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Who Deserves to Be Here?


Jes

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I needed this today Jes, thanks.

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Jes, this was one of the things on your Surviving to Thriving site that prompted me to write a thank you to you.

I always thought what I went through(rape by 3 teenage boys) was one of the most terrible things a person can go through. And then reading other people's stories, I saw just how worse this can get and it made me feel like I was allowing a single event in my life to affect me so badly when there are those who suffer rape after rape after rape and years of abuse.

Sometimes even reading now I get ovewhelmed at how others can go on with what happened to them that it makes me feel guilty that a one time rape can affect me this much and probably will for life. Thanks for the validation again that this needs healing too.

And thank you for leading me to Pandy's. :)

Also thank you to the rest of the moderators and you Shannon, for this site.

-Michelle

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Thank you Jes for this post and thank you Shannon for your wise words as well. I think we all need to be reminded of this at times.

Susan

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Thank u for posting this message. This is the first time i have written anything n actually thought about the attack as being real since it happened. In my head i just keep thinking that this cant be happening n the guilt is unbearable. This message has left me with a ray of hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel somewhere. Thanx again

evie x

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  • 4 months later...

Thanks for the reminder, I needed it. :(

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  • 1 month later...

:D my first post hear.

that was really good to hear,its such a great encouragment to know that no matter the circumstance we all deserve healing and love. This site is such a great place to come and feel excepted.

Thankyou for the support.

Emma :yay:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you so much for sharing this. It really has me thinking.

I'm not sure which of these things on the list actually happened, and which have been blurred into the rape category without my knowledge over time. "No" has just never seemed to work for me. I guess people can tell when you won't fight. I quit trying to say "no" before the 1st time was over, and sometimes i still just feel like it's happening. So in a way it feels like a 24 year rape. A 35 year molestation. When I say "no" several times in a day and finally at the end of the day when I'm asleep and he tries again...and I "resign"...I feel raped even though my husband thinks that meant "yes".

Edited by songbird427
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Jes

thankyou for this post. i realize you posted it a long time ago and i just came across it today. thank you i needed to hear those reasons to heal because i dont believe that i deserve to heal. it is easier for me to offer my support, caring, understanding to everyone els here than to believe that i am good enough to heal for myself. sounds stupid i know but the inside me tells me it is true.

why does this process have to hurt and ache so much inside?

Harp

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Jes,

Thanks so much for posting this. I've been reading through this a lot over the past few weeks as I needed to see that I belong here and deserve this place.

:hug:

Tawny

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  • 2 weeks later...

i'm new to this forum but so glad to have found this board, i've come along way from my abuse but still find myself dealing with the everyday reminders depression, insomia, anxiety attacks.

Edited by wify
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i'm new to this forum but so glad to have found this board, i've come along way from my abuse but still find myself dealing with the everyday reminders depression, insomia, anxiety attacks.

Welcome to the board!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you Jes for this post - While I know I was R*PED and I know that I said NO and I know that it HURT - I needed to hear your words.

Now I need to keep reminding myself of them.

I've told my story here before, I guess each time hoping for validation, which I still struggle with.

Simply - I was sexually active BY CHOICE with a guy 7 years older than me (I was 17); when he changed and became verbally abusive and controlling I broke it off with him. That's when he raped me, I cried, I asked him to stop and let me go. I didn't report it, I was too ashamed after a supposed friend told me I deserved what had happened becasue I had been sexually active before with him. then he began stalking me until a newer bf (not aware of the rape) chased him off. I didn't tell anyone else for about 6 years.

This happened approx. 35 years ago. I had a terrific loving and safe childhood. I didn't get pregnant from the rape. The few bruises on my arms where he held me were easy to hide and faded fast. Aside from some unwelcome roving hands on the city subway in rush hour, I had few other BAD sex experiences. I spent a short time being promiscuous and having sex just to be able to say I chose to do this. Again, I got away without anything serious haoppening. then I met a wonderful man, amrried him, still married, I told him about the rape a few years after we got married, he's been wonderfully supportive, we are still married and have a very loving and passionate life together with a family.

So I just feel plain STUPID for getting triggered by some stuff a few years ago. And now I can't turn it off.

I come here and read about others who have suffered long time abuse, recent violence, severe injuries, who dont' have a supportive partner and I feel like an idiot.

Ao I need to read your words. thank you.

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Wow - I am new to this site, and reading that post was amazing. I have often used the fact that the bad things that have happened to me did not involve a gun. I don't know why that has always been what has devalued my experience. I guess I always figured someone was out there who had it much worse and if they were "ok" then I had no right to be struggling with what I am struggling with.

