What rape did to you?

[Locke2121]

Damn...I just want to wrap all of you up in a big hug. And find the jerks that did these things and show 'em some Appalachian justice!

[imasurvivor]

I was raped at the age of 38 by my husband when he "snapped". To add insult to injury I was working at a hospital and pretty much when I went to the emergency room the following day due to pain in my right hand and arm due to the struggle...they put a sling on my arm...my husband sat in the emergency room...nothing really happened..and I just went into a severe depression, moved into the basement in the house and never went back to my job at the hospital. I completely shut down. This at this point was over 14 years ago. It also was my sons birthday, which I now relive this annually combined with my sons birthday.

 

Ive never really been the same since that happened. I know it forever changed..and honestly this wasnt the first bad thing to happen to me. My adopted brother 3 years older started molesting me as a young girl. Sometim es bad things happen to good people! Im a good person. I am not in a basement anymore...and I know right from wrong. I will continue to work to be the best person I know how...a Mother, Grandmother and caring friend. But all this has definitely affected my life..and not in good ways.

[mintblossom]

the first time i had sex, it was with my bf at the time. i was 18, a freshman in college. we were on my bed messing around. i was thinking i might want to have sex with him, but i was very unsure because i had never had such feelings for anyone before and also because i wanted to wait until marriage. i had very conservative views about sex.......and to this day i feel a lot more conservative than people my age. i feel people my age can do things that.....i just can't do and wouldn't be comfortable or okay with doing.

 

anyways, we got to a point and i said, "stop." but he kept on pushing and pushing....and that's when it really occurred to me that he might not stop. so i really pushed him and tried to knee him. i had always thought i would be able to stop at anytime but he just forced it in. i cried afterwards. i was very upset and i cried and cried. he was grinning and i asked him why he was smiling. he said "because we just had sex." then he became mad because he said i "ruined" it with my crying. afterwards i just submitted to him because i gave up. i thought i was ruined and hopeless, my wanting to be a virgin until marriage was taken from me.

 

in hindsight, i should have never seen him again. but it was a very unhappy experience. at the time i was very naive, innocent and i did not see what a jerk he was. but i look back on it now......and it's still an awful experience that brings back traumatic feelings. i never called it rape, never called it pressure, never called it anything........but it was awful. it was just awful because i didn't feel in control and i didn't feel good about it at all. i felt like the decision was made for me against my will. i remember pushing him and saying stop and i remember crying hysterically.

 

a philosopher.....sarte i think says that "hell is other people" and i really think some people purposely through their choices, actions, and behaviors towards others create hell. i don't completely understand how they do it but they are able to take experiences that are kind, loving, gentle, caring and turn them into experiences that become terrifying, hurtful, demeaning, and humiliating within a short time period.

 

i would never have wanted it to happen this way but that's the way it turned out.

 

it's really changed my perception of some people. before i really thought most people in this world were good. i actually thought the world was pretty much like disneyland, happy and clean and pure and that is the life i wanted to live. that was the world that existed in my mind, a world if honesty, truth, and goodness. so i did not really understand how to protect myself and how to watch out for unscrupulous people.......but now i know. i learned through painful experiences.

 

im beginning to understand that a lot of these experiences are not just about sex. it is also about themes such as power, control, and humiliation. i think that some experiences do not strictly classify as "rape" in legal terms but that doesn't mean that the emotional, mental, psychological consequences to victims aren't just as horrifying and disturbing.

[mintblossom]

okay, i am a lot calmer now. i read through this thread and i think there are two things here.

 

for the women - it's important to define our boundaries, be very clear what we will and will not accept and to protect ourselves from the unscrupulous jerks.

 

for the men - it's very important for good men to protect themselves as well, that is, to make sure sex is consensual and that the sexual messages conveyed are straightforward and that the girl is okay with what she is doing. (that the girl is choosing to have sex, no force). i can actually sense the fear good men would have of being falsely accused. for example, a man could say: are you okay with this?

 

isn't this interesting? i can kind of see how men and women need to have boundaries when it comes to sex, even though those boundaries differ. the messages should be clear because oftentimes it seems fuzzy.

