The aftermath of sexual assault

[wmacbride]

If you are a man/ woman or other who has been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, how did you handle the aftermath?

 

Did you report it or keep it to yourself? Do you feel like it as had a long term effect on your life? What sorts of things helped you to recover?

 

( not asking for myself...this is just general interest)

[Whoknew30]

I told my H (bf at the time) & friends but kept it from my family & police. It would have gotten to ugly as the man's family & mine go way back. I only told my H bc I felt this tremendous guilt, as I had done something wrong. I was a teenager & to add salt into the wound, this man told everyone that would listen...like I was prize he won. Years went by & id watch him say high to my family at functions, he'd even kiss me on the cheek. I'd get so sick to my stomach & usually walk away & shake. Now that I'm a grown woman & he actually went to prison for an unrelated reason...I feel he no longer holds any power over me...but it took years to get to this place.

[knabe]

I said nothing. I lay in my bed and cried, and I just went on with life. Some of my creative outlets (art, writing, etc.) became very dark, and that was kind of my way of working through the emotion.

 

I told my now ex husband and he brushed it off. My fiance was very supportive - I talked to him about it when we were sharing things about our pasts.

 

It's been a few decades, so reporting of course is out. I think it affected my emotional state for awhile afterward, and I definitely think it contributed to my fear of getting physical when I was dating as a younger person. But luckily I had good role models when it came to a healthy view of intimacy, so I think that helped.

 

It definitely doesn't define me, and I do not see myself s a victim. However, I do have definite opinions about the overuse of the word "rape," because I know what it actually is to be raped.

[wmacbride]

I told my H (bf at the time) & friends but kept it from my family & police. It would have gotten to ugly as the man's family & mine go way back. I only told my H bc I felt this tremendous guilt, as I had done something wrong. I was a teenager & to add salt into the wound, this man told everyone that would listen...like I was prize he won. Years went by & id watch him say high to my family at functions, he'd even kiss me on the cheek. I'd get so sick to my stomach & usually walk away & shake. Now that I'm a grown woman & he actually went to prison for an unrelated reason...I feel he no longer holds any power over me...but it took years to get to this place.

 

That sounds really awful for you. Having to keep a secret like that, and then have him kiss you on the cheek? He's damned lucky you were able to maintain enough self control not to smack him right across that smug mouth of is.

[wmacbride]

I went the other route and reported it.

 

The police were kind and did their best, but to a scared 15 year old kid, it was awful. I had to sit there, with my dad next to me, describe what happened, answer a bunch of embarrassing questions etc. My dad tried so hard to be strong for me, but I know it was killing him inside.

 

The exam before that was even worse. I get why it has to be done, and the nurse was kind, just like the police, but that didn't make it any easier. They did the exam, gave me some sedatives and I stayed in the hospital overnight to make sure I was okay.

 

When we got home, I went to back to bed, and my mom and dad went outside to talk about the interview/exam. They don't know I saw it, by my dad was going between crying and looking like he wanted to kill someone...and i mean that literally. He actually went looking for the guy, but luckily, he didn't find him.

 

The time in the courtroom was just as bad. Again, the judge, and both the crown and defense attorneys were gentle but still.

 

In the end, it was all for nothing. I don't know exactly what happened,but I think there was some sort of plea bargain made. Today, he's still free and god only knows if he's doing that to other women.

 

Looking back, unless there has been a drastic change, I don't know that I would report it if that happened to me again. I'd like to think I would, and it wold put the guy away, but I have my doubts about that.

[preraph]

It was in the 70s and I didn't know this guy had been stalking me, though I'd seen him in my small apt building. He was also making creepy calls to where I worked but everyone assumed it was aimed at this prettier girl there who got a lot of sexual harassment. I keep a journal and looking back I can see he clearly doped me once, but I had a guy I know quickly take me home and he stayed on the couch all night to be sure I was okay. I was very sick. Someone knocked in the middle of the night. Now I'm sure it was this jerk, but at the time I wasn't expecting anyone, and told my guardian not to answer the door.

