I think the perfect example of showing Serena was an alcholic was in intoxicated when Oliva found all the bottles Carrie's mom had. Alcholics hide their liquor alot ofhe time, so how would one explain where Olivia knew all the right places to look?
Even though they may not have come right out and say it( I can't be sure), they have hinted at Serena being an alcoholic

This was already brought up, but I agree. I don't think that scene was put in there just for the sake of showing how much Carrie's mother drank or to show Benson's detective skills... there was more to it. That was a totally Olivia-centered episode... and I don't mean that it just had a lot of Olivia in it, I mean it was personal for her.

It was...Oops, my bad, I'm trying to read everyhing 'cause I don't have alot of time right now. I must've missed it.
But yeas, that was a perfect example.
And when Olivia assumed Serena was drunk when she fell down the stairs. I was about to say that too, then I went back an re-read your post.
Ha.
I need to go to bed
G'night all

Simone Bryce helped Olivia with the criminal charges against her for assaulting Serena. That is not the same thing as helping Olivia deal with her problems with her mother.
The only version we heard of the night Olivia kicked Serena is Olivia's. Avoiding conviction and jail time is a very good reason for Olivia to slant the story so she appears to be an innocent victim trying to defend herself. It sounds like Serena was the only other person there. If she had been drunk at that time, she might not remember what happened. That leaves only Olivia's story to be presented to the court.

Now substitute "lawyer" for "teacher" and think about the tale Olivia told Casey in Intoxicated. Olivia ran to Simone Bryce and told her about having to hurt her mother to get away from being attacked. Simone gets to rescue Olivia from this horrible abusive woman. And Olivia gets to avoid Serena's attempt to control her daughter's behavior when she won't let her 16 year old daughter marry a college senior. Olivia gets exactly what she wants.

Olivia tells people about her past or personal life when she thinks she can use it to her to get or keep control. Olivia told Casey about her past in Intoxicated to get Casey to make a deal with Carey. She wasn't just opening up to Casey because she wanted to be closer to her. She wanted something and she got it.

Olivia doesn't want to tell people anything about herself that she feels could give them control over her. She doesn't want people feeling sorry for her if it gives them something to hold over her. But she'll use it if it gets her what she wants. Olivia has had no problem telling people about her past when it suits her. Examples include Screwed, Taboo, and Svengali.

Wrath is full of examples of Olivia's need to control. The Feds call Elliot to the Body Farms but Olivia insists that she has to be in charge because the victims were part of her cases. Cragen is worried about Olivia's safety but she insists on continuing to work on the case. The Feds suggest Olivia take herself off the case but she insists she can handle it. Elliot orders the protective detail and Olivia screams at him because he exercised control over her life. When Olivia officially takes herself off duty, she continues to work the case alone. She has to deal with Plummer herself without the rest of the squad helping.

Olivia doesn't let things go that she has been in charge of. Having control is how she keeps the world safe. That's why she continues seeing victims after their cases close. In Wrath she had to continue to see the father of the murdered rape victim, monitor the visitation between an abused boy and his father, and keep up with a victim rape. She can't turn them over to someone else because she can't give up her control of the situation. It's part of her defense mechanism to keep herself safe in the world. As long as she is in control, anything that happens to her is her decision. We know that is not how the world really works. But child with attachment disorders are all about taking care of themselves by being in control.
In Abuse Olivia found a problem with Ashley all on her own. She took charge and when Cragen tried to take control away from her, she ignored him. She wouldn't give him control of the situation. When the parents got a restraining order, Olivia ignored that as well. They couldn't have control of the situation either. Olivia had to do things her ways even if trying another approach might have Ashley the help she needed.
Olivia doesn't get emotionally invested in any relationships. That would require give and take. You can't do that and keep control. Keeping control is the only way Olivia knows to keep herself safe in the world. She will let her guard down only if she chooses and it gets her something she wants. It's the only way she believes she can survive.

Hey Arabesque, I'm curious to know, do you watch "In Plain Sight" on USA? (I know, you are super busy..but it's a good show. TiVO it, if you can.)

The reason I ask is, they are also doing a PTSD story arc with their female lead...she was abducted and almost raped as well.
It's been interesting, IMO anyway, to compare and contrast the way SVU has handled this with Olivia, and the way IPS is doing so with Mary. Very different. I'm interested to hear your analysis and comparison.
I hope you get to watch!

