Hi
First off, I'm new to the site and I don't know what the rules are about posting content to do with sexual assault or rape - am I supposed to use a trigger warning? If so, please consider this that warning. What follows is not graphic, but is related to those issues.
I have recently been diagnosed with PTSD, as the result of rape (as an adult) and long term physical and psychological abuse and neglect as a child. After a couple of sessions of assesment, my therapist suggested EMDR, which so far has helped (a bit). It's very early days. My symptoms have included flashbacks, avoidance, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness and weirdly, intense, crippling lower-abdominal pain. I've been checked for all sorts of conditions, such as endometriosis, but no one could find a cause. My doctor and my therapist have both concluded that the pain is a side-effect of my trauma. It certainly gets worse when I'm triggered.
An Ex recently got in touch with me. He is not the man who raped me, thank goodness. He is whoever, a man that I was raped because of. I had feelings for this guy that I had not acted on, and my attacker (my then boyfriend - sorry if this is confusing) raped me when he found out. He'd threatened to do so before, for different reasons, and liked to scare me into obedience with this threat. At the time, I was very young, and very easily cowed into thinking that he loved me, really, and that he'd never actually go through with it. I made so many dumb excuses for his behaviour.
I didn't speak to anyone about the rape, although I quickly left the guy that raped me. I didn't even think about what happened for a year. I started dating the guy I had feelings for, the guy who now wants to meet up.
Our relationship was not easy. We were in college, and halfway through our second year, he had to return to his home country because his student funding was cut. I mounted a fundraising campaign to try and help, but that wasn't successful. After he left, I started to talk about what happened. I think he'd been a safety net for a while - a distraction from what was going on underneath. I loved him really, really deeply - in a way i've not loved anyone before or since, but I couldn't reconcile that with the emotions that were now welling up - this feeling of powerlessness, of hating my own body, of wishing I could cut myself of from it. I felt that the rape, which I was thinking about for the first time, meant that my relationship with my new love was wrong or sullied, somehow. Actually, to be honest, I thought everything in my life was now tarnished in some way (I know this sounds a bit dramatic, but I can't think of another way to describe it). I broke off our relationship, saying that I needed time and I really didn't understand what was going on with my mind. The very thought of sex suddenly brought me into a panic, anyway. He tried to be supportive, as best as I think he could, but he really didn't understand what was going on with me, why I was suddenly acting strange.
Time went by. He told be he wouldn't be returning to my country. We spoke to each other regularly via skype. I was slowly going into meltdown. I was extremely suicidal, barely keeping myself together, and I felt totally isolated. I started hallucinating that cockroaches were infesting my flat. One night I had a terrible one night stand with another student at my college. I was this awful mix of numb detachment and miserable self-hatred. And, yes, I know it's a cliche, but I really, really wanted to just feel something. Anything. I though maybe that it would be like trying to get on a bike again after a fall. Boy was I wrong. The night was a complete disaster, and I had a full dissociative flashback to the rape, the guy I was with put me in the same position as my rapist had and I was right back there, with his face above me - not good. Eventually I wound up in a psyche ward and I had to quit my course. I returned to my home town to live with my family.
And then, my ex told me he was coming back after all, and could we try dating and see how it went? I wanted this very badly, but also, I wanted to be honest, and I told him about the one night stand. In hindsight, not my brightest idea. He freaked out, accused me of cheating on him and generally got really angry/upset with me. Things just got worse from there. He came over, to try and make things work, and then decided to sleep with someone else, to hurt me. For a few weeks we traded accusations and insults, and then cut each other off. He started seeing someone else, returned to the course, got on with his life. I've been floundering and trying to keep my head above water, battling nightmares and panic attacks and obsessive self-hatred and pain that is so bad that some days I cannot walk. Ironically, my decision to leave cost me MY access to student funding and I feel a bit like my life has been completly screwed up. I live in a town with little to no mental health provision, and although I work for minimum wage, I have had to find a private therapist in order to get help. About a quarter of my wages go on therapy sessions.
Two years have passed since we last spoke to each other, but I recently recieved an email asking to meet up. He has nearly finished his course and is about to return to his home country again. One part of me wants to see him. He was very important to me once upon a time. Another part of me resents him furiously and is still very angry. I know the anger isn't helping me. I can't seem to let it go. I don't know what to do. I still miss him terribly, but he's been able to move on and have the life I wanted, whilst I am stuck, going nowhere, doing nothing.