 

and as for the molestors, perverts, and pressuring, coercing, assaulting bastards......well, they need to go to jail to prevent this from happening to any other women.

 

i hope this all makes sense....sex can be such an emotional heated issue....i never quite understood it the way i do now.

 

i have regrets about the men and sexual situations which i have placed myself in and which i was not knowledgeable or assertive enough at the time to get myself out of. but i won't let that happen to me ever again.

[imasurvivor]

tear drops,

 

so now a days..do you find you cry after or during....sex....

[imasurvivor]

teardrops,

with regard to your statement about men asking if the woman is ok with things..A man who cares...will say to you...are you ok? At any given point in time during the encounter..they'll say you ok? Maybe a couple times randomly a man will say, you ok?? this to me is the sign of a man who does care...who wants to make sure you're comfortable with the situation..He in no way wants to be perceived as forceful. There are men like this out there who will ask. They sincerely want to know. Men are congnizant of the force factor and a good man will go slow and be sure that its consentual.

[Locke2121]

teardrops your one tough cookie, though you may not think you are at times. Don't worry, one day soon you'll find a man that will make love to you, not just have sex.

[the empty drawer]

I've never exposed myself online like this before but thought I'd give it a shot...while I still have some nerve. Forgive my train of thought and verbosity.

 

Next month I am going to be age twenty-three and I am partly terrified, because in my head I see how my life has gone and I think I see a cruel pattern from Fate that, for three of the years of my life, have happened five years apart each. For those on unfriendly terms with numbers those years would be age eight, thirteen, and eighteen for me. Unpleasant things happened to me during those ages.

 

The only time I've ever seen a professional on the "bad things" (thats what I call those three events) was on something that happened to me when I was age thirteen. And I only saw the professional once, nice woman, gave me some good insights, but its nothing something I need to continue. Anyway this bad thing seems so strange and twisted to me because it was my older cousin who assaulted me. He would have been age thirty-nine I think, very much an adult while I was yet young and small at age thirteen.

 

I had never meet him before until a (surprise) family union in the summer time. At the reunion a lot of my extended family was making fun of me because I had a big crush on a boy I meet in the hotel we were all staying at. Its important to know that. After the reunion was over my parents offered to drive my adult cousin back to his house since it was on the way to our own. He and I took the back seat of the van while my parents had the front seat. To be curt during the car ride he tried several time to touch me and tried to get to me to touch him, if you all get what I'm saying, but I pulled away and shook my head "no" to him. Which I was not comfortable with but I was too confused to inform my parents who were right there in the van just three/four feet away that my adult cousin was trying to play a fondling game with me.

 

Finally we got to his house and I was feeling very happy to think I would be ride of him and hopefully never see him again. My parents went with him inside the house to get coffee because they had been driving for half a day...I stayed in the van, go figure. When they came out my cousin popped into the van and grabbed my hands saying my parents agreed to let me go on a car ride with him and he said I had to go. I got out of the van and pleaded with my parents to just get back on the road, I begged and begged, then got angry and begged some more to not go with him! But my parents said I had to go because they wanted to take a nap in the house and they didn't want me to wake them up.

 

After what felt like forever I submitted to my parent's demands and got in my cousin's car. The whole drive to his house we never actually spoke to each other and this car ride started out like that. We had been driving for ten minutes or so and I was hoping it would stay quiet. It didn't of course. He pulled over the car and put it in park, then turned to look at me, then said to me "So you liked that boy at the hotel? Did you want to sex him?". I didn't answer. I didn't move. After a few moments he then said "How about you sex me?" then he screamed at me "Or aren't I sexing good enough for you to sex?!". {he didn't say "sex" of course but the vulgar verb that starts with "F" and rhymes with hockey "puck"} At that he jumped on me and started to grab me and rub himself against me and I just kept screaming and fighting as best I could. But he was a very strong full grown man there was nothing I could do to stop him. He hit me and told me to just shut up and sex him but I was too scared to stop screaming. I don't know how long he struggled with me but after a while I guess he decided I wasn't worth it so he refastened his cloths and I pulled whatever clothing he had torn off me back on. He could have really raped me but didn't, but it was a horrifying assault.