It's all good. There is a LOT to read anyway... might take you a couple years to catch up. LOL...

Wow, it looks like I've missed quite a bit. Let me try to catch up a little here. First of all, let me backtrack here for a minute and try to explain a little bit better why I think Olivia needs to tell Elliot. I had said before that the reason Olivia doesn’t want to tell Elliot is because he can’t fix it, and what happened is “unfixable.” Her thoughts here are very common for a survivor of sexual assault. She feels this way because she’s ashamed of what happened. She feels like it has changed the person who she is. While there’s nothing wrong with her feeling this way, and it’s perfectly natural, I also wouldn’t want to see her be okay with that. Because admitting that’s okay is the same thing as admitting that she’ll never be able to get over the shame of what happened. And while it’s definitely not easy, and a part of that will always stay with her, in order to truly recover, she has to work through that and put the blame on Harris.

We haven’t seen her get to that point yet (because I don’t buy that scene out on the patio in Smut—this is one instance in which I do fully agree with hisgirl). In Smut, Olivia’s only purpose in disclosing and saying the things she did was to manipulate the situation. There is absolutely no way she could go from her emotional/mental state in PTSD to where she was in that scene in such a short period of time otherwise—never going to happen. But getting back on topic, she needs to be able to come to terms with the fact that it doesn’t matter what she did, she’s not at fault for what happened. When she’s able to accept that, she’ll be able to slowly start to let go of those feelings of shame and self doubt. As she’s able to get rid of those, she’ll be able to see herself as more than just a victim. She’ll be able to see that she’s not actually “broken”, and she’ll be able to realize that her reasons for not telling Elliot are not necessarily valid.

But she has to be the one to get to that point, and she has to be able to be the one to make a conscious decision to tell him. The decision to tell someone is one way that a survivor learns to take back control. It’s one way that she realizes that she gets to make decisions again. And if that is rushed, or if Elliot is the one to confront her about it and force her to talk, she’s going to feel like a victim again. She’s going to feel out of control, and it will have the exact opposite effect of what we want to see (i.e. for him to help her to heal).

As far as Olivia telling the rape crisis counselor, we’ve seen 2 scenes with her in therapy. The first one she was actually talking about what happened. The second one she had completely closed herself off, and I personally got the impression that she was NOT contributing at all to therapy. She was not talking about what happened (at least not in group). Otherwise, Rachelle’s comment to her about “it being better to be in prison than to get raped” would have never happened. Rachelle would have never said that if she knew that Olivia had been sexually assaulted in a prison. Group therapy is about being supportive—that would have gone against everything they are there for. How much she actually told Margo is up for debate. I got the impression she had talked about her being the product of rape, but was very closed off about the sexual assault. Again, that’s what I picked up on based on those scenes.

You have to know how to get through to Olivia because the obvious doesn’t always work for her. In order for her to really begin to understand it wasn’t her fault, you have to put it in a context that she’ll understand. Olivia is 2 things—rational and completely over-emotional (I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, lol). But she is—she has this completely rational side of her, and then she has the side of her where she leads with her emotions and rationalizes those decisions. I put this in Falling, but the way to get through to her is to compare her situation with what happened to Elliot in Wildlife. If somebody asked her if Elliot had been at fault for getting shot while undercover, she would look at them like they were crazy. If they told her that this is the same thing as her being sexually assaulted while undercover at Sealview, they could appeal to her rational side and she might finally be able to see the logic to it.

Elliot can help her see that because he knows how her mind works. And telling him, as opposed to someone else, is going to help her heal in a different way than just talking it through in therapy. If she never tells him the truth, he’s never going to completely understand what her triggers are. He’s never going to be able to understand why she’s more sensitive to certain things. And he’s not going to be able to help her out on the job. And she’s going to continue to invest extra energy into hiding the truth from him and pretending that certain things don’t bother her. In her line of work with the constant exposure to triggers, she has to be able to tell him, or she’s going to be continually haunted by what happened, and it’s going to continue to affect her until she is finally able to let go of her need to hide the truth. Once she does that, she may still deny that something hits close to home, but at least she doesn’t have to invest that amount of emotional and physical energy into hiding the truth. She needs to be able to do that—she needs to be able to admit it affects her, in order to be able to become stronger by it. This can help her in her job—it can make her a better cop, but not until she admits that it’s a part of her.

