Listen, I said "no" and "stop" more times than I can remember and it made no difference.

It is not your fault.

You don't deserve this torment. You didn't deserve the abuse in the first place.

I know it's hard, but remember that it's okay and necessary to keep the blame with the one who assaulted you.

It is only your responsibility now to heal.

Please let us help you. We're all here and you're not alone.

I agree with Rosecandy. And as I said on another post: "According to Pete Walker, there are four responses to trauma: fight, flight, freeze and fawn.

The freeze response creates a lot of trouble for people and gives rise to a lot of misunderstanding and shame. It's not a choice - it's a physiological response. It might look weak, or it might look like consent, but it is neither. "

Everyone whose go-to response is freeze feels the same shame and self-blame, including men who go through it and soldiers who go through it in combat. It's not your fault - it's just how some people react.

Please listen to Rosecandy and focus on healing with our support.

I don't know how to escape my mind.

It's very hard. Just counter the thoughts every time they arise. Every time you have a self-blaming thougth, tell yourself that that thought is a lie, and tell yourself the truth. it's hard work but I don't know any other way.

How do I heal though? I cant let my family know what's happened. It would destroy them.

I wouldn't worry too much about that - lots of times families don't even believe it and blame the victim. But you can get help for yourself without talking about it with your family. I got a therapist by calling RAINN.org. They actually hooked me up with a free therapist through local Victim's Assistance Services. Not every area has that but they will help you find resources.

I think the reason it's so hard not to blame ourselves for sexual abuse is because it's such a deep and cutting assault against the most intimate parts of ourselves. It's hard to overcome that because it's so deeply private and so embarrassing and personal and, at the end of the day, we know so much of the narrative out there exists to invalidate our truths. After all, very few perpetrators of sexual assault do it where there are witnesses. And more often than not, they get to walk out of it and never think about it again, while victims get to experience the supreme joy of living with it for the rest of our lives. Some of us are arrested by it for years.

So, like, please don't feel like you're weird or crazy or abnormal for feeling like you're unable to heal or move on or stop feeling guilty. Sadly, this seems to be a fairly typical reaction. It took me a very long time to stop feeling guilty and ashamed. Hell, a part of me still feels ashamed, I think. I never told my family or anything. I don't plan on ever telling them or discussing it with them, either. And I've gotten to the point where I don't feel like it's necessary to do so, anyway. But it took a lot of time and a lot of effort and it isn't easy. God, it's one of the hardest things I've ever had to get through.

Unfortunately, you have to heal by going through your grief. You have to experience everything you're experiencing, and from time to time, it may take the help of others to ground you and remind you that it wasn't your fault and you have no reason to feel guilty. Like the people here, or maybe a close friend.

It's not going to be easy, but you have already survived and you are so strong. There are so many resources out there, too. So many people have been there, blaming themselves, and I think some of us even seek out ways to blame ourselves. I know I did. For whatever reason, I guess because I did care about him and it hurt so much to believe he could do this to me, I blamed myself, too. I wanted to believe I was responsible more than I wanted to accept that someone I trusted was a rapist. My rapist.

You're going to be okay. It will take time. But we're all in this with you.

It may be easier to talk to someone else before talking to your family. There are always many reasons to tell the family, and many reasons to not do so. I can't and don't want to tell you what to do about that.

I do want to tell you that it's not your responsibility to protect your family, to keep the secret. You've been abused, that is not your fault in any way. You have to deal with the pain that it has caused. You do not have to deal with the burden of protecting others from it, with keeping the secret.

You come first, PeekAhBooGirl, because you need and deserve to heal.

I know that feeling. And its a normal response. I slept with a knife under my pillow and still couldn't will myself to move. Its ok. Its not your fault your brain responded the way it did. Its ok.

And if you still and you should. You deserve healing! The fault of any fall out it soley on the perp. 100%.

Thank you all!