 

So that was me at thirteen. I never told my parents and since he hadn't hit me in the face any marks on me weren't visible when we arrived back at his house. They noticed I was acting different but my cousin said I saw a dead cat...or some other equally lame excuse my parents didn't question.

 

When I was age eighteen I had something more complicated happen to me. Though it was simpler it was more complicated, much like life to be that way.

 

Okay important background stuff...I had been going out with a boy for two years. Big thing for a High School started relationship. He was one year older than me and had graduated the year before and was in college while I had just graduated High School the month before. I was in a depressed loop of finding I had almost no friends from all my twelve years of public school except for an ex-boyfriend who I really shouldn't have been hanging out with because he was a drug pusher and user and a class A jerk.

 

Anyway I wasn't happy with my boyfriend. I no longer felt I loved him. So I went over to his house to break up with him. Even though he seemed like a normal guy and wasn't prone to violence or outbursts I thought I would be smart and stand on his doorstep not stepping foot inside to tell him I break with you. Which is exactly what I did. He responded by getting on his knee and asked me to marry him. I said no. He gave me a diamond to prove he had been planning this all along. I still said no, and was still outside while he was just inside the door.

 

He started freaking out so I turned to walk away, he grabbed me, dragged me into his house, locked the door, I'm starting to freak out now too, then was screaming at me and punching me. Somehow he threw me backwards and I hit my head on the stairs and almost blacked out. But I was still very conscious how to dragged me up the stairs to his room where he undressed me and raped me, I still fought some...I think...but after hitting my head things were blurry for a while. I remember him telling me how great it was that we got over our little fight and he kept saying "I love you" over and over. He gave me the diamond and I told him I would take it back to my parents and so he let me leave.

 

Maybe it was my head or what happened or both, but I just felt like I was in another world. The only thing I could think to do was go see my ex-boyfriend. He had called earlier asking if I wanted to have dinner with his parents and him and that was the only thing I could think of. So I drove to his house and I went inside and told all of them what had just happened. I begged them to help me. You want to know what they advised? They said they felt sorry for me but that kind of thing happens all the time and I should get over it. Then they started to ask me if I could prove he raped me but I didn't know what to say, it was hard to stand because of my head aching let along talk (I don't know how I mustered the will to drive a car). So they told me it would be harder on me to go to the police because I couldn't prove anything and I should just stay at their house for a few days and "heal up"...I complied because I didn't know what else to do or where else to go. So I was bed ridden for a few days and they quote unquote took care of me and told to forget anything bad ever happened.

 

Of all the people on Earth aren't I so lucky to have found people like that? I spent a few years not even thinking about the bad thing that had happened to me then, but two years ago I was able to admit it happened and come to terms with how I failed to do justice when it would have been so easy. Its not been reported and I never saw my rapist boyfriend again. He never even tried to contact me so I have no idea what went on in his mind or what he is doing now.

 

If you are still reading kudos to you. Want to know what happened to me when I was age eight? I've had a lot of time to think about the bad thing that happened to me when I was age eight. My neighbor was a boy who still looked like a child, no voice change no facial hair, and he wanted to be my "friend". Over a summer we became "friends". He was far from being a child in the respect that he had fully functioning genitalia and well...its important to note I had no idea what sex was at this age, and no one had ever told me about good touched and bad touches (thanks mom and dad!)...because he was a little older and smarter than me he coerced me into sexual play. Touching and body part kissing. I didn't like it but he always convinced me if I was his "friend" I would play with him this play.

 

In short over the course of a summer he used me like a sex toy. In essense I lost my virginity at age eight but I wouldn't realize this until later in life. He also liked to do whatever he could to hurt me as much as possible. Now my parents warned me of the dangerous stranger, don't let a stranger get you in his car, or help him find his lost dog, but all this stranger fear was a cover for the real fear of a child being used for sex. And for some reason that real message is rarely conveyed to children, heaven forbid they know why they mustn't talk to stranger...or perhaps a neighbor. This has never been reported either.