Here's another question, if you feel like answering it...you certainly don't have to. I wonder what effect it would have had on Olivia if, as a cop, she had caught her father? Obviously this is not an option. She now knows who her father is and he is dead. But, say she'd collared a rapist, tested his DNA and realized he was her father or he confessed to Serena's rape or something. Would that help her feel in control? Or, would she still have all the same issues, maybe more?

You brought up an interesting point about Olivia probably being a difficult child and acting out. I never really thought of that. I guess I always imagined her as very mature, taking care of herself and her mother because she had to. She does seem to take care of people. But, now I'm remembering another episode, though the name escapes me, where Elliot and Olivia are investigating the murder of a travel writer who rents a room in a woman's house. The woman has a teenage daughter. Elliot and Olivia realize that the daughter had slept with the travel writer. Initially they think the travel writer was forcing her, but Olivia quickly begins to think the girl was in a relationship with the travel writer and murdered him after a fight. Elliot disagrees. Olivia explains that girls without a father often have serious relationships with much older men. Elliot asks about her past, and she says she slept with someone their current age when she was very young. I'm not sure if she meant the man she wanted to marry, but I can picture her acting out, sleeping around with older men. I wonder when she stopped. We rarely ever see her date now. I understand she has trust issues and you explained very well why she doesn't have relationships. But, she clearly used to have relationships, unhealthy though they may have been. I wonder what caused her to stop seeing men, looking for men to fill a hole in her life.

Here's another question, if you feel like answering it...you certainly don't have to. I wonder what effect it would have had on Olivia if, as a cop, she had caught her father? Obviously this is not an option. She now knows who her father is and he is dead. But, say she'd collared a rapist, tested his DNA and realized he was her father or he confessed to Serena's rape or something. Would that help her feel in control? Or, would she still have all the same issues, maybe more?

I just cannot imagine a much older person who isn’t an alcoholic going to a bar and coming out unsteady on their feet and uncoordinated enough to fall down and die. And like I said before, unless your sister had a problem with alcohol, I’m pretty sure if you weren’t there or you didn’t know she had been drinking that night that you wouldn’t assume alcohol after you heard the news of her falling down the steps. If I heard one of my sisters fell down the steps and got hurt… I would assume exactly that… that they fell down the steps and got hurt. Immediately, Olivia assumed alcohol when she heard the bad news… that wasn’t a coincidence (and I’m not saying you think it was).

IMO, she drunk to hide the pain from her rape... so in a way, it is a combination of both. That’s just my opinion though. That I think can be left up to debate… but I think there is no question that Serena was an alcoholic.

I pretty much agree with you, Serena turning to alcohol to hide the pain and loving Olivia. Perhaps the episode "Inheritance" is the best one, you had a rape victim who's son was following in his father's footsteps and she said "part of me hates him too" while loving him as well because he is her son.

Um, now I'm not so sure anymore. LOL... I just finished watching 'Control' and Olivia basically said that her mother let herself get raped... then Cragen asked, 'Since when do we blame the victim?' to which Olivia responded, 'She was drunk." Although that does not prove that she was an alcoholic... it makes me question whether Serena abused alcohol before... or she could have just been a young student that got wasted one night. Now I'm kinda thinking about it...

She was either an alcoholic before or maybe she wasn't an alcoholic, but just drank occassionaly... and then she became an alcoholic after her rape. I dunno... just something to think about I guess. I'm still leaning toward the idea that she became an alcoholic after her rape though.

As we heard in Ripped, an assault victim does not need to press charges for their attacker to be arrested. And that's assuming Serena was even conscious when the police arrived. A neighbor could have called in a disturbance and told the police that Olivia ran away after the fight. With an injured victim, the police would have gone after Olivia. And even if Serena decided not to press assault charges, the matter would have been sent over to Family Court to figure out what to do with Olivia.
Simone was only a law student so there would have been a limited number of ways she could have helped Olivia. Getting her a lawyer would be at the top of the list. Getting Olivia out of Serena's custody would not have been a likely option. Emancipation for an unemployed 16 year old wouldn't be considered. Marriage to a 21 year old wouldn't have been an option without Serena's consent. That leaves placing Olivia with ACS and foster care if she was lucky, or juvenile detention if the judge though Olivia's behavior over all merited it. We have not heard about either of those options happening. So the most likely outcome was the Family Court judge ordered Olivia and Serena into therapy in order to work things out between them. The goal of Family Court was to help heal the family unless there was a clear danger to one or more family members.
I have always thought that Olivia's statement that Simone helped her "survive it" meant surviving going through the criminal justice system as a teenager. Olivia wouldn't have made it through that if she didn't have someone supporting her.

