life after rape

Not feeling the best

2009-09-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

At the minute I'm generally feeling a bit down in the dumps. There is nothing in particular I can put my finger on, just a lot of little things that have all of a sudden become overwhelming.

I'm having nightmares again. They;re different now. There is no one person, there isn't even an action. In my dreams there are a lot of shadows and the threat of danger. There is something terrifying about not being able to see what you're afraid of. It's like being a child again and being afraid of monsters under the bed. They're not real but they frighten the living day lights out of you.

My boyfriend is being kept in the dark. I move beds in the middle of the night to stop him being worried about me. There are so many little white lies. The line between truth and deceit for some one's own good is blurry and I'm unsure where to stand. I'm scared and I feel alone.

I'm once again making myself be alone, cutting off the one I love the most.

A year together

2009-09-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

Me and my boyfriend will be together a year next week. It has been an amazingly brilliant year and a year of learning and growing. The patience and love he has shown me has taken my breath away.

I'm healing. The thoughts are still with me. I'm more wary of people and of the things I do but it's getting better. There are less nightmares and less moments of pure despair.

I have found safety with this man. Through that I have rediscovered my independence. It's a strange statement. By being with someone I have found myself again. No matter what happens I will always be grateful to him.

Time has always been said to be a great healer but I now understand that it is love that really heals the deepest and greatest of wounds.

One day at a time

2009-06-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

All my thoughts are in the title

Have I found the one???????

2009-02-10T10:45:00.000-08:00

I met a wonderful kind patient man several months ago. He has all the traits that I longed for in a person; he works hard for himself and his family, he has a heart that is full of kindness and respect, he treats me like an angel. After so long of keeping my secret hidden it came falling out my mouth after knowing him an hour.

There is something so unique about him in the way he looks at me. He never judged or gave his opinion. He just held me while I cried.
i honestly thought he would run or announce everything to the world. But he didn't. And he still hasn't.

Every night he holds me when I have nightmares. His kiss on my forehead before I sleep is better at making me feel safe than 100 alarms. He accepts when I get scared. I'm not scared of him or anything about him. I'm scared of my past ever repeating itself. above all he's patient. I make demands of him which are at best are irrational. They are tests he must pass to gain my trust. I feel like sometimes I am making him beg for me. i need in some strange way to be unreasonable and to have barriers to protect myself.

Self-preservation is the bottom line.

His patience is a quality that I admire so much about him. But it's not a quality that is endless. I'm going to push him away because sometimes it's too much. The touching the kissing the being with each other, sometimes it makes me hurt all over.
I know I'm not coming across every well right now but I am terrified that if I keep being the way I am I will lose him.
On the other hand if I don't have barriers how will I stop this happening again?????????

Safe?

2008-07-04T07:45:00.001-07:00

Feeling safe is something I took for granted when I was younger. My parents looked after me for so many years. When I went to school my friends looked out for each other. I have an alarm on my car and in my house. Bank cards are protected by pins. E-mails are kept safe by passwords. I’m not saying that any of these things are 100% reliable but they are in place to make us feel safer.

What happens when the safety is gone? When I was 15 I started dating a friend of mine. He was my best friend if I’m honest. I loved him and still do with all my heart. We broke up nearly 3 years ago but still see each other. He was my safety blanket. When I was feeling down he was always there for me. He made me feel like a princess. Until I was attacked.

I met him for a coffee one day. He suggested going back to mine but I refused. He kept badgering me and pressurizing me until I agreed. Back at my place he tried it on. This was 3 months after I was attacked. I froze, I cried, I eventually told him most of the gory details. His response???? “Have you finished whining yet?”

Since then we have kept seeing each other for brief periods of time. I never thought I could survive without him. He was my life. I was at such a low point personally that I truly believed that if I was not with him I would have no one.

All that changed last weekend. He came to visit me now that I live a 3 hour drive away. For the whole time he insulted my appearance, my friends, my choice of drink, everything about me. The end came when I overheard him telling a friend that the only reason he had came to visit was because I was an ‘easy lay’. After everything I had been through to him this seemed like a fair thing to say to him. I said nothing and lift. I wasted enough of my breath and life on him. No more.

I had my dignity, my will to live, my faith shattered by the man who raped me. Now my safety blanket is gone.

Passing time

2008-06-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

Time is a great healer. ????????????????. I wish I understood what that meant. Do events seem less real after time? Do they seem less important? Or do our memories just fade? Since my last posting I have moved from home, I have started a new job and a new life, far away from the places that remind me of him. The trouble with memories is that you can not run form them. You can go to the other side of the world and they will still be with you. You can sell all your belongings, demolish everything that reminds you of the past except those memories.

That’s how I feel. The place has changed but the memories stay the same.

It’s not all bad though. I have come to the realization that these experiences have made me how I am. That’s not all a bad thing. I have grown stronger through everything. I suppose that everyone has moments of doubt and darkness but its how you deal with them that counts. The memories I doubt will ever fade but they will mine and that is who I am. People can move in and out of my life but I am always me. Acceptance of the past or myself is not coming easy but I’ll get there.

4 little letters

2007-11-18T03:46:00.000-08:00

First of all i want to say how moved and encouraged i am with the amazing comments i have received. i also want to talk about something that was mentioned about my posts. I never say the word rape. It's four letters. Yet these four letters fill me with a sickness that can't be compared with anything i have ever felt before. they smell of him, they bring his face right up against mine again. They make me feel less human.
I wish I had the strength that all of you women have shown. I don't think I'm that strong. I can't even say the word for heaven's sake.

