Rape and Confused Healing

 68. RAPE AND CONFUSED HEALING 

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 the trauma of sexual abuse and sexual assault. Don’t forget to stay to the end in order to enjoy my gem of positivity.

As I heal, I am finding that the past is blurring with the present. I’ve been told that this confusion by the subconscious is quite normal. So my dreams confuse traumatic memories which involved cruel and toxic perpetrators, but inserts the safe people in my present. The following is one such confusion I have. It takes out the perpetrators (Alex and Dr X) and swaps them for my safe therapists (Dr H and Dr Q).

The dream lately is the same, ever since being on the bed in a normal general practitioner’s visit for a normal everyday appointment. I am being dragged into the room. Sometimes it’s the man I refer to as Alex, sometimes it’s the man I had believed was my Dad. Then Dr H is there, in the place of Alex. He tells me to undress, which I do without thinking it odd. Once naked, I get onto the bed, and he helps me to get comfortable. Then I look down and instead of Dr X, Dr Q is there, wearing a gown and mask. Dr H is standing beside me and he tells me it must be done and just breathe; it will all be over soon.

Dr H is on my left side so he holds my left hand with your right. Dr Q tells me to put my legs apart so he can do his job. I start to protest, and try to get up. But Dr H leans down and puts his right forearm on my chest to hold me down. He tells me to just relax and it won’t hurt so much. But I am kicking out at Dr Q to stop him getting to me. So Dr H catches my left leg with his left arm and pull it towards my chest, bent at the knee. I can’t breathe properly when he does this, so I have to stop fighting.

I start crying. I’m looking into Dr H’s face pleading for him to not let Dr Q touch me. But Dr H just tells me that everything is okay, to breathe and relax, and it will all be over soon. The I look down, and Dr Q has the dilator in his left hand. I can feel him putting his left hand on my upper thigh, after swapping the tool from left to right hand.

I can’t breathe properly as I feel the cold metal entering me. I start to scream, and say I want to keep the babies this time. The pain of the dilator has me forgetting to kick out any more. The tears are running freely down my cheeks, but Dr H just smooths left hand across my forehead, telling me to shush and I’m being so good and brave and it’s nearly done. 

I can feel the dull scraping of my uterus, then Dr Q stands back and says it’s all done, and I’ll be feeling back to normal in no time. I can’t breathe properly, seeing that the front of his scrubs are covered in blood, the same blood I can feel oozing out of me. Dr H just holds me as I continue to sob, until I’m just sniffling and hiccuping. I am so tired, and I know I lost the fight, so I finally just turn my head away from them and sleep. 

This is a nightmare where my subconscious has confused the past with the present. It mixes an abominably traumatic event from the past, and but brings in people who are helping me to heal in the here and now. However, as odd as this confusion in the dream is, it shows that I am actually processing the appalling situation depicted here. And this processing shows just one thing. I’m healing.

What about you? Is your subconscious confusing events from the past with the people helping you to heal now? It hurts. It makes things scary. It can make it harder to trust the people helping you. I know. I go through all those thoughts too. But as you work through this confused mix, you will realise something. You, too, are healing.

This time the gem of positivity is a quote attributed to Linda Hogan:

“Some people see scars, and it is the wounding they remember. To me, they are proof of the fact that there is healing”.

This is all too true. I can relive these events in my mind and confuse the people in them, and remember the event only. However I’m taking them for what they are. Signs that my lifetime of traumas are starting to heal. Yes, scars will remain. But most of all the wounds that made those scars will show that healing is possible. It is already taking place. 

Thank you for joining me on this short walk through my journey of healing. Please feel empowered to leave a comment on how your scars are showing your healing. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby.

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.