Rape Support Group
If you or someone you know has been the victim of rape, this is the place to find support and get advice. If you want, discuss your experience, share your feelings, and meet others going through a similar situation.
I feel like my life has literally been flipped upside down.
These past 8 weeks have been chaos, as I finally came to terms with the truth of my rape, which was almost a year and a half ago now. It's been absolutely crazy. But also confusing. I began therapy 4 weeks ago. Things are coming up. Things that make me feel like my whole life has been a lie or a joke or something...
I seriously think I have a problem with denial. My therapist has been concerned from the start about my issues with dissociation.
By forcing myself to actually acknowledge things and be honest with myself, I realize that I was sexually abused multiple times by other kids. The memories are really rough. I know that one of my abusers targeted me my entire school year in kindergarten. Apparently it was a big deal... multiple conferences with administration, my parents and his parents, but I can't for the life of me clearly remember the abuse or the conferences. I vaguely remember talking with a counselor, and I remember being terrified of that kid and feeling deep shame. I had nightmares about him for years, but I refused to even let myself question why.
Another kid I grew up with was my about my age, maybe even a tad bit younger. He was much bigger than me though, and much more dominant and manipulative than I was. He was always in charge of the games we played. I have very specific memories of him decoying the other kids we played with and making me go down and hide in his basement. He made me take off my pants and do things to him. These memories aren't entirely clear either. I can't remember if it was a single event or if it happened multiple times, but I have a strong feeling that it was definitely more than once. I never told anyone about that. I was too scared and felt disgusting and ashamed of myself. I avoided seeing his face like the plague for years. He still freaks me out. I don't even remember exactly how old I was when he was doing this to me, or what period of time this extended over, but I believe that it was between the ages of 5-7.
As a teen, I was in a very manipulative relationship, where sex was a tool used against me, despite my severe pain due to medical conditions. I was taught at 15 that to be loved, I had to let him do things to me. If I asked for it to stop or to not do it at all, I was punished, ignored, made fun of, etc. He never by any means raped me, but he emotionally abused me. He would let his friends make fun of me, and tell his friends very personal things while I was around and enjoyed embarrassing me. I stayed with him for over 3 years. I don't know how I let that happen.
Fast forward a few more years... I get myself into a perfect set up to be raped. I've always had a hunch that something about it was my own fault. I know that him raping me is not my fault, but I just wondered how I so eloquently get myself into such a perfect set up for him... and I realize now, to my horror, that my disgusting past my have conditioned me to be able to so easily over look so many blatant red flags.
This really disturbs me. It makes me wonder if my life and my personality are the way that they are because of what happened to me. I developed severe anxiety issues by 18 that never quite resolved... I've always beaten myself up wondering why I have such a struggle with anxiety. I've always felt like something was defective about me to have such problems with it. I have been diagnosed with PTSD recently, and I realize that it's probably not solely because of my rape from about a year ago, even though that was very traumatic and horrifying. I feel like my whole life was shaped differently than I used to perceive. I feel like my life is a lie. I never realized how much I refused to believe or acknowledge. I feel like I'm crazy.
These past 8 weeks have been chaos, as I finally came to terms with the truth of my rape, which was almost a year and a half ago now. It's been absolutely crazy. But also confusing. I began therapy 4 weeks ago. Things are coming up. Things that make me feel like my whole life has been a lie or a joke or something...
I seriously think I have a problem with denial. My therapist has been concerned from the start about my issues with dissociation.
By forcing myself to actually acknowledge things and be honest with myself, I realize that I was sexually abused multiple times by other kids. The memories are really rough. I know that one of my abusers targeted me my entire school year in kindergarten. Apparently it was a big deal... multiple conferences with administration, my parents and his parents, but I can't for the life of me clearly remember the abuse or the conferences. I vaguely remember talking with a counselor, and I remember being terrified of that kid and feeling deep shame. I had nightmares about him for years, but I refused to even let myself question why.
Another kid I grew up with was my about my age, maybe even a tad bit younger. He was much bigger than me though, and much more dominant and manipulative than I was. He was always in charge of the games we played. I have very specific memories of him decoying the other kids we played with and making me go down and hide in his basement. He made me take off my pants and do things to him. These memories aren't entirely clear either. I can't remember if it was a single event or if it happened multiple times, but I have a strong feeling that it was definitely more than once. I never told anyone about that. I was too scared and felt disgusting and ashamed of myself. I avoided seeing his face like the plague for years. He still freaks me out. I don't even remember exactly how old I was when he was doing this to me, or what period of time this extended over, but I believe that it was between the ages of 5-7.
As a teen, I was in a very manipulative relationship, where sex was a tool used against me, despite my severe pain due to medical conditions. I was taught at 15 that to be loved, I had to let him do things to me. If I asked for it to stop or to not do it at all, I was punished, ignored, made fun of, etc. He never by any means raped me, but he emotionally abused me. He would let his friends make fun of me, and tell his friends very personal things while I was around and enjoyed embarrassing me. I stayed with him for over 3 years. I don't know how I let that happen.