 

Long story short, he seemed normal until I let him inside my apartment after a night out. He fit in with my crowd. I wasn't suspicious. Once inside, his whole demeanor changed and he started his rape script, crazy crap, projecting whatever it was he wanted to believe onto me, never sat down, blocked the door. I had no telephone at all. My neighbors didn't speak English, and I had no relationship with them. Plus we had a nut in the building who occasionally went down the hall yelling and no one flinched. So I opted to keep myself from getting beat up and decided to just see if having sex with him would make him leave. I just wanted him out of there. I didn't know anything about rapists back then. I thought sex was the end goal, didn't realize how much sick and deluded behavior it involves. It was a long mostly uneventful night, and he was hung like a parakeet, so nothing was painful. I was awake all night, of course, keeping an eye on him. He was one of those who thinks everything is hunky dory, normal date or whatever.

 

In the 70s, you had to be a sucker for punishment to try to report something like this, plus I opted to not get beat up in favor of getting rid of him with sex. It was my decision to a point. But only to avoid him getting violent and thinking he'd get what he wanted and leave.

 

I worked right across the street, so as soon as they opened I got out of there and he finally got out of there. I told a friend or two because he was still out there in our circle of acquaintances. Later, I had a big scare because he auditioned to replace a guy in my favorite band. I told one of the guys in the band he was weird and not to trust him around women, but didn't go into detail. I spotted him in the bar once after that and got out of there. He tried to talk to me.

 

Then he showed up where I worked and that's when I decided to tell anyone who'd listen. I told all my friends and guy friends. That day at work, I told a guy friend of mine I worked and socialized with what happened and how I'd had sex with him to get rid of him after he turned into a different personality and was blocking the door, but he still didn't leave. That friend took him out in the parking lot and wouldn't tell me what happened after that but said it was taken care of.

 

So I took care of it in the old fashioned way. And never saw him again. I had another guy lined up to take care of him if that one hadn't, and I'd had no expectation that that work guy would, but you should have seen the look in his eyes when I told him. Steely.

 

It taught me what it teaches most people the first time they are a victim of really any crime, and that is that you just never know about someone. It helps if you know a guy is known to your other friends, but in this case, everyone had seen him around but no one seemed to know him well. I never met a woman who knew him, only guys because he played guitar. And they seemed to know nothing about him. He was a sleeper cell.

 

Of course, if any of that happened to me today or even five years later, I'd have known all about red flags such as lurking around and stalkers and as soon as I'd seen him in my apartment, I'd have been suspicious. Reading my diary in retrospect, I can see these things clearly, but I just assumed he knew someone in the building that wasn't on my floor.

[Maddieandtae]

I was 13 when I was raped. The rape changed me and even over 30 years on I still deal with the aftermath of that night.

 

The night it happend and once the rapist ran off, I got up from the ground and knocked on the door of the house where the rape happened in the owners yard. The police were called and they had him in custody that night. He was a repeat offender. He was sentenced for six years but of course was out much sooner. He repeated raping and the victims were getting younger.

 

When I was 19 there was a trial to have him indefinitely put away. All his past victims testified and he was put away indefinitely. I'm proud that I was part of having him put away. I just wish every rapist was off the streets. None of us are victims though. We are survivors ?

[cocorico]

If you are a man/ woman or other who has been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, how did you handle the aftermath?

 

Did you report it or keep it to yourself? Do you feel like it as had a long term effect on your life? What sorts of things helped you to recover?

 

( not asking for myself...this is just general interest)

 

Never told a soul. I'd been brought up to believe that stuff like that was always the girl's fault, and I didn't want to have to face what would inevitably have followed.

 

It certainly affected me - I trusted no one at all after that, and viewed sexuality very instrumentally. Completely uncoupled lust from love, respect, etc. It did take a long time to move beyond that - reading helped, especially feminist literature, and so did activism. Doing something to change the world and make it a better place. Also later training and practising as a lay counsellor, especially within a feminist paradigm, and learning to be heard and to make myself heard.

[wmacbride]

My biggest hope about this type of situation is that people start talking more openly about it.

 

I'm a fan of retro tv shows, and one was addressing the subject of rape. It was a mother trying to comfort her adult daughter who had been attacked, and she ended up telling her own story about how she had been attacked herself once, and how because she was too scared to speak out, the guy may have been able to hurt other women the same way he hurt her.

 

 

This being said, unless the legal procedures surrounding rape have changed, I would really have to struggle to report it if it happened to me today. The whole process was humiliating.