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Who Deserves to Be Here?


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Ludditesunited

I remember a few things growing up that were bad and felt terrible. My family's invalidation was to physically abuse me when a bad sexual experience happened to me. My mother responded by allowing my brother to beat me. I never said I had been sexually abused. All they did was respond to a counselor who wanted to talk to them about why I was self harming.

I do think I was sexually assaulted prior to the assault by my family. It has taken me a long time to even say that.

I have significant anger at them and my extended family because most of them stuck their head in the sand. They would never in a million years want this to happen to them or their daughters. I am sure my aunt wouldn't want her son to beat her daughter, to teach her a lesson about sex, and choice, as mine did.

Yet they willfully stuff their head in the sand, and seem to think it's easy to ignore it if it's me. I hate them for that. People don't like the word hate but for the longest time I felt sort of like a non essentiate family member who people let to gatherings because you're family. My abusers got to identify as people. Meanwhile the moment my mother cried that I victimized her they would support her, no matter how made up it was, and no matter how awful a situation she put me in.

Just so much stuff as been said to invalidate my experiences in my family and beyond that I just feel not willing to take it anymore.

I had been told I was not raped/ sexually abused even though I think I was. Yet even without the sexual abuse, my family's attitude towards me was almost sexually abusive because the punishment was to terrorize you for being sexual, or a slut.

Funny how they need to label people sluts to justify their own abusive behavior.

Edited by Ludditesunited
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Ludditesunited, it makes me feel sad that your family was so mean and cruel to you, and that the invalidated you and punished you in so many ways.

I didn't get anything as bad, but I relate to this;

but for the longest time I felt sort of like a non essentiate family member who people let to gatherings because you're family

sad.png

Yeah, they use labels to justify their behaviour. You're dead on right there. We're not labels, we're people mad.gif

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  • 3 weeks later...
RosesAndNettles

Hi everyone,

I'm new to pandys, and I'm so glad to have found a place like this. I thought I was coping up until now but I realise that all I've been doing is blocking out my emotions in order to cope. My assault happened 10 months ago but I was only in court a week ago, so you could say it's fresh for me.

I have an amazing support group around me which I'm so grateful for, but I feel as if they're all telling me how I should react and what I should be doing to cope. It's like they all just say what they think will help, which is a lot of the "You'll get through this" and "Be strong" but I don't think I can physically/mentally take it anymore. I'm 18 and I can't even go out drinking because I'm scared of it happening again

I've recently set up a twitter account in which I'm posting my thoughts and emotions to help me and hopefully others, and that seems to be working out okay.

I feel so down that I can't even bring myself to be proud of the fact that I stood up in court and faced it all again, which was a horrible ordeal in itself. I realised I really needed help this evening when I found myself sat on my bed, shaking, actually contemplating whether to swallow a packet of painkillers.

I just wanted to know I'm not alone, because you all seem like wonderful people to me.

Thankyou so much

Fx

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assaulted and attempted rape at 16

raped at 16

assaulted at a concert at 17

assaulted by my boyfriend at 19

exposure to constant sexual harassment that seems to be pervasive in all public and social spaces

also, possible early childhood stuff :/

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Hey Forgetti T, I'm L.E.E 83. I am not feeling good today but i am sorry about what happened to you. I was forced to have sex with my sister by my father. From a young age, all the way up to my junior year. Things can get confusing at times and I do have weird dreams. I have discovered on thing, I can use that negativeity and anger s a weapon to try to do as much good as I can by helping somebody, and that's about it. I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well and I wish you the very best. L.E.E 83

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  • 1 month later...

First post ever. Awaiting counselling 1 on 1, but have been having awful flashbacks of all the rapes & sexual assaults.

It's like the floodgates have opened and everything is spilling out of pandoras box at once. Must cling on to hope.

I have lost count of all the assaults and rapes because remembering is so painful.

Until recently I haven't admitted to myself in years that my son was/is the product of rape...He's a lovely full grown man now, but can't understand why I feel such bitterness towards his father. It's the constant reminder having a son who looks so like my rapist. We were in a longterm relationship that I have only recently accepted was grooming.

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  • 4 months later...

Its been a long time since I have been on this site but I must say its been a hard journey for me since then. I got my associates degree in 2012 and also I lost my mom in 2012 and I started having flash backs of how she knew that my older brother was sexually abusing me when I was a little girl and she didn't do much about it. It was my grandma who stopped the abuse when she caught him by accident. My younger brother used to have nightmares about what happened to me. After suffering from depression for many years, running away from home, suicide attemps, going in and out hospitals I finally decided to get the help that I need and went and got a psychiatrist that I see regularly. I was having anxiety and panic attacks from time to time because of the abuse and flash backs of repressed memories of my abuse. My psychiatrist even reffered me to a group therapy of women who were also abused. In group we don't discuss what happened but we discuss how to heal. I ended up have a baby boy this past October and I am extremely happy about him however now that I have 2 wonderful boys I am even more determined than ever to continue my therapy to be strong for them. My 13 year old tells me all the time how he wants me to be happy because he doesn't like to see me sad. My children are keeping me strong. So with that said as survivors and victims we all deserve to be here.