First off, I'm new to the site and I don't know what the rules are about posting content to do with sexual assault or rape - am I supposed to use a trigger warning? If so, please consider this that warning. What follows is not graphic, but is related to those issues.
I have recently been diagnosed with PTSD, as the result of rape (as an adult) and long term physical and psychological abuse and neglect as a child. After a couple of sessions of assesment, my therapist suggested EMDR, which so far has helped (a bit). It's very early days. My symptoms have included flashbacks, avoidance, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness and weirdly, intense, crippling lower-abdominal pain. I've been checked for all sorts of conditions, such as endometriosis, but no one could find a cause. My doctor and my therapist have both concluded that the pain is a side-effect of my trauma. It certainly gets worse when I'm triggered.
An Ex recently got in touch with me. He is not the man who raped me, thank goodness. He is whoever, a man that I was raped because of. I had feelings for this guy that I had not acted on, and my attacker (my then boyfriend - sorry if this is confusing) raped me when he found out. He'd threatened to do so before, for different reasons, and liked to scare me into obedience with this threat. At the time, I was very young, and very easily cowed into thinking that he loved me, really, and that he'd never actually go through with it. I made so many dumb excuses for his behaviour.
I didn't speak to anyone about the rape, although I quickly left the guy that raped me. I didn't even think about what happened for a year. I started dating the guy I had feelings for, the guy who now wants to meet up.
Our relationship was not easy. We were in college, and halfway through our second year, he had to return to his home country because his student funding was cut. I mounted a fundraising campaign to try and help, but that wasn't successful. After he left, I started to talk about what happened. I think he'd been a safety net for a while - a distraction from what was going on underneath. I loved him really, really deeply - in a way i've not loved anyone before or since, but I couldn't reconcile that with the emotions that were now welling up - this feeling of powerlessness, of hating my own body, of wishing I could cut myself of from it. I felt that the rape, which I was thinking about for the first time, meant that my relationship with my new love was wrong or sullied, somehow. Actually, to be honest, I thought everything in my life was now tarnished in some way (I know this sounds a bit dramatic, but I can't think of another way to describe it). I broke off our relationship, saying that I needed time and I really didn't understand what was going on with my mind. The very thought of sex suddenly brought me into a panic, anyway. He tried to be supportive, as best as I think he could, but he really didn't understand what was going on with me, why I was suddenly acting strange.
Time went by. He told be he wouldn't be returning to my country. We spoke to each other regularly via skype. I was slowly going into meltdown. I was extremely suicidal, barely keeping myself together, and I felt totally isolated. I started hallucinating that cockroaches were infesting my flat. One night I had a terrible one night stand with another student at my college. I was this awful mix of numb detachment and miserable self-hatred. And, yes, I know it's a cliche, but I really, really wanted to just feel something. Anything. I though maybe that it would be like trying to get on a bike again after a fall. Boy was I wrong. The night was a complete disaster, and I had a full dissociative flashback to the rape, the guy I was with put me in the same position as my rapist had and I was right back there, with his face above me - not good. Eventually I wound up in a psyche ward and I had to quit my course. I returned to my home town to live with my family.
And then, my ex told me he was coming back after all, and could we try dating and see how it went? I wanted this very badly, but also, I wanted to be honest, and I told him about the one night stand. In hindsight, not my brightest idea. He freaked out, accused me of cheating on him and generally got really angry/upset with me. Things just got worse from there. He came over, to try and make things work, and then decided to sleep with someone else, to hurt me. For a few weeks we traded accusations and insults, and then cut each other off. He started seeing someone else, returned to the course, got on with his life. I've been floundering and trying to keep my head above water, battling nightmares and panic attacks and obsessive self-hatred and pain that is so bad that some days I cannot walk. Ironically, my decision to leave cost me MY access to student funding and I feel a bit like my life has been completly screwed up. I live in a town with little to no mental health provision, and although I work for minimum wage, I have had to find a private therapist in order to get help. About a quarter of my wages go on therapy sessions.
Two years have passed since we last spoke to each other, but I recently recieved an email asking to meet up. He has nearly finished his course and is about to return to his home country again. One part of me wants to see him. He was very important to me once upon a time. Another part of me resents him furiously and is still very angry. I know the anger isn't helping me. I can't seem to let it go. I don't know what to do. I still miss him terribly, but he's been able to move on and have the life I wanted, whilst I am stuck, going nowhere, doing nothing.