 

I feel guilty that I am saying all these things and how it could be interpreted that I hate men or something. For the record I don't hate anyone, not even those who hurt me and did bad things to me. I am afraid of them if I ever saw them again, but I have never hated any of them. For a long time I was very angry at my parents. I feel like they should have protected better when I was eight and later when I was thirteen. I feel anger at how cruel those people I begged for help were after I was raped when I was eighteen, that there are people who could care so little about me they used me because I "owed them" after they had "taken care of me" when I came to them for help. They never helped me. I've been able to talk too two people offline about these bad things. But I to be honest only one person really really knows every detail like how I've gone into here. This is part of my self prescribed therapy, talk about it. Too afraid to talk to people in public yet but this is a small step in that direction.

[Locke2121]

image removed

 

Your one hell of a lady. I can't imagine what it would be like to be violated like that, body and soul. I don't know if I could live with myself.

 

But....your still here. Your stronger that the dips##t's that did these horrible things to you. Doing this on your own must have been the hardest thing in your life.

 

Guilt? Why? Because you couldn't fight back? Sorry to say so, but thats a load of crap. Just going on day to day is fighting back! You refuse to let it get you down so much that you just check out! In the end, your stronger than them, damn stronger. Rape is about power, power over an individual's mind and body. You may have been overpowered bodily, but your mind is still going strong.

 

Have you ever told your parents? I'd like to know before we go on from here.

 

 

You better come back and talk to us! We love helping people and will be sad and dispondent if you leave us in the lurch like this.

[sophie274]

the_empty_drawer: Thank you so much for sharing your story. I am so sorry you went through that - it was really an eye-opening read. I hope you are on the road to recovery, though of course it will always bear down on you. I hope your 24th year will pass without incident - have a wonderful birthday!

[the empty drawer]

@ Locke2121

I still live with my parents since I'm going to college and I do not want to bring this up while still living with them. After this year I will move out because I will have gotten my AA degree and then I can worry about telling them one bad thing at a time. And I wouldn't leave y'all hanging with no closure to a story. =)

 

Maybe "guilty" was the wrong word to use at the end there...because a person is only guilty if they have done something wrong. A better word might be shame, which may not make much sense either but feelings are not logical things.

 

And yeah sophie274 this is my "road to recovery" as you put it. I've already had and passed days where I just felt like things would be better if I had never been born. I hear how sometimes people have suicidal thoughts to try and end the pain, but I never contemplated suicide because I knew even if I did die I still would have existed. And more than anything (for a while) I wished I had never existed at all, but that of course was something far beyond my power to do.

[Alexis_failure]

Empty Draw, like Locke said you are one amasing lady! *Hugs*

 

I was sexually abused and raped by twin boys when I was 4/5 years old. They were my next door neighbours and they're mother had caught them abusing me, and she was the one who found them raping me. It was only then that she told Sue. All the parents met up and talked about it and the boys parents begged Pete and Sue not to report it. She tells me she wanted to report it but didn't as she was close friends with the boy's mother. Instead my family moved 20 miles away from them.

The boys were 10 or 11 at the time and the reason they knew about this stuff was their father would let them watch porn and thought it was funny to give them porn magazines.

This is one of our family's big skeletons in the closet, and it is rarely discussed if ever. Pete and Sue had hoped that I had forgotten, but I haven't. Sue did have a chat with me about it, and I scared the life out of her by remembering it all in vivid detail. I have anamasing memory.

What upset me about her behaviour was that I was a child and it wasn't reported and I never received councilling. She had a duty as my mother to protect me and she didn't, instead she did what her friend asked and didn't report it for the sake of her friend's children. To me thats not what somebody who cares about their child does.

I am open about my rape with my friends and family, but I neer go into detail about what happened. I did tell my ex boyfriend and he was too discusted to touch me. He never went near me after that. My totally insaine rligious grandmother thinks that it is my own fault that I was raped. So again my feelings towards her are like my feelings towards Sue, not warm and fuzzy. My friends love me and accept me for who I am, they don't treat me with kiddy gloves, and they accept that its a part of my past, but it dosen't define me.

