Breaking Free

Alumna chronicles her victory over adversity with new book

Sometimes, just surviving adversity is a major victory.

“But then life asks, ‘Now what?’” says emotional resilience expert Paul G. Stoltz. “Over the course of your years, either adversity consumes you, or you consume it.”

Jenny Lynn Anderson (`85) knows the fight first hand, and a new book chronicles her painful, but ultimately uplifting battle with the emotional scars resulting from sexual assault.

In Room 939: 15 Minutes of Horror, 20 Years of Healing, Anderson recounts how the incident led to a variety of deep and long-standing emotional problems, and how she triumphed in the end – over not just her internal struggles, but over her attacker.

In Atlanta to attend a public relations industry convention, she was attacked as she walked alone in a hotel hallway. “I went to Atlanta as a perfectly healthy 28-year old woman early in my career, full of life and energy and passion for my job, and it just absolutely changed me,” she said. “After that, I came home and 20 years passed.” During those two decades, she went on with life, but lived uneasily with the memory, suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome, anger, fear, guilt and the ever present question: “Why me?” She finally decided to seek professional counseling and was able to place the events in perspective.

“I decided that the man who did this to me had kept me in bondage for 20 years – that the only

way I was ever going to heal was to tell this story,” said Anderson. “In the past five to seven months, I have rid myself of those shackles and he’s no longer holding me in prison. That’s the beauty of this.”

Anderson has two reasons for authoring the book. “One was that God wanted me to heal,” she said. “Another is to serve as a catalyst for me to go and speak to people about what happens when things go really badly in your life. I want to tell them that you can live through a very bad experience and come out on the other end a stronger person.

“I’m hoping people will allow me to share my story.”

Room 939: 15 Minutes of Horror, 20 Years of Healing is available for purchase at www.jennylynnanderson.com, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.