1st anniversary

2007-10-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday was the first anniversary of it..... I don't really know what i thought would happen. I got up. Did the normal things. There was nothing amazing about the day. I suppose i thought there should be a way of marking the day, of saying this is how i look and feel a year on. But no one knows. I really thought the pain would be less by now but it's worse. I'm tired. I'm tired of pretending everything is normal. I'm tired of living a lie behind a smile and laugh. I can smell him, feel him. I makes me sick. I wish this was a bad dream and i would just wake up. Someone pinch me please.

Am I going insane?

2007-10-12T01:56:00.000-07:00

I think I'm losing my mind. most of the time I'm a rational human being who does what everyone else does. I get up, I go to work, I talk to others, I watch telly, I go to bed. Other times I feel like I'm not in control of anything. For example I had to go for a breast exam with a male doctor during the week. I cried all the way to the hospital. In the waiting room I had a panic attack. The thought of this man touching me was heart breaking. I felt ill and became incredibly irrational. I spent the day screaming at my family. This isn't their fault. Then I went to bed. I couldn't get up. I couldn't face the world or the people I've been so horrible to. All this because I was scared another man would touch me when I didn't want them to. How am I supposed to live a normal life when I can't conduct myself properly in public? I feel I'm taking two steps forward and one step back. I can't see the end of the road...........................

Relationships

2007-10-01T02:18:00.000-07:00

I can't shake this heavy soul destroying feeling that this man has ruined every possible romantic relationship i will ever have. Before i was attacked i went out, had fun, the thought of having or not having sex was never an issue. I was never promiscuous but i did have fun. Now I'm afraid to look a man dead in the eye. I have had one sexual relationship since. This was a man who was 14 years older than myself and treated me like a princess. I told him the bare details of what happened before we had sex. He was supportive and caring and everything I hoped for. We went out for a month after that and he stopped calling. I wish I knew why. The reason I believe is that he couldn't deal with someone who had my history. Truthfully i don't blame him. How can i expect anyone else to like me and accept my past when I don't?

The worst of all

2007-09-12T05:34:00.000-07:00

Three weeks after my attack, three weeks of pretending everything is fine. Then the realisation that man had gotten me pregnant. Was it not bad enough that i was feeling like shit besides having to deal with another life. I didn't know how to feel. was i angry that i was in this situation? Was i worried about the baby and it's health? Could i keep the baby without it being a constant reminder of my pain? all i knew is that I couldn't cope. I locked myself in my room when i wasn't at work. i didn't make eye contact with anyone when i was out. I thought a lot about everything. The end result was that i had to have the baby and put it up for adoption. It wasn't this little life's fault that it was conceived in an act of violence.

But someone up there had other ideas. At 7 weeks i lost it. It nearly drove me insane. I had spent so long thinking about this life inside me, coming to terms with it's existence. now it was gone and i was in bits.

What just happened?

2007-09-12T05:22:00.000-07:00

Survival instinct. As i lay there i think i must have gone through what people trapped in a life or death situation must experience. I just knew i had to get up and survive. He had damaged me physically and emotionally. The first thing i had to deal with was the physical. Casualty doctors tests. i experienced it all as if i was out of my body looking down on a poor broken soul from somewhere else. If i had thought about what was happening, if I had lived it and wouldn't have been able to cope. The next step was the emotional. I did the wrong thing. i pretended that nothing had happened and that life was normal. It wasn't normal and still isn't. It's so strange to know that this is my life now. I wake up in the morning thinking about it. I go through the routines of work and existing really but always in the back of my mind there is a little voice constantly reminding me of what happened. I wake up every night in a cold sweat thinking about it.
I could have wet straight to the police. I could have gotten him arrested. I could have seen justice. I didn't. i rang my best friend. I say best friend now with a wee laugh. her response was that every one feels like that sometimes. I wasn't really raped i just wasn't in complete control of the situation.

What happened to me doesn't happen to everyone and it wasn't it my mind. It was real, this is real. I can't just pretend that I'm not a victim.

The beginning

2007-09-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

My life can easily be split in two; life before and after i was raped. i have set up this blog because i need an outlet and i need others in my situation to know it's not the end of the world.

Who i am and where I'm from is not important. I could any woman you see walking down the street.

This is my story, or at least the beginning;
One year ago i was dating a man the same age as me. he was lovely so i thought. He had a good job, looked after his children, was generally a responsible man. He ticked all the boxes. Because of the jobs we worked and the distance between both of us it didn't work out. At this stage we had dated for 3 months. At the October bank holiday, two weeks after we broke up, he showed up at my door. I let him in. we watched Jerry maguire. then he kissed me. I pulled back, not wanting anything to happen. He grabbed me and dragged me to the bedroom. I was screaming but there was no one to hear me. i can't remember all the details. they have become foggy in my mind. he lay on top of me. No one needs to know all the details. His whole weight was pressing on me. He tore off my clothes. He bit me. He raped me. He was screaming at me to use the pain. Make the sex better for me. He climbed off after what felt like hours but may just have been 5 minutes. He told me to clean myself up and he left. I was left bleeding, cold, scared. That is where my life changed forever.