Also, lately I have begun to deal with bad shit that has happened to me when I was really really young. I barely, barely barely remember it. In fact the majority of the memories are in flashbacks or physical memories. These are new, in the sense that they did not used to happen. I feel like I must be making them up, even though I know I am not. It was so REASSURING (sp?) to see that line "if you barely remember it".

I guess that is all I wanted to say. Posting on this kinda makes me scared, I am not sure why, just does.

Thats all.

-me :shy:

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Hi Beth and welcome!

I'm glad you have found us here but I'm sorry for what you have been through. You do deserve to be here :) but what you are feeling is valid. Please try not to compare yourself to other survivors, we all deal with what happened to us differently.

I hope that this site can be of some use to you, we are always here if you need us.

Take care

Tawny

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I have a question. I never thought of it as rape. I still don't give it that word to what my partner did to me in 2006. I just think of it as he wouldn't take no for an answer. The only time I feel it, is when I get close to actually having sex. Then I reach one certain point and I freak out. Is it still rape though if you don't feel it. It sounds so stupid to me when I ask that. There is a part of me that is digusted with me making me feel like I'm just seeking attention. I'm sorry for being stupid but there is a part of me deep down inside that would like to know the answer to that question.

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he wouldn't take no for an answer

that's my definition of rape. Sorry you had that happen to you.

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I come here and read about others who have suffered long time abuse, recent violence, severe injuries, who dont' have a supportive partner and I feel like an idiot.

You're not an idiot. Pain is pain; there's no checklist you have to fill out to have the right to hurt, or to have flashbacks, or to experience anything related to that pain. There is no way to accurately compare two peoples' experiences, or their pain, either, because there are just too many variables. Anything from your age at the time to how you were raised to your physical sensitivity to your coping skills can have a major influence on how much pain someone feels. The details of the actual abuse are only one of many pertinent influences. So you may feel like an idiot, but while that feeling is perfectly valid, it doesn't actually reflect the reality of the situation, if you see the difference. :)

butterfli

"She didn't want it and he did it anyway" is pretty much my definition of rape as well - and where it isn't my definition of rape is just that the pronouns aren't always right (sometimes it's "He didn't want it and she did it anyway," etc.). Another definition of rape I like is "sex without joyous consent." If they nag you into it, coerce you, harrass you, or in any way ignore your unwillingness or have sex with you when you are not ABLE to consent (when you are asleep or unconscious, for instance), I consider that rape.

Sheryl

Edited by Shalom
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I belong here!!! Your post is right on. I have traveled many miles in my recovery. There has been a long pause but my soul is needing to deal with a big chunk of my past now and whether I feel I am ready or not, the memories are here full force and I can't hide in my silence anymore. Two weeks ago, I had a blizzard of memory recall of full detail Technicolor. I had shared minimally and with owning responsibility in the past and had I believed it was nothing, I wouldn't be here right now finding my voice and roaring to the nations "NO! It was not my fault! I didn't ask for it! I didn't seek the brutality! I didn't harm! He did and he did and he did. Thank you for these affirmations of my existence!

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Thank you for your answers. I hate thanking you for validating what my loved ones say (those who actually know) but its nice to know that my freaking out is because of it that I wasn't being stupid. I still can't say that word. I hate it that there are so many people on here. It's sad that there is so much evil in the world.

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  • 2 weeks later...
LostInSpace

That was a great introduction, so validating - something I really need right now. I'm new here, too, and my emotions and thoughts are all over the place - nothing is working right.

***WARNING FOR LANGUAGE***

As a child, I survived emotional neglect by my parents and verbal abuse by those who were supposed to be caretakers. I'm a survivor of eight previous sexual assaults, including a date rape almost identical to the one that happened two weeks ago (except that 16 years ago, I'd known the guy for several years).

Because of the circumstances around this latest one, I've had to defend and explain myself to my (otherwise great) therapists (individual and group) and one of my best friends, who doesn't understand how I could be in denial for a week - even laugh about this guy she found totally disgusting (someone in this thread mentioned something similar) - and then fall apart. I told her up front, I usually appreciate her total honesty and telling me what she thinks and not what I want to hear, but in this situation, I just need her support - and if she felt that compromised her integrity, she didn't have to be a part of this. I guess she thought I meant I wanted her to hold back for two weeks, because tonight, she sent me an email that said she wasn't trying to minimize my pain, but that SPOILER, highlight to show content

people got through the Holocaust (if I'd been in a less vulnerable place, I would've told her that six million didn't) and that women survived female circumcision so I'd be fine. She also knows that I've been having physical and visual flashbacks to an attempted rape when I was 14 (on the street), and she made some comment about "let it go."