RJ87 Posted May 9 2009, 11:08 PM
If Olivia had been charged with assault and gone through the criminal justice system, I don't think she would have been able to become a cop. A close friend just became a cop. According to him, they do very thorough background checks, lie detector tests, psychological evaluations, etc. I got the impression that they would not allow someone who had a criminal record or couldn't pass the tests become a cop.

You would be correct if Olivia went through the criminal justice system as an adult. But not if she went through as a juvenile in Family Court as I suggested could be the case. Once the case was closed, the records would have been sealed. They would not show on a background check. The hope of Family Court is to have juvenile offenders straighten themselves out so they can make a fresh start when they are adults.

RJ87 Posted Yesterday, 11:09 PM
Just so you know, I'm not trying to be argumentative...I'm really just curious. I'm certainly not an expert on any of this, so I could be wrong.

This is a discussion. More information is always good. And if what I say isn't clear, please ask for an explanation.
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You were talking about Olivia being charged with assault for attacking Serena. Even as a juvenile, wouldn't an assault charge be dealt with in a criminal court, rather than a family court?

Assault charges can be heard in Family Court as well as Superior (criminal) Court. The age of the perpetrator is the primary factor to considered. Currently Family Court has jurisdiction up to age 16. It used to be 18 but I'm not sure when New York changed that. Children who are older than 13 who commit serious crimes can be tried as adults in Superior Court. But it is not required.
There are several SVU episodes that deal with the question. Juvenile from Season 4 is a good example.
The incident in Intoxicated happened when Olivia was 16 which would be around 1984. Olivia would still be in high school. The attack(s) were between family members. This is exactly the type of case Superior Court would prefer be handled by Family Court.
But even if Family Court couldn't take jurisdiction in Olivia 's case because of age, Superior Court could still have treated her as a Youthful Offender. This status applies to defendants under the age of 19. Defendants convicted and sentenced as Youthful Offender are not considered to have been convicted of a crime. Their record is to be sealed with certain exceptions. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:Dv9zQ3...=clnk&gl=us

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But, Olivia and Elliot have been able to access sealed records of suspects who committed crimes as juveniles in past investigations.

The are two types of juvenile records the detectives have gotten. The first is when the suspect still has their case open in the system. They are still on probation or under court supervision in some other way. An SVU example would be in Responsible where Casey found out Jordan was on probation from an earlier incident involving drinking.
The other type is after the case is closed. The ADA or the detective have to get permission to get the closed files. There is a system in place to allow that but they have to know the files existed before they can ask for them. They can't just ask if the suspect they have under arrest has a record in the Family Court. The best SVU example of this is in Soulless. The only reason the detectives found out about Max's record was the mother of his previous victim told them about the crime and his conviction.
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I would think that if Olivia had a sealed record and was trying to become a cop, the police would be able to access the record.

Having the record sealed means it shouldn't show up on a background check. So the police wouldn't know it is there. If they don't know it's there, they aren't going to ask to see it.
The other thing to remember is that Olivia would have been checked 20 years or so ago when she applied to the police academy. The search would have been done the old fashioned way. A sealed record meant a physically sealed record that wouldn't be available to someone checking.

RJ87 Posted Today, 01:49 PM
In my opinion, it is not likely that charges were pressed against her--I imagine that if the police were called, they would have calmed Olivia and Serena down and maybe referred them to a family counselor.

The only problem with that scenario is Olivia said she left after she kicked Serena. So it's unlikely she was there when the police would have arrived. Simone Bryce might have brought her home in time to deal with the police.
TPTB have not followed up on this story so we don't know for sure. But it could be an interesting piece of information to find out in a future episode if Olivia is still around next season.