can't get over rape

LegacyUser

I lost my virginity at the age of 20 to a bloke I had had feelings for for years. I saved myself for mr right and thought it was him.

However, he turned out to be a terrible boyfriend. He pressurised me into taking drugs. One night we had anal sex and I ended up in such agony that I told him in no uncertain terms, "we are never doing that again."

Another time we did some magic mushrooms and suddenly my boyf got a really evil look in his eye, grabbed me roughly, turned me over and anally raped me.

I was so shocked, afterwards I pulled a blanket over myself and just lay there in shock. He was just like, "What's the matter with you?"

The shock was so intense that I just lay there for a while unable to move or speak. After a while, my boyfriend started crying and begging my forgiveness.

Shocked, confused and weak-willed, I stayed with him for a while longer. He would pressurise me for sex and get angry when i said no. Sometimes i caved in and agreed, and los loads of respect for myself.

Eventually, I got the courage to dump him. However, I felt so bad about wasting my virginity on him that I then slept around with 3 rNDOM BLOKES.

Now, I have my life sorted. I have moved away to university and am finally beginning to enjoy life. My problem is, I don't know how to get over what my boyf did to me, and my disgust with myself. I HATE him so much, and I don't want to carry all this hate around with me.

LegacyUser

sorry for the caps and misspelling above, it should say, 3 random blokes.

Miss Fluff

What a scumbag.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre is very good. You can either phone them or book an appointment to go and see them to discuss what happened.

www.drcc.ie

You might find this link helpful also

http://www.drcc.ie/faqs/index.htm

Well done for moving on with your life. You should not feel disgusted over what this animal did to you though. It's not your fault.

rferguson

That guy should have his D**k chopped off.how could you do such a thing to a woman. drugs are no excuse

r3nu4l

Hi ihatehim,

I take it you've never told anyone about this or made a complaint? An ex-girlfriend of mine (a long time ago) told me out of the blue one night that she had been raped when she was 17, it was a shock to me but explained a lot of things about her sexual reticence.

Years later I met her quite by accident and she told me within seconds that she had told her parents about it and had some councelling and that she was now very happy and that while she would have to live with it she was coping very well.

Do as Miss Fluff says, go chat to someone who will understand and be able to lend you support. You may in the future consider pressing charges against this guy but for now, just get some help. Congratulations to you on getting your life back on track to some extent, less strong people might have caved in completely by now.

LegacyUser

'Thanks for the support everyone. I haven't told anyone. I am going to look into getting some counselling, but I can't tell anyone I know. That bloke is really different to his friends than he is with his girlfriend and i can't risk not being believed.'

r3nu4l

ihatehim wrote:

'Thanks for the support everyone. I haven't told anyone. I am going to look into getting some counselling, but I can't tell anyone I know. That bloke is really different to his friends than he is with his girlfriend and i can't risk not being believed.'

Good for you, go for it but go to a counceller recommended by the Rape Crisis Centre or similar as these people will definitely be more in-tune with you.

Also, in the future you may consider that this guy might now have other girlfriends and may be subjecting them to similar abuse. You may decide that you want to put a stop to that by making a complaint against him and that is within your power but it's up to you. Right now you are doing the right thing for yourself and that's a great start.

tbh

you poor thing. I hope you can get over this and realise that your ****wit of an ex is not typical of all blokes. Do as miss fluff and r3new4l suggest: talk to someone. This isn't the type of thing you can deal with on your own, just as if you had a disease, you couldn't treat it yourself (probably a bad analogy). I'm just saying, there is no shame in asking for help, it's actually the first step to taking the power back.

good luck
x

king_of_inismac

Hey!

Really sorry to hear what happenned to you! Talking about it here is a good first step. It is REALLY important to go and get some counciling, and work through this.

It's not your fault. It's completely his issue, and you have nothing to be ashamed about. In fact, you should be proubd of yourself for getting through it, and getting help is the first step in getting over it.

Really hope everything works out for you! <hug>

randylonghorn

OP, excuse my language, but the guy is a complete and utter bastard.

You have absolutely no reason to feel disgusted with yourself.

You do need to move towards the point where he no longer has any control over your life ... and by the sounds of it, at the moment, even if he is out of your life, he is still affecting how you act / think.

Talk to a counsellor, pref. someone who is experienced in this area, as suggested.

And ... while very few of us are perfect, and "Mr Right" may be something of a myth, the vast majority of us are nothing like this scumbag!

Enjoy university, make lots of friends, celebrate the beginning of a whole new life ... and push this asshole out of your head, and lock the door behind him!

LegacyUser

Thanks everyone. I feel disgusted with myself for 2 reasons, 1. caving in to his demands for sex when it was turning my stomach all the way through, and 2. for sleeping with the 3 random blokes afterwards. I was really saving myself for "the one" before all this.

And yes, I am a little worried now that all blokes have the potential to be like this. I mean, I didn't know my ex was like that before I got with him.

Black Swan

ihatehim wrote:

I haven't told anyone. I am going to look into getting some counselling, but I can't tell anyone I know.

Sad story. Hope counselling helps. Learn from it if you can. Don't do drugs, and don't hang out with the lads that are into hard drugs or heavy drinking.

Marksie

ihatehim wrote:

Thanks everyone. I feel disgusted with myself for 2 reasons, 1. caving in to his demands for sex when it was turning my stomach all the way through, and 2. for sleeping with the 3 random blokes afterwards. I was really saving myself for "the one" before all this.

And yes, I am a little worried now that all blokes have the potential to be like this. I mean, I didn't know my ex was like that before I got with him.

OK, others have dealt very nicely with your first query and you have decided to do something about it.
1. Caving in to demands for sex: No need to feel disgusted, looking dispassionately at this it would be entirely reasonable for you, given what had happened before, and given his likely reactions that you would "cave in". You in and of yourself were not the weak person. You just were being dominated by a stronger person. It is something you are going to have to come to terms with and understand in context of what situation you were in.
In the end you were the stronger person, you removed yourself from the situation, many don't.

2. Sleeping with random blokes: signs and symptoms of what you were going through, low self esteem, self loathing..any one of a number of reasons.. any and all are valid. It may have been your mindset... but it was not YOU. Someone i know who suffered very similar to you but for a longer period termed this "angry sex".

The Hatred: Oh i am not surprised you feel such hatred at the moment (I mentioned dispassionately earlier.. but i try where possible to stick to answering the post.. but believe you me i am with you all the way on this.) BUT you are making a conscious decision that you do not want to walk around with this hatred in you. THAT is very courageous, very honest in looking at yourself.
The counselling will help immesureably, and as you come to understand how you were used, then your self disgust will change and diminish.
At the moment the person to look after is yourself, heal yourself before looking to others. At the moment you can do nothing about the ex, or his g/friend or his mates.. nor should you..at the moment... your inner strength has to be rebuilt and your sense of self. After that where you go in terms of others will be much clearer.

Namaste
mark

Savman

See how he'd handle it if someone anally raped him :mad:

The best advice has already been given: www.drcc.ie

I don't think the majority of the rest of us are in any way equipped to give anything other than well wishes.
Hope you get sorted and move on.

limklad

ihatehim wrote:

'Thanks for the support everyone. I haven't told anyone. I am going to look into getting some counselling, but I can't tell anyone I know. That bloke is really different to his friends than he is with his girlfriend and i can't risk not being believed.'

You need to report the rape, so else this bastard will do it again to another girl. He has no respect nor is he going to he is seriously confronted by the law. You need to report him to the guards with the help of your counselor, both the rape and the forcing you to take drugs through intimidation against your will. They will find the drugs because people like him are so cocky and believe that they are above everyone else and the law. They believe that they can do what they want without any consequences for their actions.

ihatehim wrote:

.

And yes, I am a little worried now that all blokes have the potential to be like this. I mean, I didn't know my ex was like that before I got with him.

You were very unlucky to pick the wolf in sheep clothing. I would not call him your boyfriend nor ex-boyfriend because he wasn’t because he did not behave like your boyfriend. As you can guest, I am a man and your rapist is not because he has no dignity nor act like a true man. :mad:

Talliesin

ihatehim wrote:

Thanks everyone. I feel disgusted with myself for 2 reasons, 1. caving in to his demands for sex when it was turning my stomach all the way through, and 2. for sleeping with the 3 random blokes afterwards. I was really saving myself for "the one" before all this.

I'd say it's possibly more accurate to say you feel disgusted with yourself because that's so common a reaction to rape as to be almost characteristic.

It's not easy to say no, especially when you've already been through being raped by the person, for a whole bunch of reasons (so many reasons that I'm not going to even begin to try to identify which could possibly have had a bearing on your own case) especially if you're trying to hold on to something that lets you tell yourself its not that bad. I don't know how I managed to tell myself that for a few hours, never mind how you managed to do it between that incident and you dumping him, but ultimately I think your staying with him for that time and the "caving in" came from a part of you that tries to survive - even if you may realise that just getting away was what you ultimately needed to do, I think its survival instincts that makes people cave in like that.

As for the three random men. While this was a bad decision for you, because you are probably not the sort of person to enjoy such encounters anyway (given your stated views on virginity) and because even if this wasn't the case you were in a place where your sexuality was injured and you were acting from that, you've nothing to feel bad about.

You didn't do anything wrong (though certainly wrong for you). While acting contrary to how you normally would, given your own feelings about sexual behaviour - whatever those may be in your own individual case - is a harmful pattern that you did well to get out of there is nothing to that that you have to feel ashamed about.

Rape attacks the very person. It does that through the sexuality, which is a very large part of ones persona. For you a big part of your sexuality was tied to your concept of "Mr. Right" and "saving yourself" and the possibility of "wasting" a virginity and the act of rape tore through that. For me, with a very different sexuality, the psychological details where different but the crux was similarly that those things that we important to me in that regard were torn through. For someone different to either of us again, the details would be different yet again, but there is still that potential for damage to whatever is important to them.

The pieces can be picked up and put together though. It takes time and effort and pain, but they can.

I think almost all rape survivors feel some guilt or disgust targeted at ourselves, and we all find some reason or argument to back up that guilt or disgust.

It doesn't go away entirely, but it does become a lot more manageable, and the shadow it can cast on your life fades.

Counselling helps. The links for the Dublin Rape Crisis centre was given above and if you're not in Dublin more local centres are relatively easy to find (and I've the contact details for most of them and some outside of Ireland sitting somewhere too should no not be able to find them). I strongly recommend you give them a call. The freephone number is operated 24/7 so you can use it any time.

Having people in your life you can talk to about it with helps too. Having people in your life that are just good people who are in your life helps immensely.

Having people that will listen if your talking about feeling disgusted at yourself and tell you you don't have to be, but give you the space to express those feelings first rather than just jumping straight into telling yourself you shouldn't be disgusted helps.

You've used the name "ihatehim". Ultimately you'll have to let go of some of that hate - not necessarily hating him any less, but not always holding on to that hatred. For the time being though, any time your feeling disgusted at yourself you hold on to that hate. Remember that there was not one single scruple of justification for what he did. Whatever way he may or may not have justified things to himself and to you, both at the time and afterwards, ultimately the reason he did it is that when he could have held on to a shred of decency in how he behaved, he did not. He deserves every ounce of that disgust, not you.

ihatehim wrote:

And yes, I am a little worried now that all blokes have the potential to be like this. I mean, I didn't know my ex was like that before I got with him.

I'd really like to say there was some way you could spot them. I'm afraid there really isn't. There isn't any way you can guarantee you won't be with another man who's like that.

It helps to keep people in your life that do the decent thing even when it isn't easy and even when it isn't the nice thing and to keep away from people that go for the easy breaks.

This only stacks the odds very slightly though, and isn't something you see about someone very often. You certainly don't see it from what people are like on a date, or in a party, or during other situations which neither show what people are like when its tough (because it isn't) or whether they'll take advantage of people in any way sexual or otherwise (because they're situations where people are looking to impress socially).

Often by the time you get to the meat of what someone is really like, you're already a bit committed to them to some extent.

And even then, there are still plenty of surprises to people, both good ones and bad ones.

But people need people and when we're hurt our best sources of healing is from people. You can't keep yourself away from half the people in the world when some of them are truly wonderful.

You can keep yourself protected and still be intimate with people (including in the way one would be intimate with a lover, though that's not the only sort of intimacy being through something like this can make difficult). You can even trust people, really trust them, and still be prepared to drop that trust in a heartbeat should they even begin to take advantage of you. There's a certain harshness to that perhaps, but there can be a warmth to it too if you can make that harshness work to protect not just yourself, but also those who have continued to demonstrate that they are deserving of your intimacy.

It takes time though, but there's no rush. There's no deadline by which you have to get over any single aspect of it. There's no deadline by which its no longer okay to let yourself express your pain and your anger.

Blue_Lagoon wrote:

Learn from it if you can. Don't do drugs, and don't hang out with the lads that are into hard drugs or heavy drinking.

OP. Please don't pay comments like this any heed.

For the time being there's no point trying to argue against people who say things like this and you will come across them (not many people will say something blaming you to your face, but there can be people making moronic comments about rape victims in general without knowing you've survived one yourself). The urge to fight back against them will of course be strong, given both your need to defend yourself and your sense of the injustice of it, but until you've managed to do a lot to deal with the part of you that feels disgusted in yourself they're just a sense of negativity that will drag you down. In the meantime walk away if they're near you, delete emails, add web-forum users to ignore lists and just get people like that the hell away from you, because they're not your problem right now but they will add to your problem if you let them.

LegacyUser

'What a horrible experience for you, please don’t beat yourself you over it, the staying with him, sex with randomners etc is afaik a fairly common reaction to a rape (at least it was for me ) this is were counseling can really help, it can put a perspective on things for you. Report it or don’t report it the choice lies with you and tbh right now after everything you have been through you need to do what’s right at this moment for you.

Personally I didn’t go down the counseling route, it was years before I told anyone I was too ashamed. The one thing though is that I do think that are judgment does get better with age, personally I avoid drugs and getting plastered now because I now realise how vulnerable that can make you. You did nothing wrong remember that!'

LegacyUser

'Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm not going to report it though. It is SO difficult to get a rape conviction as it is, never mind the fact that we were on drugs and he was my boyf. People who don't believe me would probably make my life a living hell, not to mention the shame of people knowing.

I appreciate the links to the rape crisis centres, but I actually live in Wales. I have been trying to find a rcc near me but there doesn't seem to be one in this part of wales. So I've made an appointment to see my uni counsellor, hopefully they will be able to help, or to find me someone more appropriate.'

Talliesin

Good idea going to the uni counsellor.

Whichever of these two Rape Crisis Centres are closest to you could also be worth calling even if they're too far to actually visit. As well as being able to talk to someone they could perhaps find you a counsellor or other help closer to you than they are:

New Pathways Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Service - Merthyr Tydfil 01685 37910

Rape & Sexual Abuse Support Centre (North Wales) - Gwynedd 01286 669267

LegacyUser

'ok thanks, i will call one now.'

r3nu4l

ihatehim wrote:

I appreciate the links to the rape crisis centres, but I actually live in Wales. I have been trying to find a rcc near me but there doesn't seem to be one in this part of wales. So I've made an appointment to see my uni counsellor, hopefully they will be able to help, or to find me someone more appropriate.'

Your Uni counsellor should be able to point you in the direction of a decent rape crisis centre alright. I appreciat what you are saying about the lack of convictions etc. Talk to your consellor about that aspect of it too at some stage.

LegacyUser

No, I don't want to involve the police. It would affect my entire life. I just need some counselling, and then to forget it. I just can't take dragging it all up n public.

Talliesin

There's a lot to be said for going to the police, but right now you don't seem to be in a position to deal with that.

Since enough time has passed that there's no fresh evidence that is likely to get any staler I'd just put that whole question out of your mind for now.

You may find that after you've begun to deal with things that you change your mind in this regard, but for now I agree with your decision not to report it.

limklad

unreg343 wrote:

it was years before I told anyone I was too ashamed.

You or any victim should not be ashamed. It is the rapist and those who protect rapists should be ashamed for their actions.

Most rapes happens with the people you know. Even wives get raped by their shameful husbands, thinking they are man, for they feel strong. It is a sign of weakness of the rapist part. There inability to control themselves, show how weak they are.

Once you say NO, or try to pull away, that is enough to communicate without saying verbally . "I do not want sex"

Personality I think rapist should be force on hormonal treatment to reduce their sex drive. Cutting off the penis is not going to do it as some perverse out there have raped with instruments.

LegacyUser

'Just saw my uni counsellor. It felt REALLY good to talk about it, not just the rape and forced drug-taking, but all the other stuff he did to me too. There are no rape crisis centres anywhere near where I live, but I feel the uni counsellor will help. I feel like a weight is being lifted.'

randylonghorn

Good for you!

The first step is usually the hardest one to take, and you've taken it!!

LegacyUser

'Thanks! You know, talking about it with someone face to face for the first time made me realise just how bad he actually was to me. But thats good in a way, it feels kind of cathartic, like now I've faced it properly I can start to overcome it. I look forward to releasing my hate and finally being free of it!'

tbh

ihatehim wrote:

'Thanks! You know, talking about it with someone face to face for the first time made me realise just how bad he actually was to me. But thats good in a way, it feels kind of cathartic, like now I've faced it properly I can start to overcome it. I look forward to releasing my hate and finally being free of it!'

and you know, months from now, when you're well on the road to getting over this, someone looking for help will read this thread and take courage from it. You should be very proud of yourself.

Marksie

ihatehim wrote:

'Thanks! You know, talking about it with someone face to face for the first time made me realise just how bad he actually was to me. But thats good in a way, it feels kind of cathartic, like now I've faced it properly I can start to overcome it. I look forward to releasing my hate and finally being free of it!'

Oh My, that made me smile BIG time.

That took so much courage .... but when you lok back you will realise it was the only thing TO do.

My best wishes go with you on this path

LegacyUser

Thanks everyone. It's nice to hear that blokes care too, sometimes I worry that all blokes are capable of doing stuff like that. I'm trying to hold on to the hope that that's not true.

Talliesin

A lot of men care. Also, quite a few of us have been raped or sexually assaulted ourselves.

There's a healthy balance between caution and trust that isn't easy for anyone to get right that comes from experience (not necessarily direct experience) of both how wonderful and how horrible people can be. It's something everyone has to learn in life and keep learning, but becomes both a harder lesson and a more important one if you've been through what you have. It comes though.

I'm very glad to hear you've made the steps you have made and wish you strength and healing as you continue to deal with it.