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Sexual Assault Multiple Trauma.

  • Post starter Post starter Wanheda
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Wanheda

My mental health is declining. I'm not sure where it is heading by this point, but every time I try to get help I relapse. I have been speaking to psychologists, doctors and recently an addiction worker (Marijuana and alcohol, occasionally morphine). I don't want to throw anyone reading this straight in, but i've been relapsing for days on end now. I still am, and it's growing more exhausting. I'm trying to type this, i'm making myself type this because I'm running out of ideas.

Long story, many things happened in my life that has shaped my outlook and how I cope today.

I was raped last year by my best friend of 5 years, he was often the rock in my life when nothing was going well. I have self destructive tendencies and these escalated and exploded in my earlier 20's (I'm 24). My Best Friend was always there, he slept outside with me when I ran away the first time. Often, he saved me from more harm than I was already inflicting on myself. The only one who wouldn't judge, the only one helping me out and making sure I was still breathing weeks later. Then he raped me. I had lost control, he knew, we had talked about it earlier that evening because we could both see me going down a dark road. He was jealous. I slept with someone else, and he was angry. So angry. I thought he was being protective. I was naive. I was stupid. I ignored the red flags.

He would text me. He did for atleast a month afterwards, telling me how sorry he was. Telling me it was hard for him too. He just wanted human contact. He didn't really like me that way. He doesn't know why he done it. Can we still be friends.

I eventually built up the courage to tell him, on a particularly difficult day, that when he contacted me it sent me over the edge and my day was gone. He finally stopped. I never heard from him since. I deleted all social media, and have not returned.

My friends, the females abandoned me. One was a huge feminist, still is. She turned her back on me when I told her I was raped. The other told me I was a burden and to "F@ck off".

The males further damaged me. They took advantage. They didn't ask, and even when they did I wasn't in a head space to refuse them. I remember it too clearly. My friend of 10+ years sitting across from me wondering if I "wanted it" and I told him, "I don't know. But I think I do. So it's ok." I was under this mans protection from going home and back to the bedroom I was assaulted in. This man had seen me shake and cry and shiver many times. This man, I had never shown an interest in within the 10+ years of our friendship. We slept together three times before I managed to break it off. I returned a year later, with him pinning me against the wall in his "sleep" and pressing himself onto me, into me. I froze. It took 2 or three nights of this before I built the courage to tell him he was too close at night. He became a little more respectful by that point, but the damage was done. We still speak. And sometimes it eats me up inside.

Another friend drove me out into the woods alone with him at night, it was something we tended to do to both get away for the night. He made a move on me, and then went on an internal monologue, outloud, about how I hadn't made it clear enough to my rapist that it wasn't wanted. Apparently, "he should have known, but..". I have never been afraid of this man, but in that moment I would be lying if I said i wasn't holding myself back from panicking. We had an event coming up, one that I had asked him to invite other mutual friends to, which he never did. Alarm bells rang. I would be drinking, we would be alone and he was hinting at the idea of us ending up in bed. I ran for the hills after that. He sarcastically thanked me for being such a good friend and "breaking our friendship off" and weeks later offered his support if I needed it, if I got into a bad situation. I never contacted him again.

Before all of this, I had been abused as a child. I had suppressed most of that abuse until I hit 18 and I began drinking too much.

I saw another thread here, and I was shocked to find I wasn't the only one. I became sexually active at the age of 4, until the age of 14. That has never left me, and my skewed reality when it comes to sex.

There are days I wake up and my mind flashes images of faceless figures ripping their skin and face off. Some days are worse than others. I have dreams and nightmares, of people who have hurt me coming back, of being raped by people who previously had never touched me. I have dreams of my rapist and our friendship.

I stare for a long time, sometimes when I'm in crisis. I stared at the same building once for around 30 minutes before I realised and "came back".

So far, all therapy has done is put some things into context and throw me back into the fray. I don't have many options left. I'm convinced and feel that it is an inevitable truth that I will die by my own hands. It may not be today, and it may not be any time in the very near future, but one day when the opportunity arises to just nudge forward and get it over with, it will happen.

I'm in so much pain. And my body is exhausted.

I have no crisis team, there aren't people around me who understand. I don't have money to live elsewhere, so I live in the room next door to the room I was raped in. Nobody wanted me, and I had nowhere to go. I had no choice other than being homeless, which I have also done on a few occasions just to escape.

I dealt with this in isolation for over a year. My life consisted of four walls and nightmares. I had no friends left, I had no safe place to go and so I grew used to the room next door. There was no door between the rooms, so a blanket seperates me from that space.

I stopped going to university. I stopped going out all together. I would stare at my walls for hours, sometimes days. My life has changed since, slowly. I now have a new person in my life who tries to support me as best she can, and I do the same for her.

I still spend my days between four walls, but the nightmares don't end whether i'm between them or outside. It's all the same. My head is a constant struggle to maintain, and I try to look positively and I try to pick myself up each time. I have been to several professionals, from councellors to psychologists and I'm still gruellingly pushing myself through it. But I'm getting to the end of my tether. Even talking to another person face to face about my struggles brings it all back, sometimes I'll relive it, sometimes i'll go into crisis.

I'm losing this battle. There is too much to sift through in my head, too much that keeps me silent, my head feels like it's going to explode. I have held my head in my hands more than once today and screamed silently.

I don't know if I can live like this anymore.

If there is anyone who thinks they can help, or direct me to something, or anything. I will literally accept anything by this point.
 
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You have been through a lot. So sorry you are in so much pain. :hug:
My mental health is declining. I'm not sure where it is heading by this point, but every time I try to get help I relapse. I have been speaking to psychologists, doctors and recently an addiction worker (Marijuana and alcohol, occasionally morphine). I don't want to throw anyone reading this straight in, but i've been relapsing for days on end now. I still am, and it's growing more exhausting. I'm trying to type this, i'm making myself type this because I'm running out of ideas.
Reaching out for help and risking the pain of vulnerability tends to stir up things for me, and I will be at risk for relapse right in the beginning stages myself. It's common for things to feel much worse before they get better.

How long have you been in therapy? Have you considered going inpatient on a trauma specialized dual diagnosis unit?
 
I'm truly sorry. Coming from a man that has refused sex for eleven years I can say that you are struggling like us all. I know it must be hard and that you have no where to turn. Turn to us. As each of us in our unique way can help.
 
I have felt like you before, this period of wanting to die, knowing you're going to do it, not right now but some day. I went to a hospital and told them I was afraid I was going to hurt myself. They told me to sit and wait, for what, I can't remember. The waiting room was empty but for a woman in an adjacent waiting room lying on her stomach. She was yelling out to whoever over and over how tired she was and to hurry up. I was afraid of her. I read flyers stapled to the carpeted walls to distract myself. Eventually I took a staple from the wall and scratched/cut my inner arms. I didn't mean to, I was really really scared, I mean, I wasn't doing it for attention or anything.

I was in the psych ward for 3 days and then got transfered to a cushy mental facility for 7 days. They didn't help too much, therapeutically or medicinally, but I was safe for those days. Maybe that short span of 100% safety and knowing that that feeling truly exists gave me additional strength to keep moving forward.

There are places available to go to and just rest, at least for the first day or so, and feel safe. It will give you strength. I wish you luck, all the luck there is to be had.
 
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