How you will feel
after rape and sexual assault
There is not one way that you are ‘supposed’ to feel after
an assault. You may feel fine for a while, and then all of a sudden it may hit
you. Or you may feel awful straight away. Every assault and every person is
different, so however you are feeling is valid.
You may feel restless, confused, stressed, angry, lonely –
any number of emotions may be running through your mind. It is important not to
ignore these feelings – if you have a friend or family member you can talk to
openly, tell them what has happened and how you are feeling. Sometimes it helps
just to say out loud what’s going on inside you. If you do not want to share
what has happened with your friends or family, you can get in touch with a
counselling organisation. This can be a difficult step to take, but you will
not have to tell the counsellor anything that you do not want to. You do not
even have to tell them what has happened if you don’t want to – you can just
talk about how you’re feeling. Some links that you might find useful are below;
After my experience, something I really wanted was for
someone who had been through the same thing to tell me how they had felt. I
wanted to know if I was normal for feeling how I did. As I’ve said, everyone
feels different and however you feel is valid for you – but doubtless there
will be some similarities. So here is how I felt, in the hope it might help
someone else!
Immediately afterwards, I felt confused and a bit
disoriented for about 12 hours. I wasn’t really sure if what had happened was ‘rape’,
or if it was my fault in some way. All of a sudden though, it hit me and I had
what I can only describe as a minor breakdown. I was restless, couldn’t stop
crying and punching things, felt disgusting and like I wanted to scratch all of
my own skin off.
Over the next few weeks I felt stressed constantly. I was
having heart palpitations, headaches and trouble eating and sleeping. I was
irritable and anti-social and found it difficult to look people in the eyes. I
felt angry towards all men and wanted to make myself as unattractive as
possible to the opposite sex.
These feelings gradually subsided. After a few months, I was
still feeling irritable and a lot more easily angered than I had ever been
before. My confidence was also at an all-time low, which led to some problems
at work and in my private life.
8 months later – I feel a lot better. Most of the time I’m
almost back to my normal self, however sometimes I still feel that I’m ‘putting
on a show’. I’ll be happy and carefree on the outside but feel like inside I’m
screaming. My confidence is gradually improving and getting back to where I was
before, but it is a long journey. I still think about what happened almost
every day, and occasionally have a couple of bad days where I regress back to
how I felt immediately after the attack. But counselling, and support from my
friends has really helped.
It’s easy to feel that there is no-one to talk to and no-one
who understands. The loneliness can be the hardest thing to deal with. If there
is no-one in your personal life you would like to tell, please seek
counselling. It will really help. On a personal note, counselling has helped me
to understand that it wasn’t my fault and that my attacker knew exactly what he
was doing.
