And the downs...frustration about justice

[Mee]

had a good couple of weeks and still think trend is upwards.

I am feeling very frustrated though about the failure of the justice system in my rape case ( not my trigger but connected ... police were really supportive which helped a lot but the case was not proceedable; one person’s word against another as is most often the case and while police and DA believed me ...they kept repeating that... they felt it too flimsy for a jury ) and the inability or redundancy of tackling my trigger situation legally. I truly feel if I had ‘justice’ it would remove lots of triggers because the world would feel safer.

The me too/ times up stuff is sort of help ful but also not because .... why not for people in my situation ? There is a lot of self pity going on.

Nasty flashbacks today to trigger situation have been very difficult

 

[hodge]

I am so, so sorry, @Mee. That is just wrong, wrong, wrong. I never got justice, either, because my mother chose to not make me go through a trial. I was 12 and couldn't decide for myself. I think it's abominable that there is a statute of limitations on rape. It should be treated legally as murder, because it does murder the soul. Just try to take good care of yourself, okay? Try to eat a little healthy food, even if you can't eat much. Just little bits can help pave the way to feeling better. Hang in there.

 

[void]

Many victims end up left with Just Ice instead of Justice.....cold and harsh.

May you find peace in spite of Society's failure.:hug:

 

[Mee]

Thank you so much void and hodge. It helps a lot

I have felt low about it but I am resigned.

I actually totally get the position regarding the rape. I knew it would result in that ( I actually knew before reporting it was them who informed me it had to be investigated not just reported because of the severity and nature of the crime and I admit this got my hopes up in a strange way that there might be some recognition. Recognition from DA and knowledge that if anyone else reports my evidence helps HAS to be enough there. That’s helped me come to terms with that, quote logically I guess ( though I wish someone could find away to approach this differently ; our current situation is failing ).

Yes, I had some soup and am going to listen to an audiobook to try and take my head somewhere else.

Thank you both

 

[Mee]

Sitting in this place today.

A former friend verbally assaulted me out of the blue about being ‘stuck’ and ‘not able to ‘get over it’ because I am not addressing my failings .

Hmm. I think it’s unfair. I go to therapy twice a week; work on myself, address where I need to work on.

 

[Swift]

Hey @Mee, sounds like your friend is struggling with a bit of 'just world' fallacy. Good guys win, bad guys lose, and everything is fixable through sheer effort, so if you can't fix it, you're not trying hard enough.
Re: justice - my case is slightly different because it's CSA, but I'll tell you how I kind of work around it.
There can be no justice. I cannot take away what they took from me. I cannot go back in time and make them feel what I felt, suffer what I suffered. The best I can probably do is piss them off a bit. They're never going to have the empathy or the self-awareness to feel the worst of the feelings. Might as well shoot for the moon.
Coming to terms with that took the sting out of it.
But - life isn't fair, life isn't just, and what happened to you was both unfair and unjust.
A sense of injustice is reasonable in the circumstances. In fact, it's probably self-protective - injustice puts the blame where it belongs, which is squarely on the festering sh*tstain masquerading as human who did this to you.
As for justice taking triggers and pain away, would justice through the courts help with that? Idk.
Wishing you the best.

 

[Mee]

Hey @Mee, sounds like your friend is struggling with a bit of 'just world' fallacy. Go...

Thanks Swift :).

My former friend raised some things I think would be valid we’re they accurate. I chatted with my therapist about it and we talked about my reaction and my therapist was ‘proud ‘ of me.

Re justice. It’s tricky. The situation is very complicated; I think innocent people would me hurt if I sought justice but what my therapist has been working with me on is that in always giving compassion to others I devalue MYSELF. And that my innocence is as valuable. What was done to me is as valuable.

I was raped ( separate but connected) during the same time period. Reporting to police and knowing that this could not be prosecuted but could protect someone else who might be a victim of the same violator or even help the violator ( who is not an evil person just did a very bad thing) address themselves helped me come to terms with it; so yes, for me even incomplete justice is helpful.

Of course there is the practicality that I am left with life time consequences from my PTSD triggering ‘thing’; plus the bills of therapy. These tangible realities beside the ‘head stuff’ ;) are not going anywhere and it feels very wrong any victim is left with punitive results. It feels like .... the opposite of justice in fact! Punitive.

