little over a week ago, The Kansas City Star published a truly horrifying piece about a Maryville, Missouri girl named Daisy Coleman. If you&amp;#039;ve missed the hubbub, here&amp;#039;s a recap: In January 2012, the then 14-year-old girl says she was raped by an older football star named Matthew Barnett. He had sex with her when she was blackout drunk, and when it was over, he left her passed out on her own porch in 22 degree weather. Her mother found her, and brought her to the hospital where doctors discovered Daisy had vaginal tears. The police acted fast: They got audio/video confessions from the three boys involved (one of whom had recorded the encounter between Daisy and Matt). Even with the confessions, charges against Matt (and the guy who recorded them) were dismissed. The aftermath was devastating: Daisy&amp;#039;s family was harassed on Twitter and Facebook, a girl wore a T-shirt to one of Daisy&amp;#039;s dance competitions that said &amp;quot;Matt 1, Daisy 0,&amp;quot; and Daisy&amp;#039;s mother was fired from her job.  Since that Kansas City Star piece ran, the online vigilantes known as Anonymous have taken up Daisy&amp;#039;s cause, high-ranking Missouri officials have called for a new investigation into her case, and Daisy herself has written an article for the website xoJane about her experience: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m Daisy Coleman, the Teenager at the Center of the Maryville Media Storm, and This Is What Really Happened.&amp;quot;  In clear, shocking prose, Daisy describes blacking out and waking up the next day, confused and freezing. &amp;quot;The doctors examined the rape kit and verified that our nightmares were real. This nightmare, though, didn&amp;#039;t end. It continued on for many long months,&amp;quot; Daisy writes. She talks about how on Facebook and Twitter, her peers called her a skank and a liar, and she tried to commit suicide, twice. Daisy says she&amp;#039;s speaking out now because she refuses &amp;quot;to be a victim of cruelty any longer,&amp;quot; and that she wants other girls to learn from her experience.  The piece is strong and real, and, to use a clich\u00E9 that is nonetheless appropriate here, Daisy seems empowered by the experience of speaking her truth in public. But I worried\u2014would this open her up to more criticism from strangers? In general, is it a psychologically healthy move to open yourself up on the Internet when you&amp;#039;re vulnerable like this?  I asked Rachel Simmons, a teen educator and the author of The Curse of the Good Girl, what she made of Daisy&amp;#039;s piece. Here&amp;#039;s what she said, via email:  &amp;quot;It really surprised me that she wrote about her experience. But that&amp;#039;s because she challenged the terms of the rape narrative, not only by allowing her name to be used, but by telling her own story. Girls&amp;#039; and women&amp;#039;s stories of rape, once they get on the Internet, are so often distorted and flat out denied by thousands of unseen commenters. Given how much has been said about her, and likely to her, I can imagine it&amp;#039;s thrilling and empowering to see her story on her own terms.&amp;quot;  In this particular instance, it seems like there was already so much that was public about Daisy&amp;#039;s case, that it was a powerful move for her to take back the narrative. But what about a less public rape case\u2014one where the victim&amp;#039;s story is not challenged and championed by thousands of anonymous Internet commenters? In that scenario, would it be a good idea for a teenage victim to put her name to her story?  I asked Dr. Jennifer Hartstein, a child, adolescent, and family psychologist for her take. She said that in Daisy&amp;#039;s specific case, &amp;quot;I do think telling her story in the way she is is empowering, and allows her to regain some of the control she lost during the situation.&amp;quot; But with another teenage victim, it might not be such a great idea. Dr. Hartstein says in an email:  &amp;quot;In trauma work, the work focuses on helping victims to tell their stories in a safe and systematic way, during which time they learn to manage their emotions, increase acceptance, and let go of self-blame. If a teen shares her story openly and without any filter, it puts her at increased risk for blaming and shaming, two of the things that perpetuate anxiety, depression, urges to self-harm, suicidal thinking, eating issues, school avoidance, etc.&amp;quot;  Dr. Hartstein emphasizes that it&amp;#039;s incredibly important for teen victims to tell their stories, but that the way they tell those stories is equally important for the psychological wellbeing of the teen. As for Daisy, here&amp;#039;s hoping that the experience of publishing her own story was as amazing an experience for her as it was for her readers. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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