Fast forward a few more years... I get myself into a perfect set up to be raped. I've always had a hunch that something about it was my own fault. I know that him raping me is not my fault, but I just wondered how I so eloquently get myself into such a perfect set up for him... and I realize now, to my horror, that my disgusting past my have conditioned me to be able to so easily over look so many blatant red flags.
This really disturbs me. It makes me wonder if my life and my personality are the way that they are because of what happened to me. I developed severe anxiety issues by 18 that never quite resolved... I've always beaten myself up wondering why I have such a struggle with anxiety. I've always felt like something was defective about me to have such problems with it. I have been diagnosed with PTSD recently, and I realize that it's probably not solely because of my rape from about a year ago, even though that was very traumatic and horrifying. I feel like my whole life was shaped differently than I used to perceive. I feel like my life is a lie. I never realized how much I refused to believe or acknowledge. I feel like I'm crazy.
"As a teen, I was in a very manipulative relationship, where sex was a tool used against me, despite my severe pain due to medical conditions. I was taught at 15 that to be loved, I had to let him do things to me. If I asked for it to stop or to not do it at all, I was punished, ignored, made fun of, etc. He never by any means raped me, but he emotionally abused me."
I hate to tell you, but this was rape. He may not have physically overpowered you, and held you down and forced himself of you, but he taught you that if you said no, that you would be punished, and that punishment was worse than anything that happened during sex, he manipulated, and emotionally forced you to give in. That is rape.
You are a very strong person, you lived through all of that, and now you have the strength to ask for help despite your fears of doing so. I understand the automatic reaction of thinking bad about yourself, but stop and think, how many other people would have killed themself a long time ago. How many people would be in a mental institution, a permanent one, not a couple of weeks visit? But, here you are, your in therapy, and you are on this board, you are getting the help you need to continue to be strong and overcome this crap.
Stand up tall, hold your chin up, and be proud of yourself, I am.
Well, I break up with him a few times, but we'd end up back together. I didn't like the way he was treating me sexually. He was forcing me to continue giving him fellatio for extended periods of time. Just like in a previous rape narration I read, I was similarly treated: forced by having my hair pulled to continously give him fellatio. I would chock and throw up when he ejaculated, but hide this from him. I would agree to give him fellatio so he would stop annoying me for it. One night, he promised to bring me to a nice location, but all he did was bring me out into the wilderness in his van and coerce me and force me to give him fellatio until the inside of my mouth had sores on it, until my back and my neck hurt. I wondered: Am I being raped by my so called boyfriend? See this man is very manipulative and it ws out of character for me to ever have gone with him. I've never done the drug meth either. He somehow had me convinced to some extent that he loved me. But the whole relationship consisted of him trying to get me to give him fellatio way past my bedtime each night. I was beginning to feel very confused and hurt. Then he was suddenly with all these other women. Someone told me he was a pimp. I agreed. I came to my senses and broke up with him. In retaliation, he showed pics of me nude to people who he should not have shown. His next girlfriend tried to make me suicide bait by telling me he wanted her now because she was younger, that they were living together and going to 'have babies'. I thought she was crazy. By the time she tried her suicide baiting maneuvers, I was already onto it that he was a rapist and only sought to humiliate and shame me. Only the humiliation and shame did not sink in so deep, becuase thankfully, a parole agent contacted me to tell me he had a rape history, or I found it online. The parole agent asked if I realized he was a Sociopath. Now I was scared. I asked the parole agent to put a 'no contact' rule on him and the agent did. But in relatiation, the boyfried/rapist sent around the nude pics of me, one of my vagina. I had to recover and realize that there is so much porno, what difference does it make. I keep reminding myself of this every time I have flashbacks, becasue it's the only thing keeping me sane. If I let myself become as humiliated and shamed as he and his whore friends want, I'd die by suicide, but this hasn't happened. I felt like I had a spiritual guard the whole time through this ordeal. It's amazing how naive I was at first. It is rape to be coerced adn forced into fellatio, even if I first agreed to do it: He woudln't let me stop then pulled my hair down on him until I almost went unconscious once. This was a man with good points who I loved. I now wonder how dumb I could have been. I'm going to a rape crisis program. I finally stopped in the middle of the last act of fellatio he coerced me into - one of the worst ones - and screamed, saying "You're just raping me. Get out of my house!!" I kept screaming and scared him off after I threw all his stuff out in one cartload. I felt relieved. He tried to get his new girlfriend to rekindle something abusive for him, but I just ignored them, having lost my respect for both of them. The new girlfriend was once a friend of mine who was in group with me where I shared how hurt I was about the break up months before. She is the meanest person I know at this piont in my life and I've asked her never to contact me again. She is in dreamland with him? No way. She lies. She tries to get me to commit suicide, because she's jealous I ever had such a relatinoship with him when she was secretly wanting him. This is my opinion. She also has a personality disorder.