[Locke2121]

image removed

 

For that story Lexi, you get the cute baby smilie...luv ya kid!

[the empty drawer]

Many hugs to you Alexis.

 

Its (whats a good word now?) remarkable how some people can treat a person who genuinely and honestly just needs kindness, especially after living through a cruel event.

[EvaGina]

Aw lexi and drawer... I cant believe that in both of your stories, your parents werent fighting tooth and nail for you!!

 

I am so, so sorry that you have been through all of that -hug-

[EvaGina]

I think its worse for guys, to be honest

They have less suppport and understanding than women do, which is horrible

[Locke2121]

How would you feel if, as a guy, you were forced to have sex? Being overpowered or forced by a woman would be bad enough, "Can't fight a girl eh?", but what about men who are attack and raped by other men?

[Hayles]

I have been following this thread for a little while - reading, learning, crying... all the while not sharing my own story - and to be honest - I don't really know why.

When I was very small - from the time I was a few months old until I was 6 we lived in this little coldisac, the whole neighbourhood was tight, all our parents were close and we all used to spend time at eachothers' houses - it was your typical cute little suburbia (very upper-class neighbourhood)- a huge park at the end of the street where we would all play.

There was this other wealthy family accross the street, I can't remember exactly how many kids they had - but there was at least 6.

I can't tell you when it started, or for how long it went on... perhaps the clear memories I do have were the only times - I am unsure...

but the 3 eldest children - then about 8, 14 and 17 used to molest me.

I think the hardest part of it all has been that the 14 year old is a girl, and something about that just has never sat right with me... it somehow makes it harder than what the boys did.

The sickest part was, sometimes they would do it on their own, and sometimes they would all do it together, I remember them locking me in the garden shed, and the boys both pulled thier pants down, and I was crying and so scared, and I think I was about 4 at the time, and they took turns while the others held my body and mouth so I couldn't scream or move.

It makes me sick int he stomach to think that they would wipe my tears, give me some chocolates and tell me not to tell anyone or welfare would have to take me away from my family.

 

I lived with my secret until I was 16, when told my Mum. She was hurt, and felt like she had failed as a parent because I had not confessed to her sooner, or come to her then... but I guess I don't need to tell any of you why I chose to keep it to myself...

 

I was even scared of hurting the reputation of our families, our neighbourhood...

 

The thing that breaks my heart now is that by keeping quiet, I have placed many more children in the same position... perhaps I have allowed abuse to continue on within their family... I have to think for 3 of them to be that way - perhaps it all began with someone else?!

I have dealt with my own demons, I do not blame myself for what happened to me at all, but I do wish I had told someone earlier, to get those kids the help they needed.

[Locke2121]

I think that with a woman, and ladies help me out if you can, you could actually hate yourself slightly. Or at least your body? I dont know where the idea comes from, its just there.

 

Yeah, something being your manhood. For a woman, privacy and innocence I would gather?

[EvaGina]

Oh Hayles

I so know the feeling. Especially about your mum, I could never tell her what has happened to me. I almost told my brother on christmas beucase he was so angry at how my ex had treated me, but all it would do is hurt them. And if my father found out I am sure he would end up in jail after he beat my ex to a pulp.

 

I think that with a woman, and ladies help me out if you can, you could actually hate yourself slightly. Or at least your body? I dont know where the idea comes from, its just there.

 

Yeah, something being your manhood. For a woman, privacy and innocence I would gather?

^^ yep, hit the nail on the head.

[the empty drawer]

I think that with a woman, and ladies help me out if you can, you could actually hate yourself slightly. Or at least your body? I dont know where the idea comes from, its just there.

 

Yeah, something being your manhood. For a woman, privacy and innocence I would gather?

As for where the "idea comes from" think of the message you feel society gives about sex to young people, and the younger the less likely it is the young person will be able to question or understand why there is a message. But it is undeniably present. It is something known. It is unquestionable. It is the "truth". It is there!