As it happens I am reaching a stage where I am not ‘my old self’ but feeling more whoever ‘mee’ is going to me happy with being flickering into existence sometimes and that’s pretty good. But I react extremely negatively to messages like ‘this happened to teach you...’. Or ‘well, the blessing in this is that.....’.

No.

No, no , no!

I will learn from it! But it was not WORTH the learning opportunity! I offer people who say such a strong but polite rebuttal.

Justice. I don’t know how much it would help with pain. Not at all I imagine. But if It helped by paying for the therapy I would be pleased. If it brought social awareness and responsibility I would be very pleased; I think the latter WOULD help with the pain somewhat in fact.

 

[Swift]

Hey. Great post. "Punitive" is an awesome word for this. Sorry if I came off a bit strong by insulting the perpetrator; I should've been more sensitive.
I'm glad you handled your former friend's outburst well, and that your therapist thinks so.
I'm guessing you're in America? (Bills, the term 'DA'). Is there any way you could pursue civil damages?
Also, if they're employed, do they work in a field with a professional body (eg health care, law, security, any field where they might need a licence to practice?) That's a decent avenue sometimes. As is informing their employer if they're in a field that may allow them opportunity to perpetrate (if you think that's something they might do, and you'd like to stop them).
And yeah. Self-pity is kind of an important part of self-compassion, too
What would justice look like to you?
Like, if you could arrange it in real-world, feasible terms, what would happen?
(For my stuff, I'm torn a couple of ways, there's got to be a happy medium between burnt at the stake and getting off scot-free.)

 

[Mee]

Hey. Great post. "Punitive" is an awesome word for this. Sorry if I came off a bit strong by insulting th...

the rape happened in America, yes.
And no, you were not too strong. I actually see my rapist as a victim.

It’s a very complicated an identifying situation :(. I do not know if my rapist was ‘goaded’ or ‘encouraged’ by a third party. I certainly know that third party primed me ( the police read all the texts and I am guessing they found no correlation in communication with the rapist) .

I am a child abuse survivor too but had no traumatic lifestyle situation as a result. My therapist feels this is not Cptsd rather that my ‘other situation’ was the trigger event for PTSD because I had survived well, forged strong moral boundaries. This forum recently gave me the term ‘moral injury’ and that was one of the identifiable big parts of what made this an untenable for me to ‘come to terms with’ and react with PTSD.

Yes: civil case against the is what is being discussed at home. I am not really concerned with a civil case against the straight forward rape. The police know, were emphatic about their support and belief and I understand ( and support) why under the current legal system it makes no sense to try it. The complicated situation. I feel strong reasons as to why I SHOULD ethically AND personally ; but I also know it would be not with out risk to self and hurt to others. My ‘guess’ is I will not. It’s an expensive way to put my self through more pain. The violator needs a licence to work But I think to do it this way would be vengeful and harassing. The licence does not increase risk losing it would not increase it.

But I also feel VERY strongly it has to be my decision about a civil case and I reject judgement by my former friend or pressure from my husband (who is hurt and angry too).


I LOVE your questions about justice! And what it might look like!

In my IDEAL world my straight up rapist would have got therapy. Not served time or anything. Really good therapy. We had been friends and I knew they had insecurities and depression issues. The weekend they raped me there were confessions of some seriously concerning things ( that I told the police too) and it became obvious that this person was not sexually and emotionally liberated but rather needy and selfish and somewhat dangerous. I still did not feel at risk.

I think the same for the other violator; though last I heard he was getting therapy. He made the apology.

Justice for me would be this being more public from violators so that their victims are not accused ( as I have been) of lying or being crazy. And so that people who they interact with in the future are safer. My therapist points out not everyone accepts the ‘no bad guys/ good guys’ thing as I do but I think a society shift needs to happen.

And to have my therapy relating to this paid for and for ongoing expenses relating to things arising from this; the things that make living with what happened punitive.


I am really reacting quite strongly to bystander effect and have been since. Bystanders and enablers. I have I recognise been responsible as a bystander at times over things. I realise now as I look back at how many people knew how important society is. I am increasingly in favour of ‘good Samaritan’ laws and learning how important bystanders and enabling is in many crimes particularly abuse, domestic crimes.

