I think fear is the easiest answer. You were afraid. I was afraid of being beaten, or killed. Just simple self-preservation, you did the right thing; You survived!!! That was your job, now your job is to say, "I did nothing wrong, I couldn't change it, It's not my fault!!"

From what I understand, freezing is in fact the most common response. That's part of the reason why the military and police work so hard to train officers, soldiers and marines. People have to be taught to not freeze or run.

Even in normal conversation we often freeze: how many times has any of us walked away from a confrontation and only realized the clever jibe or the right words to say, after it is all over?

Also keep in mind that sometimes freeze IS the right response. Once someone has started an attack, the goal becomes damage control not prevention.

Punching someone stronger than you in the eye isn't such a good move unless you (a) have an escape route and can outrun or hide from the attacker (b) the other person is a lousy fighter and you are a judo expert who knows how to use a larger person's force against themselves. Otherwise you might just end up escalating the violence.

Whatever happened during the rape, I have confidence you did the best you could in the moment given your past experience, the high level of stress, and your reading of the situation. Even if it didn't much feel like it at the time, your brain was almost certainly subconsciously assessing the situation.

But even if you could have theoretically done better - who could possibly know if there was something else you could have or should have done? There's no video camera to study the back and forth like a replay of a football field throw.

Even a trained instructor probably would be wise enough to say "I'm not in a position to say how you could have fought and limited damage more than you did". The more someone knows about any area of expertise the more hesitant they are to speak. They know that subtle things can make a big difference.

-- .but why didn't i??? any ideas??? --

Sometimes the answer to that question lies in your own memory - not the big brushstroke summary of what happened, but the nitty gritty details: what you saw first, what you heard first, what you did and how the person who turned into a rapist reacted.

Walking through those memories can be kind of scary because until you've worked them through you may fear that memory will only make you feel worse and more to blame. It is important to have supportive friends or a therapist to help you though or at least a strong sense of your own value and worth. However it happened, no one has a right to insert unwanted body parts in you just because you didn't fight them off or run away effectively.

Often times, violence is so unexpected that we just don't see it coming. We can't imagine that person who five minutes before was merely annoyed and acting rejected has turned into someone who is willing to physically threaten us. Normal people don't act that way.

How did he get his hand into position to gag you? Did you realize that his hold would turn into something so frightening or were you expecting it to be just an angry grab? Did you really have an escape route? Or just wish you could have had one?

Often times when we go back in detail over what happened we realize that there weren't as many escape possibilities as we wish. Even if there are escape routes, we didn't go into that situation expecting to need one, so we didn't even really know until latter looking back that escape was even a possibility.

Take gentle care of yourself,
beth

Elisheva--i thought i should answer your qurestions.....first, he kissed me before any of this started to happen......then i pushed him away and i told him to stop and then he moved behind me and pinned my arms against his chest and covered my mouthwith his hand......my back was against his chest and i froze....i wasn't expecting him to grab or hold me at all...my plan was to just leave after i told him to stop, but he moved too fast and came up behind me.....i DID have an escape route, at least...i THINK i did.....if i had just pushed him away i coulda ran right outta there or when he said he was doing "what he wanted" i coulda just run right outta hter....idk...just thought i should answer...

You can't change it, don't torture yourself with what if's. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT!!! You said no, he used force, you were afraid and something tragic happened. I know it is hard not to listen to those voices in your head sometimes. Guilt and shame are poison to your mind. Just breathe and know that you did the right thing.

this is not your fault it is a biochemical reaction you had no control over. As stated above sometimes freezing is the right response, but when adrenalin takes over you have no choice in what your body does.

Freezing is your body's way of playing dead many predators will abandon its prey if it is dead so your body naturally slips into this response without you having any control over it.

hope this helps

Like everyone else has said, freezing is often the right response. I did get up and put my clothes on a few times but did nothing more than that and with certain things, I even did them somewhat "willingly" (not utterly forced) just because I hoped that it would stop everything where it was. And not go any farther. There was even one time when I wanted to say no, like it was just going to come out of my mouth and I stopped myself. At that point, it was clear by my actions that I didn't want it to happen, but I stopped myself from actually saying no because of multiple reasons. I really wasn't thinking at the time, because I feel like when I look back it was pure action - no "conscious" action. But I know that when I look back on it, I stopped myself because (1) Myself was stopping myself from fully realizing what was going on at the time [took me three days after to realize what happened] and (2) I was also afraid it would escalate things.

Of course we wonder "If only I did XXX maybe it wouldn't have happened." But I often think of it as my body protecting itself and instead think of it as myself protecting myself from further harm. He was already hurting you when you did fight. Though, not being raped is definitely the best option in your mind, minimizing the damage at the time is what your body was doing. I think, even though we ted to blame ourselves, it is even minimizing the emotional damage as being hurt further while it occurs I would assume hurts you more in all senses.

