Hi, Clara. I read your post and I want to say how sorry I am. I was raped five years ago, when I was twenty-one. I'm twenty-six now and I want to tell you that things will get better. I want you to slow down and take a deep breath. After it happened to me, I was lucky enough to meet a nice priest about a month before who I ended up going to and confiding in. Having that positive influence right away, right after the trauma, really helped. But it's not too late! Recovery is ALWAYS an option. I want to encourage you to seek out a counselor. I see one at my local Women's Center. In the beginning, I had flashbacks and it was hard to have a boyfriend. I also blamed myself and kept trying to justify it. I went down a destructive path. Please do not carry the shame of his decision. The shame is not yours to carry. You did nothing wrong. Your brain might tell you otherwise, because that's what happens after trauma, your mind can start to betray you, in a way. You need to recognize when it is doing so and try with everything you have not to resign yourself to those destructive thoughts. Those thoughts are misleading you, they are not the truth. The truth is that you did not deserve to be mistreated. Try and speak positively to yourself, work on your internal dialogue, how you speak to yourself is so important. You are a good person that is not defined by what happened to you. You will rise above this, just like I have :)

Hi Clara, very sorry to read what happened.. I'm a male, who was violently raped by a neighbor kid that was younger than me.. I was 13, he was 11...
I blamed myself for many many years.. even after coming to this site. There were some wonderful caring ppl on this site who really do understand.. both female and males..
we might not totally understand every detail, but the thoughts, the blaming, the sadness, and it continues...we really do understand...

The best advise someone told me on here ( mainly cause I kept doing it) was please, do not compare what you've been through with anyone else..
Please, it's no help to yourself to say 'they need more help than me, theirs is much worse' or ' what happened to me was a lot worse than what they went through' or any number of things..
all it does is tear you down.. either way..

You are totally welcome here, and you're welcome to post as much or as little as you want..
please remember, with all of this, you are not alone, please just talk!
You are doing a wonderful job just by posting this much! Takes a lot of energy, and hope to type it out even the first time...
great job...

Looking forward to your future posts!

Notalone00