 

Sex is presented as a very bad thing to young people. Abstinence being the only acceptable choice by society at large. Also think of the concept of virginity. You have it or you don't. There is no middle, or compromise, or halfway. Its an absolute to societal values...absolutely bad *eyeroll*. And young people do not have the freedom to get sexual information. Its the parent's job. Or maybe there is a school program. Or perhaps a Church or other community group could provide info. But there is no guarantee for anyone to get info appropriate for whatever age they are and how to be safe and not taken advantage of. Anyway....

 

So as a young mind if you discover that you were not a virgin since a young age, there are only a few things you now know. Nothing you can do for the rest of your life will ever be able to change what happened to you. A person could especially feel horrible about their own body and self if they were coerced into sex instead of physically forced. In a sense feel extra bad for something which was never their fault...at any age truly and any gender.

 

As for women specifically think of the worship there is of the thing known as the hymen. A mere piece of tissue designed to help protect the vaginal innards until menarche occurs. A female who loses her virginity (or simply been molested) has very very likely lost their hymen. So now not only would you know that you cannot ever be a virgin but you do not have a hymen to offer for when you choose to have sex for the first time, "choose" being the key word there. Don't underestimate the insane worship of the hymen. People have died and killed for it and still do today. Thats how much it influences societies. (Specifically I was thinking of "honor killing" in the middle eastern culture where its common for a girl to be killed by her family for having sex before marriage...because of the lose of the hymen!)

 

Its sad because I think societal values have good intentions. Promote abstinence and waiting til marriage to help people life more stable lives. But then its a double whammy too because if you don't fit into that ideal there is no possible way you can ever fit into it...because the ideal deals in absolutes. So no wonder people feel bad and feel even badder, virgins are "pure" so then would is a nonvirgin..."nonpure" perhaps? Or if the assault was from someone of the same sex there is still a large stigma against homosexuality so that just adds further to a person not being to conform to the "ideal". Thats part of my thinking anyways and just why I know, personally, I felt so horrible and dirty for so long.

[Drunk]

I can honestly say that it did nothing to me. I shoved it down deep and dont talk about it, and I have been able to move on with my life. I dont tell anyone, so no one thinks of me as different or fragile or messed up or anything, and it does not bother me at all. I moved on (fairly quickly) and didnt allow my experience of some drunk a-hole overpowering me to dent my life. Yeah it sucks to know that it could happen to anyone, but its assuring (to me at least) to know that I can go on without it effecting me. And I do and i will.

[ButterflyWrists]

Wow, loads of ppl have been raped by people they thought loved them! me included, i always thought i was alone =[

 

Well i was raped first time when i was just 15, by the person who told me he loved me and would never hurt me... damn i got traped in that abuse n honey moon period big time... i was raped basically every time he was at mine o i was at his, exept on my period... i hate periods, but i began to look forward to them...

he also beat me up,a nd made me give him BJ's, if i didnt i'd be hurt worse...

if he hadn't left me im sure i'd still be stuck in that cycle, or dead, either one...

I never told anyone, exept his "best friend" my current boyfriend, strangly enough the Ex slowed it down a bit, he still hit me all the time... but he never said it was cause of me telling his friend...

 

confussing huh?? especially as he said i'd basically sign his "death scentence" blah blah blah...

[Locke2121]

......go up to him and break it off at the root?

 

 

I'd like to say...why aren't you guys more angry? You all seem so F#####G calm about this! I would throw a fit until I found the person that did these things to me and go Hostel on their butts!

 

Don't you DARE take it lying down dude! Report him, make his life a living hell, just like he did to you...and just maybe, protect another kid who can't protect themselves. Perverts rarely only get one taste, they are always trying to get more.

 

 

*Edit* If I seemed like I was criticising you guys, I wasn't...its just the thought of my friends and acquaintances being..violated like this can put me into a blind rage.

[Locke2121]

WHAT!?! Some pervert molested you, took your innocence and privacy, and that didn't anger you? What the hell? You are legally entitled to a rightous anger dude! That buttmunch took something from you that you'll never get back!