Rape and Betrayal

 67. RAPE AND BETRAYAL 

Hello and welcome back to Raped 25 Years. At this time I invite you to join me on a short walk in my journey of healing from the trauma of sexual abuse and sexual assault. Don’t forget to stay to the end in order to enjoy my gem of positivity.

Betrayal is “the act of violating trust or confidence, typically within a relationship, organisation, or society”.  This occurs when someone close to you is acting in direct opposition to your actual well-being or (in a romantic relationship) shared expectations. Betrayal itself is a whole body trauma. Let me tell you about some of the betrayal in my life thus far.

Back when I was under the cruel control of the man I refer to as Alex, I felt many moments of betrayal. The very first rape was betrayal. From the outset I was clear in that I wasn’t looking for, and certainly not wanting, a sexual relationship in any way.

Yet a mere two weeks later, he crawled into my bed, while I was asleep, and repeatedly raped me. It was the ultimate betrayal to me. It did indeed violate any trust I had for a man who could turn and perform such heinous brutality. I no longer held any confidence in the words of this malicious perpetrator.

I was justified in my conviction that Alex had betrayed me. Because after another two  weeks from those unbelievably traumatic crimes of rape, he started to sell my broken body as a sex slave. This was to earn him money for his illicit drugs and excessive alcohol consumption.

When I finally got myself free from Alex’s evil ways, I was then betrayed by society. A society that was saying rape was the fault of the individual betrayed. Society to some degree still claims, that the vicious and horrifying act of this tragedy is the raped person’s fault.

Even to this very day, I find that I am being betrayed by people I had trusted for emotional support. These people continue my traumatic fear and mistrust. Just as Alex did, they are perpetuating a cycle of carer abuse. These are people who are buying into, and indeed spreading, the lies that the raped deserve being locked away from the rest of the community. That these survivors of degradation are a danger to the community as a whole.

These are just some of the examples I wish to share with you here. These people who are betraying you, are in fact violating you. In my case, my sense of trust was shattered. My confidence in believing what people say to my face had gone. 

And yet, there is hope. It is possible to find people who respect your fractured and fragile psyche. And not just respect you, but work with you as you are wherever on your journey you happen to be. I have started with just one person, Dr H. And slowly I will be able to find other people that can be trusted, and not violate me in any way. That’s because I’m healing.

And what about you? Is your trust eroding, and confidence undermined? I encourage you to find just one person. Test for yourself their trustworthiness. And when you have that one person, you can let your trust blossom to include other people of safety. That’s when you know your on your own path to heal.

The gem I have chosen this time is an apt affirmation:

I am stronger than the betrayal I experienced, and I will rise above it.

This is an affirmation that I need to keep reminding myself of. I am indeed stronger than the perpetrators of betrayal in my life. I can, and will, rise above the damage incurred. That’s because I can, and am, healing. And you can too.

Thank you for joining me on this short walk in my journey of healing. Don’t forget to leave a comment on how you are rising above your betrayal. It just might be something that helps someone else to heal. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby.

 

Rape and Trickery

 66. RAPE AND TRICKERY 

Hello and welcome back to Raped 25 Years. At this time I invite you to join me on a short walk through my journey of healing, from sexual abuse and sexual assault. Don’t forget to stay to the end so you can enjoy my gem of positivity.

Since I started writing this blog, it has made me stop to think about if there are any common methods used across the range of my perpetrators. And there is one that stands out for me. That method is the use of trickery.

As a small child, the pedofile I refer to as Mr Mark abused me with great trickery. He told me that using his penis was just showing me how much he loved me. It also meant that I was a big girl. My mummy would get a pleasant surprise at my being such a big grown up girl.

And yet I was not to tell my mother. Because if I did she would go away and never come back. Mr Mark also tricked me into believing that all daddies loved their little girls with their penis (which he called his “lollipop”). If my daddy didn’t, it meant that he didn’t love me.

Because of these trickery lies I developed into a person with an extreme sense of insecurity with both my parents. I was excessively attached to my mum, and exceptionally scared of my own dad. Neither were a basis for healthy relationships. 

Then, as an adult, I was again tricked by the lies of perpetrators in my work environment. One man told me it was the price I had to pay for him to “protect” me from the other perpetrators in the workplace. This lasted only until he got bored.

My cousin worked in the same company as the other perpetrators. He pretended he would lose his job if I didn’t put up with the sexual and physical abuse. This lie was then replaced by one final trick. If I said anything to anyone, they would track down all of my family and murder them. I was so traumatised by that stage, I believed this trickery.

It was during this time that I became innocently ensnared by the trickery of the man I refer to as Alex. This began when I was tricked by my boss into letting Alex live in my house as a favour of a friend. After that, I was doomed. He tricked his way into my bed and painfully, and repeatedly, raped me. He tricked me day in and day out that everything Alex was doing to me, was only out of his love for me.

I am learning in therapy that these are common tricks used by evil perpetrators of these vile crimes. And yes, they are crimes. In reality, my family was never in any danger, and neither  I nor my cousin would have lost our jobs. Most of all, Alex didn’t in fact love me. They were all just heinous tricks. However, as I come to see each trick for what it truly was, I’m finding that I can heal.

What about you? Do these tricks sound familiar in your life and situation? As hard as it is, it’s vital that you see these lies for the tricks they are. And it is hard. It’s painful too. But once you recognise this trickery for the lies it is, you will find yourself on the journey of healing too. And that’s no trick.

The gem of positivity this time is a very small affirmation which speaks volumes:

I am not my past.

As I travel along my journey of healing, this is something that I remind myself of every day. Just because I was tricked in the past, I don’t have to remain in that web of tricky lies. So, although I have been tricked in the past, my future lies in seeing those tricks for what they are. That’s the way I can have a future — and you can too.

