No, it's not fishy at all.
Think of it like this: you know how at a wedding they have that line about how any objectors to the marriage should "speak now or forever hold their peace?" It's that. It's easy to tell your therapist in a private session, but publicly declaring it could be extremely difficult when you don't have much help. It would take a now-or-never situation -- say, your attacker being appointed as a Supreme Court judge -- to make you endure the psychological and physical suffering of testifying about the event.
Remember, less than a third of sexual assaults go reported.
The unfortunate thing is that you're doing the very thing I pointed out. Your mission is to protect the accused man's reputation at all costs (such as doubting that he lied when it's confirmed he has), and assume the woman is lying. I may be siding with Ford to a degree on this one, but that's because both A) the clear majority of sexual assault claims have historically been truthful, and B) Kavanaugh has already proven to have lied repeatedly. I'll take the word of the woman who's traumatized and readily answers questions over the man who's already a proven liar, evades questions and even flings out conspiracy theories.