I don't want this to come off as harsh but I believe any situation, and ESPECIALLY this situation where you continue to wonder "what if I did XXX" hinders your progress. And you never even know for sure if that would have even helped. I say this situation especially because it was your body's way of protecting you and it was far less your choice than any other situation. You go into autopilot basically.

Valgirl18,

-- but he moved too fast and came up behind me.....i DID have an escape route, at least...i THINK i did.....if i had just pushed him away --

I don't know much self-defense, but if someone grabs you from behind, I don't think pushing away would have helped you much. One doesn't have much leverage in that position.

The only maneuvers I can think of that would have freed you so that you could run would take at least an extra step and quite possibly extensive practice.

For example, you might be able to inflict intense pain by biting or pushing his fingers back towards the back of his hand fast and hard enough to break them. That would force him momentarily to loosen his hold.

Even so you may have only had seconds or even a fraction of a second before his attention turned back to you and trying to keep you in the room. If he was high enough on adrenalin, even inflicting pain may not have caused him to let go and then you'd still be stuck.

Also, most nice people are reluctant to deliberately inflict pain and long term damage (i.e. broken bones) on someone they know unless they are 100% certain that the person is so violent there is no other choice. Would you really have had the will to deliberately hurt another human being? It looks good in movies, but in real life, well, it just isn't that easy.

Or if you knew judo, you might be able to lower your body in some fashion and flip him over you. Or you maybe could turn towards him, knee him, and then run away.

I don't even know if any of those would work.

What I do know is this. When someone comes up and attacks you from behind like that, they aren't play fighting. They are fighting for real. Play wrestlers let go when you push. People who are really fighting will strengthen their grip and try to meet you measure for measure with everything you try to do to get away. If they have any concern of losing, they will try to disable you.

Is there any possibility that your belief that you could have simply pushed away and ran is coming from underestimating the violence of the situation ?

Is it possible that some part of you is still in shock that someone would really want to fight and fight hard in order to get the "opportunity" to hurt you? We "get" fighting in self defense, but fighting for the purpose of hurting someone is just freaky.

Sometimes realizing there was no escape can be just as difficult as thinking things could have been different if you tried X,Y or Z. Do make sure you have supportive people around you.

Take care,
beth

Elisheva- i learned self defense my freshman year of high school and we had some experiences like this.....i'm not stupid and i KNOW how violent the situation was.....he strangled me and used a knife to make me stop fighting.....so please don't tell me that i'm not wanting to believe that the situation was violent.....becasue i KNOW it was.....

Whoa! He strangled you and used a knife to stop you fighting?!? How do you figure pushing away and running was possible to do safely?

-- i KNOW how violent the situation was. --

That was kind of my point. You DO know. You aren't stupid. You did what you did during the rape for a reason. There is a reason why you couldn't have "just gotten away".

That reason isn't simply that you froze. By the time you froze a whole lot of things happened that made it clear that what you learned in high school self-defense wasn't as foolproof as they said it would be.

If you look at your three descriptions of what happened (OP, reply #3, reply #8) perhaps you'll notice an increasing amount of detail and intensity? The first version leaves out that he surprised you by coming from behind and grabbing you in a back hold. Also the degree of violence is significantly toned down: pinned on the bed vs. pulled a knife, gagged vs. strangled.

When it was pointed out that with such a hold you simply couldn't push away and would have to fight to free yourself and run, you added that he strangled you and pulled a knife to stop you from fighting.

Do you see how each detail fills in a piece of why you didn't just push off and run? The more you explore this story, the more reasons you will find for why you didn't run away, why you stopped screaming, why you didn't dash out of the room while he was stripping, and anything else on your "woulda, shoulda, coulda" list.

In my first post, I suggested that you might explore the details face to face with a good friend, or if you have a therapist or rape counsellor, with them. That wasn't a push off.

It is just that exploring what happened is really difficult when all one has to judge another person's motives is a few words on a page We've all been exposed to enough well meaning people who think they could have fought our rapists better than we did, so trust has to be earned if we're going to let someone point out the missing details in our story.

You were absolutely smart. Not being there I can't explain in detail why. But I know my own story and have heard too many others to think otherwise.

Take care,
beth

he strangled me and held me at knifepoint AFTER this stuff.....but he DID gag me and hold me down.......i feel like you're telling me that my feelings are wrong or that you're questioning my rape....i know you don't mean it that way, but that's how i feel.....maybe i'm in a different state of mind...

I fought cause I always been a fighter.....but because I fought my injuries were worse....broken bones etc....the more I fought the two guys just wailed on me till I stopped fighting looking back wasn't the smartest idea....since than my response has been to freeze cause I don't want to get hurt like that again