Thank you for joining me on this short walk. Don’t forget to leave a comment on how you are seeing the tricks for what they are. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby.

Rape and Shame

 65. RAPE AND SHAME

Hello and welcome back to Raped 25 Years. At this time, I invite you to join me in a short walk in my journey of healing from sexual abuse and sexual assault. Don’t forget to stay to the end so that you can enjoy my gem of positivity.

Shame is an emotion that I know only too well. I have been ashamed of myself for all of my remembered life. There are so very many things that make me feel ashamed. Let me tell you about some of the most common ones.

I have been ashamed of my body for as long as I can recall. This is because of  drastically traumatising actions by a pedofile I’ll refer to as Mr Mark did when I was a toddler. He took not only my virginity, but the self confidence and self esteem that is so vital for emotional growth.

I became even more ashamed after my time working in a horrifically abusive and dangerous workplace conditions. I was unable to stop the physical violence and traumatic gang rapes my work colleagues perpetrated against me. I was ashamed of not being able to end their tortuous acts against me, or tell anyone about it.

During this time at that gruesome cruelty, I also became under the the sadistic control of the man I refer to as Alex. I couldn’t stop him from raping me. And I became even more ashamed at being unable to overcome his use of me as a sex slave.

I became so very ashamed every time I had a trauma induced orgasm. I was ashamed because each and every time these forced orgasms occurred, it felt like my physical body was screaming, “yes, yes, yes” while my inner self was sobbing, “no, no, no”. I was so ashamed that I lost my true self in all of this pain and horror.

After fleeing these toxic people, I tried to to rebuild my life and my broken sense of self. However, that grief of shame was flung into my face yet again. The whispering of people behind my back; the painful comments made to my face. That girls were just asking to be raped. They dressed too provocatively. They teased and led the men on. They said it was no wonder that women were getting raped.

And so I was engulfed in that powerful negative emotion, shame. Even the general public were saying being raped was the survivor’s fault. Oh that dreadful feeling of utter desperation. That was my socially enforced shame.

And so now I am in therapy. My thought was it would be a last ditch effort to free myself from the burden I carried. That was how I viewed my shame. And yet it was the best thing I could have done to heal.

With the right therapist, I am starting to free my psyche from the pain and bondage that has been my lifelong struggle with shame. I am coming to the realisation that this tragedy of shame I have been carrying, is not mine at all. The feeling of shame belongs with all those perpetrators. The shame also belongs to those members of society that put the fault at my door. Slowly but surely, I am now truly rebuilding myself, one piece at a time. That is because I am healing. And yes, you can too.

The gem this time is a quote attributed to Brene Brown:

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive”.

I am finding this to be true. My feelings of shame are slowly dying, as I share my past with my therapist. Dr H is showing me a different side to life. One free from the painfully traumatic shame. As I am finding, what I thought was my shame, is dying. Your erroneous belief of shame, won’t survive either.

Thank you for joining me on this short walk in my journey of healing. Don’t forget to leave a comment on who in your life is helping your false sense of shame die too. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby.

Rape and Confusion

 64. RAPE AND CONFUSION 

Hello and welcome back to Raped 25 Years. At this time I invite you to join me in a short walk through my journey of healing from sexual violence. Don’t forget to stay to the end to enjoy the gem of positivity.

The trauma of childhood sexual abuse, which continued into adulthood, has left me in great confusion. This confusion continues to be an issue for me to this very day. Let me tell you about some of my confusion.

I was sexually assaulted as a toddler. The main perpetrator, who I will refer to as Mr Mark, told me that it was “our little secret”. He then, after stealing my virginity, told me that “if you tell anyone your mummy will go away and you will break up your family”. As a small child, I was at an extremely impressionable age. I believed what Mr Mark said.

This affected my development as I grew. I was reluctant to speak out about anything at all. I still believed that I must not say my thoughts and feelings, which I bottled up inside me.

I was confused. Do I speak about anything at all? The confusion made school difficult. When called upon by teachers for answers, I was shy and fearful of the consequences of me speaking.

In adulthood, my confusion stepped up further during the time I was under the manipulative power of the man I refer to as Alex. He was successful in controlling me by saying everything he was doing to me was out of love. 

This caused complete confusion. How could this be love when he was physically assaulting me and selling my body as a sex slave? So I began to believe that this was indeed love.

Do you see how I could be so confused? From the traumatic abuse from both Mr Mark and Alex, I came to the conclusion that it was bad to speak up; that pain meant love.

Yet now, in therapy, I am being taught a different way of life. It is actually good to speak, especially when evil things happen. Love does not necessarily mean pain — certainly not physical nor sexual pain anyway.

All these social rules, from Mr Mark, Alex, and in therapy, has my brain in shambles. Who do I believe? The negative I have grown believing, or the positive I am being taught now in therapy?

As you can see, I have very good reason to be so confused. Yet slowly but surely the fog is starting to clear. The confusion is fading. Thanks to the help of people like Dr H, Dr Q, and Johanna, I’m coming around to believe a new narrative. I am healing.

What about you? Are you in a state of confusion from your life and perpetrators? You too can have the mixed up fog in your life clear as well. That’s because, just like me, you can heal.

The gem this time is a quote attributed to Robert Frost:

“The best way out is always through”.

This is what I am slowly coming to realise about my confusion. I can’t clear the fog by staying still. But if I keep plodding on, one step at a time, my fog of confusion will clear. I will be able to hope for a future I didn’t think I would ever have. It’s a hope you can have too.

Thank you for joining me on this short walk in my journey of healing. Don’t forget to leave a comment on what you hope for in your life. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby.