Sexual Assault Telling My Story

[featherless.wings]

I'm not sure if this will help me, but maybe getting it all out there will help me move on.

I was unaware that I was being stalked for who knows how long by two guys. My pet bunny mysteriously died a couple months before everything happened. When I was 14, I had a big fight with my parents and went outside at night to prove to them that the world wasn't such a scary and dangerous place.
Two guys chased me into an abandoned park. I was brutally raped. I was tied upside down to a tree and orally raped and later raped with a metal pole. They tortured me to get me to tell them my name and choked until I passed out. They brought the body of my dead bunny out, and showed me a video of them killing and torturing her. They then made me drink her blood and ate her. My ribs broke from being kicked too many times. I was there from 11 pm to 5/6 am. They stabbed me in my leg and dumped me in a drainage tunnel when they were done.
I limped home, showered, bandaged myself and got in bed. I never told my parents what happened and they believed that I was simply on my period and crashed my bike. I had no friends to tell.
When I was 16, I started sneaking out of the house and getting into fights. These traumatised me almost as much as that night. At 19 I managed to stop fighting and slowly started the healing process.

I've had severe PTSD ever since, with almost constant nightmares and intense flashbacks with seemingly a thousand triggers. I'm better now but it's a struggle every time things get bad. Hopefully this helps.

 

[Fadeaway]

Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry for what you went through. Talking about does help most people but it can make the symptoms worse at first because they are brought to the surface, but in the long run it really does help.

 

[Sweet_E]

I'm not sure if this will help me, but maybe getting it all out there will help me move on....

I can't believe people are capable of doing such horrific acts. I am so sorry you went through all of that!

So glad to hear that you have made progress with your healing. What things have worked for you?

 

[featherless.wings]

I can't believe people are capable of doing such horrific acts. I am so sorry you went through all of t...

Time has helped, as well as focussing on my career. I won't lie, some unhealthy habits have also helped me to cope, such as extreme sports. I have a few horses who are actually very therapeutic and they really teach you to focus on the here and now, and are amazing during flashbacks. I'm still trying to find a therapist but hopefully that will help too.

 

[Deleted member 37474]

I haven't been able to cry about my trauma. Reading yours has almost gotten me there. I am so horrified by the sadistic cruel act done to you by evil people. My daughter doesn't see danger in the world, she is 13. Wants to walk in the wooded park alone. Do not feel guilty that you were trying to prove something to your parents, that is not why this happened to you. You were a child, naive, innocent. You had no way of knowing. Therapy will help you.

 

[featherless.wings]

I haven't been able to cry about my trauma. Reading yours has almost gotten me there. I am so horrifie...

I know, I've felt a tremendous amount of guilt over the years. I thought I was being punished for disobeying my parents. I truly used to believe that if I wasn't the one who adopted that rabbit, then she wouldn't have had to suffer. They really did torture her to death, putting needles in her eyes and all sorts of horrific things. They held my eyes open to force me to watch, and I'll never forget the sound of her screams as long as I live. No innocent animal should have to endure that. That bunny was my whole world and my reason for living at the time, and they took my world away. I don't even know how I survived.

When I hear about naive kids like your daughter it makes me so sad. I always wish there was a way of giving them a glimpse into my world, because then they'd do everything in their power to avoid that kind of hell. Then again, my mum continually preached to me about how dangerous the world is, and how if you walk alone you'll definitely get raped or murdered. Look how safe overproduction kept me.

 

[joeylittle]

@featherless.wings - have you been diagnosed with PTSD, or been evaluated by a mental health professional for other possible co-morbid diagnoses? I ask, because of the risk-taking behavior that you wrote about elsewhere. This trauma certainly would be a qualifying trauma for a PTSD diagnosis, but not everyone who experiences trauma actually develops PTSD. It's important - especially when you are struggling to understand how to work with various symptoms, past and present - that a trained diagnostician be part of that process.

What symptoms do you currently experience? You mentioned being better now (which is great) - were you able at all to work with a therapist, or are you just looking for your first one, now?

 

[featherless.wings]

@featherless.wings - have you been diagnosed with PTSD, or been evaluated by a m...

I talked to a counsellor at University about my experiences and she sent me to a GP who diagnosed PTSD, at least relating to the events I spoke about on this post, not my childhood. The next step is therapy, but I'm still terrified to actually begin so have been putting it off, but after talking to people on here I'll give it a go.
I have really bad nightmares when I'm going through a tough time or am injured like at the moment. The flashbacks have been so bad that when walking to the car in the dark after dinner with my friends it's like I'm there again that night, and I can't even hear them talking to me. It's mostly just flashbacks and nightmares though, and it's an improvement from how I felt the first few years after the trauma.
I guess after all these years something just cracked my ability to cope with this on my own. I've just been really jumpy and zone out during conversations I usually took interest in. It's hard though because I'm in a very demanding course at Uni and there's very little leeway to go see a therapist.

 

[Sweet_E]

Time has helped, as well as focussing on my career. I won't lie, some unhealthy habits have a...

I have heard that horses are good! I don't have much experience with them but they seem like such amazing creatures.