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It's nice to know that I can be accepted here regardless of what happened to me. I'm still hurt and trying to cope with what happened to me. I've been told so many times that its all behind me and I got out of that relationship, but it's not behind me. Things are better now, but there's still a lot of pieces I need to pick up and I've been doing so much of it on my own.

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Hi, I deserve to heal. Even I wasn't raped but sometimes I keep asking is it better to be raped once or to be molested for years? Is it better if it was a stranger or your own mother? Does it matter? Feelings are the same after all. Panic and anxiety are the same! obviously I was molested for years by my mom. And what a horrible questions your therapist would ask daubting ur story: how long was it? did she touch herself while touching u? Do u think it was cuddle?

who cares if she touched her self or not! the important thing that she touched me. Who cares how long was the duration of molesting? The important thing that it happened daily for me for almost 15 years. And if cuddling your child means that you kiss your daughter breast naked more than once daily and pinch and touch and tickle her private parts daily, then cuddling should be prohibited by law I guess. That is only 1 part of the abuse and I can add the physical and verbal abuse. not all the ppl have the chance to say no. Sometimes we say no only to get hit physically then get molesteD by force. I suffer from obesity since I was a child and it is on going problem. Do I hate my mother? Not every day! Did I knew I was molested? I was convinced that it was normal. Did my body responded to the abuse? Yes it was out of my hand as it was the normal respond to what was happening to me. I felt weird my whole life and I thought I was abnormal. I thought I was born like that only by age of 28 I knew that nothing was my fault. I donnow if I will ever forgive but for sure I will never forget. I'm still searching for help and I Deserve to Heal!

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

I really think what Shannon posted to Princess was excellent. That it matters not what we did or didnt do as rape survivors. What matters is that another human raped us. That's where our focus ought to be. If the focus gets shifted onto to us, the picture gets fuzzy.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I consider what happened to me, with the most recent guy and one in college, to be borderline sexual abuse. But thank you for also listing sexual harassment. Because the guy in college definitely did threaten and sexually harass me. However, the school considered it not to be egregious (in spite of telling him he could have gone to jail for what he'd done) if sexual harassment at all. Many women reported this man, but they just told him to leave the women alone, because that always works. -_-

I didn't consider the other stuff he did to be technically assault, but I *felt* like it was. I felt scared, terrorized, trapped. I'd gone into fight or flight response. He had physically hurt me multiple times, but none of it so blatant. But I never said no, I never said let me go. A part of it was because I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of begging or to give him plausible deniability. But it was also because I was scared--scared that if I said stop, he wouldn't. Scared that it would then "really" count as assault. Scared that it would escalate the situation. I either stayed silent or tried to reason with him.

Recently, I also realized what happened to me was abuse or borderline abuse. I also couldn't call it rape or sexual assault. But I noticed that websites for victims of sexual abuse and trauma, like Pandys and Rape Crisis Scotland, were some of the most helpful things I could read. I feel as though I can't post in "my story" because it's all so minor. But I have been finding it helpful to post elsewhere.

This thread is a really good reminder that it is never "too late" or "too soon" to get help, and there is no violation "too little" or "too big" to get help for.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Oh how I needed this today. As more memories begin to surface and I struggle to accept what happened I tried to confide in my husband. I explained that for the first time ever in my life, all of the detached memories, emotions, and fears were beginning to make sense. His reply made me think I was delusional. He said he knows it never happened to me. I couldn't say anything else. I already struggle to accept my experiences and it did not help to realize the person I needed to understand the most could not comprehend my struggle.

So, although the original post is old, I am thankful for it. It has taken me years to reach the point where I can begin to accept as much as I can remember. His response thrust me backwards to where I want to disbelieve myself that much more. I want to move forward to where I can feel more whole and confident in myself. Maybe it would be different if my memories were complete and had never been hidden. I don't know. I just know I have been having more triggers and my lows are lower then before. But thankfully I have a good therapist who is helping me to pull out faster and to navigate through this journey.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm becoming used to this "imaging things" response from people. I finally got up the nerve to report my ex for his abuse of me. The police spoke with him to set up an interview and the very next day he had filed for and been granted emergency custody of our 9 year old daughter who is also a victim. I am dealing with everyone saying that I imagined it, asked for it, deserved it, wanted and enjoyed it.... it's just so frustrating and scary.

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  • 3 months later...

I've been in a very similar situation except when I left I didn't report it bc I thought the things that were happening even though some were deplorable were my duties. Also, my child was never harmed and we now have joint custody. I want to leave the state and start over but wo being able to take my daughter I am having trouble deciding what to do, as I am in a new relationship yet her father tries to control and manipulate me, in every aspect of my life... The sexual abuse has stopped but I'm still being beaten mentally.