But it was a few little words at the beginning that set me off: she wrote "from now on, remember - always have safe sex!" And I was LIVID, because that was the assault: he refused to wear a condom, and I said clearly and directly that I would not have intercourse without a condom. I even stopped everything to talk to him about it, and he seemed to agree. I take safer sex extremely seriously. And then, without going into details, suddenly he was inside me (without a condom). I didn't even know it until he made an explicit comment, and I had to ask him, because I couldn't believe what I heard. And that stupid fucking look of smugness on his face, like he was doing me a favor. I wanted to hit him, but instead, I pushed him away (and he was LAUGHING!), gave him a really angry talk, thought about kicking him out... and then continued doing 'everything but' - more shame and guilt.

About my judgmental friend, I sent her a scathing email, trying to balance my appreciation for her friendship and acknowledging that she was trying to help while trying very, very hard not to say "FUCK YOU!" But I don't even feel like I should have to explain myself to her, much less thank her for having good intentions. As I put it in the email, "I don't give a shit about anything right now. Frankly, it's all about me."

I'm not sure all of this is appropriate for this thread - my feelings and thoughts and moods change so fast, from hating myself, to being pissed off at her, to reverting to my 14-year-old self's reactions, to imagining yelling at my therapist (nutshell: I set up a situation in which he thought he could get away with it)... The only thing I don't think about is retaliation, or getting pissed off at him, because I genuinely think he's a sociopath, and nothing I could express would have any impact on him whatsoever. Or maybe I have so much rage bottled up that I can't access it yet.... And sometimes, I just think I'm going crazy. I think, "people have unsafe sex every day, what's the big deal?" and "It was just a couple of minutes," and "you would've had sex if he'd worn a condom, so is it really that different?" The bottom line is that I said NO, and he ignored me. (Now, if only I can keep remembering that)

Thanks for listening.

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Guest lindie1972

I was raped in 1993 on my birthday, I was in a rehab. center after after having brain surgery in 1992. I was put in the center so I could learn to be on my own, because I having a reoccurring illness called epilepsy. But on my birthday, my friends had took me out to dinner and we were going to go back to the center to play volleyball before curfew. I was wearing a dress that night that i had graduted high school in and i was walking up the hill instead of going up under the main building to the elevators and that way, but as I was walking up the hill, I walked up the hill, and past the wall where i couldn't see anyone standing there on the outside the campus.

The guy that did this to me I played cards with several times and he seemed to be a nice person, but that night he was drunk and he was very mean and did a number on me. He ripped my dress and beat me up and sexually abused me, then threatened me if I told anyone he would kill me, I didn't know what to do. So i snuck back in to the rehab center, up the the student union where a friend of mine found me. He went and got the rest of my friends and then they worked on a way to get me back to my dorm, but the the security seen me and told my house parent at my dorm and she came up and seen what had happened to me.

My face was bruised, I had a black eye, and other mark on my body, I hurt all over.

The next day I went to class and my instructor thought I was wearing make-up and I went and wsahed my face and when she realized I wasn't i was sent over to employ ability until I was healed. I was so scared to walk alone, so my friends started a watch group for me and I didn't have to worry about not having someone keeping their eyes on me. The bad thing about all this is after it happened is I wouldn't talk to my parent for a long time, they always talked to my friends, but I was standing there telling my friend what to say. I was so scared that I was afraid to talk to them. Then one day mom got a hold of me, because I was out late the night before, and when she called the next day, I had to answer he phone on my floor.

I finished my course in August and went home. I had to go to the doctor the have a physical, he did some test, then the nurse come back and started asking questions. I just fell apart. I told the nurse and doctor what happened and they told mom. My kidneys, bladder, and other parts of my system was messed up pretty bad, but luckily i was able to be put on medication to get strightened up. I was so scared as long as I stayed where we living at, at the time. I had nightmares for a very long time and still do, but not as much except when the date comes around.

When we left and moved south for a while the pressure seemed to go away, but the memories are still in the

back of my mind. But I've come a Long ways to overcome of being afriad of people again, i was so afraid of certain people with certain looks, but i've overcome that now.

I just still have that haunting memory in the back of my mind.

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  • 2 weeks later...

thanks i needed to read that . I'm really doubtin myself if i deserve to be here and heal and be ble to talk about it. I was R*ped more than once by my ex bf. and by a stranger as well. all in the same year. I blame myself everyday. And reading that post really helps. Thank you

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