I also have spent a lot of time looking at stats about rape. We need a different system . Shrug. Ours is not satisfactory.

I would like to see consent laws redefined. Informed consent ( as is written about by the campaigner Joyce M Short). Speaks to me most.

 

[Swift]

Hey yeah. All valid points.
"Should" is a tricky place to be, emotionally. And yeah, you're right, anything you do, has to be because you've decided it's the best course of action for YOU, not anyone else. Everyone else is allowed to have their feelings, but you've got to be in the driver's seat decision-wise.
Is mediation an option? Like, it's a lower cost process with trained people, that can have legally binding impacts. Realistically speaking, your rapist should pay for your therapy, agree to go to their own, and basically fix the mess they've made.
Re: systems, I have a few ideas.
- the French legal system is inquisitorial, not adversarial. A judge tries to find the truth rather than the better argument.
- the Scottish system has a third verdict of 'case not proven' - meaning the court can't send them to jail, but the perpetrator doesn't get to say they're innocent.
The 'beyond reasonable doubt' standard for consent is ridiculous. Informed consent is awesome. A 'due diligence' test - did you ask if the person was consenting, did you take measures to ensure you had consent, did you stop when they said to, would be good. Another option is putting the onus of proof for consent on the accused - they have to prove they actively tried to establish consent for whatever activity, rather than the accuser having to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the other person knew they weren't consenting.

 

[Mee]

Hey yeah. All valid points.
"Should" is a tricky place to be, emotionally. And yeah, you're right, anyth...

Mediation is not an option I think. I would ask it proposed but only if I made the decision to pursue. For the ‘innocents’ it will have similar impact.


‘Not proven’. Is of course the real truth I think for most sexual crimes; no one else being there :(. We can never prove consent , it will often be one word against another. I think the sheer volume of cases where this would be is something that possibly would give pause to those in charge of already busy systems.

But I love this; you are just right!

An inquisitorial system hmm. looking around for data the report rates are still
Not good https://news.vice.com/article/new-s...-paris-and-says-nine-out-of-ten-go-unreported. But I found an almost ten year old piece saying that conviction rates were almost 25 percent. That’s kind of amazing in sex crimes ( it’s so sad that’s impressive when we also are told only 2-8 percent accusations are not genuine) .


I think turning the burden of proof around is tough. I think people hate tampering with ‘the way things have been’ and if I cannot prove I was raped I cannot expect others to prove they didn’t.

The problem with all the systems is violators lie. My rapist tried to convince me I initiated it ( I was asleep ). They lied about other things like talking about our ‘sex’ ( the rape) to others. I think what ever system it is it comes down to if the truth can be distinguished.

 

[Swift]

Yeah. It's difficult hey.
With the adversarial system, the truth isn't the object of the case.
I don't mean the 'burden' of proof or the presumption of innocence. Burden of proof is on the complainant, and the presumption that someone's innocent is massively important.
One element of a sexual assault case is the prosecution has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a) the accuser wasn't consenting and b) that the violator KNEW that the person wasn't consenting. There's really no room for affirmative consent in that kind of law. People, women and minority genders in particular, are conditioned to just get it over with. It also makes no room for the 'freeze' response. So I reckon that the accused should have to prove that they took reasonable steps to ensure consent, and watch the cross-examination shred them in that regard. Probably the 'reasonable person' test: did they take the steps that a reasonable person would take to gain consent.
In Australia we have this thing called doli incapax for kids - the presumption that the kid didn't understand what they were doing was morally wrong, instead of just naughty. If the defendant is 10-12, the prosecution has to prove that doli incapax doesn't apply. If the kid is 12-14, then the defence has to prove that it does. That's kinda how I see consent working - the defence has to prove that the violator tried to ensure consent, rather than the prosecution having to prove they knew the other personday wasn't consenting beyond reasonable doubt.
A reality where if someone says I violated them, I then have to prove beyond reasonable doubt thay I didn't, is not what I want.
Of course violators lie, they'd have to be stupid not to. Is there a post of yours I should read about what happened?