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I agree and thanks for the post. It isn't the victims fault bc we were in the wrong place at the wrong time or bc we were unable to attain help or tell anyone at the time this is very common among us, the survivors of this type of abuse. Thank you all for sharing.

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Great response Shannon and so true... Therapist can sometimes fall short of their obligations but reluctantly we move forward.

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Alot of what happened to me I never considered sa until recently. I never Knew that being forced to be uncomfortable in sexual Actaeon a marriage constitutes sexual assault, but it does. Great post very true...

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I need to be healed. I always put what happened to me on the back burner, but it's time to start healing so I can live a wonderful life with my amazing boyfriend

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  • 2 months later...

I am new to this site and to this issue. I will begin exploring the threads, but I will ask that anyone who reads this - if you have suggestions for threads, resources, support groups, books etc - I welcome them.
I am in my 50s and newly married and have come to suspect that my husband was sexually abused as a child. I want to tread carefully as I provide a safe place for him and us to face this. This revelation just came today, so obviously I am pretty much completely ignorant. Thank you for allowing me to join. Peace and love to all.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

Hey Princess, thanks for sharing that story.

I must admit, though, that I have a lot of concerns with what your therapist said, based on your post here.

We make hundreds of choices each day. Some are clearly good (wearing our seatbelt) and some are clearly bad (eating potato chips for lunch instead of an apple). But some choices we make end up being bad only because of an intervening factor. For instance, one day last summer I parked in the surface lot instead of a covered garage, on a day that happened to bring a huge hailstorm, and my car sustained $2,000 in damages. "How stupid," I thought. "If only I had parked in the garage."

But how was I to know that we'd get the worst hailstorm of the decade?

For rape survivors, we often think, "Why did I get in the car with him?" "Why did I go to that party?" "Why did I get drunk?" This is risky business, this second-guessing of our actions. We can second-guess all day long, but the bottom line is that we would not have been raped had our rapist chosen to be decent instead of an asshole. The buck stops there.

While not all choices are "good" we have the right to make bad choices without anticipating someone else will take advantage of us and rape us. We have the right to have a drink or go on a walk through a park. But NO ONE has the right to rape us, ever, no matter what we say or do.

Princess, I don't know the full story. But in my book, someone using extortion to get sex sounds like rape to me. Would it survive legal muster? I don't know, that depends on the statute and definition of duress. But it seems to me like this guy saw that you were vulnerable and took horrible advantage of you.

Were there choices you could have made that would have protected you? Of course. You could have not gotten out of bed that day. You could have not moved to that town in the first place. You can spend an eternity making a list of the choices that would have saved you from being raped.

But the absolute bottom line is this:

Only one person makes the choice to rape. There are things we can do to protect ourselves, but the only person who can prevent rape is the rapist him or herself. Bad decisions, good decisions, to me it doesn't matter. We should be able to live our lives, we should be able to trust our neighbors. Rapists should not rape. Period.

Thanks I needed this today
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Even if i tried not to post on this forum for a period of time , this post really hit me in the heart and i knew i just couldn't let it without write i want.

Everything i read was true, all these questions about "why didn't fight harder?" "why they did that to you? you were only a kid?" "it's time to forget it and move on" were all phrases for friends , family and T's. The same questions for something who yes, it happened almost eleven years ago, but i still feel scared , vulnerable, angry, in pain , more than ever. Yes, many yeara passed and perhaps i had to be okay by now and living my life but it's not that easy and saying something like that cause they have no idea about this thing or even worse minimizing your feelings and thoughts ... it's just awful.

I can understand someone who have no idea or don't want to hear about these things - it's not easy i know - but they can tell you from the beginning about how uncomfortable they feel instead of causing you mre pain, anxiety, disbelief. for something no one of us choose. I certainly didn;t choose to get raped at 6. God , i am so angry cause even if i don't care about others opinions , right now i have to take some huge desicions and i feel overhelmed by emotions cause i have to deal with these attitudes and questions everyday.

Ugh, sorry for my ranting here.

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  • 10 months later...
Guest Shesellsseashells

I'm not even sure if I'm using this appropriately but I'm still waiting for my account to be approved and I feel really alone. I cried when I read this because I felt guilty using a site full of people I'm sure have been through far more terrible things but I felt like maybe this is where I can get some kind of useful input. I've been up all night. It happened 15 years ago and I tried to tell my friends and was mostly met with silence so I stopped talking about it. I stayed with him for too long. He was my first real boyfriend. He pressured me and called me names and pulled my hair while I was saying no and trying to get away. It was a long time ago. The nightmares started two weeks ago but when they started to get better the counselor I consulted with thought it might be better to not talk about it since things were getting better. They're not better. 

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