Rape and the Locked Unit

 22. RAPE AND THE LOCKED UNIT

Hello and welcome. At this time, I invite you to take a short walk with me in my journey of healing from sexual assault and abuse. Don’t forget to stay to the end, in order to enjoy my gem of positivity.

I was having great trouble with horrendously heinous nightmares, flashbacks, and prolific memories from past rapes. It brought me, once again, to be seriously considering suicide. I had an appointment with my psychiatrist, Dr Q, and told him of my current consistent thoughts and of my constant agony. He felt that he had no choice but to write what is called a letter of transportation to the area base hospital, which is in the public health system. I was taken to the hospital by ambulance, where I was supposed to be assessed by the mental health team there, to see if locking me up was truly necessary. The public health officials failed to do this assessment. I was merely locked up, or sectioned. I became traumatised and dissociated, lasting the entire time I was there.

To start with, the locked unit was enormous, with males and females in the one unit together. It automatically had my senses go into overdrive. The men were supposed to have their bedrooms on one side of the unit, and women the other. Between the two separate wings of the unit, was the common area, where the men and women mixed together.

I was in the bedroom in the women’s section closest to the shared area. Yet I was too scared to even leave my bed, let alone the room. I wasn’t even able to work up the courage to attend meals, which were taken as a group.

I somehow learned that one of the men, a “frequent flier”, whom I nicknamed Casanova, had previously got another “frequent guest” pregnant, whilst in the unit. So much for all the careful rules and supervision that was supposedly done by the staff. The staff, I might add, kept themselves in their own locked staff area, and never came out, except at patient mealtimes.

I went in on the Thursday. What occurred there happened on the Sunday morning, at 5am. I was asleep in the locked unit, when a new “guest” started screaming about there being a fire in the unit. It was a big  interruption on the unit, with patients all coming out of their rooms, and general chaos ruled. The staff had no chance of knowing where each and every person was. It was during this distraction that Casanova slipped into my room, entrapped me on the bed, and raped me.

I didn’t scream before, during or after the rape. I just froze. I was incapable of moving or speaking. This also meant I didn’t fight. In past experience, I knew that if I fought, I was likely to be hurt more in the violation of my body.

This, I might say, is the first time I have ever admitted the truth of what happened in the locked unit during my stay there. I have never before been able to admit and acknowledge the truth of that rape. My only comfort was that, unlike the other woman, I didn’t fall pregnant.

My psychiatrist has no idea of what happened that night. My motto after each rape I have endured, is that if I don’t say it out loud, it isn’t real. If it’s not real, then it never happened. Like an ostrich, I stick my head in the sand. It’s been two years since the rape, and I still feel wary of Dr Q sectioning me again. He knows I have been wary of him since my stay in the locked unit. But he does not know exactly why. And I still don’t plan on telling him.

Unfortunately, rape survivors like me and you, can find ourselves being locked away. Some in hospital mental health units. Some, sadly enough, are even locked in prison. Simply because we can’t always cope with the traumatic experience of being raped. It seems like we are not only raped, but also feel punished by society for being raped. I’m just grateful that I was released the following Tuesday. More traumatised than when I went in, but free to be in the community nonetheless.

This time my gem of inspiration, has been found on the internet. I don’t know who the quote is from, but I am grateful all the same:

If you tell the truth, it becomes a part of your past. If you lie, it becomes a part of your future.

This is so relevant in the situation I have talked about here. If I had told the truth about why I was feeling so low, my psychiatrist may have been more understanding. So my lie, in effect, became my future. Telling the truth is hard, but ultimately worthwhile. So despite my fears, I am going to tell Dr Q what happened two years ago. Make the choice to tell the truth. Your truth will become your past, so that you do have a future.

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

With love and care, Ruby

Rape and Self Worth

 21. RAPE AND SELF WORTH

Hello and welcome to my blog, Raped 25 Years. At this time, I invite you to join me for a short walk through my journey of healing as a sexual abuse survivor. Don’t forget to stay to the end, to enjoy my gem of positivity.

According to google, self worth is the “internal sense of being good enough and worthy of being loved and belonging from others”. According to the website Positive Psychology .com, self worth is defined as “the intrinsic belief in one’s own value, independent of external achievements and validation, impacting confidence and emotional health”. It is one of those things called a core belief.

Sadly since I was tricked and raped just a few weeks ago, I can honestly say I have no sense whatsoever of self worth. I do not believe that I have any value. Nor do I believe that I am worthy of being loved and belonging with other people. If anything, it’s the complete opposite.This is in spite of all the work that Dr H and I have done together. It’s like we have to start all over again. Yes, from the very beginning of therapy.

You see, since being with my trauma therapist, I was starting to think that I might actually be worthy of living.  However, all that is gone. I’ve started apologising again, even for the merest thing. Like breathing. For the simple reason that I exist.

The most recent rapes by the man I only refer to as Alex, have me questioning my self worth. Whether or not I do actually belong in general society. I have no internal sense of being good enough, nor of being loved. And especially not having the belief in my own value.

The trauma of rape does that to a person. Rape can make a person question whether even life itself is worth living. Rape penetrates the very core of the survivor. It injures not just your body, but your very soul. The false sense of being loved and the false belief in the perpetrator, be it male or female, damages you utterly.

My violation was not only complex, but complete — mind, body, soul, spirit. I was made  utterly powerless by sexual assault and abuse. It truly did hit to the very core of my being. After each rape, I ended up with so many traumatic questions twirling and swirling in my head.

“Did the perpetrators somehow see in me total worthlessness? Is that why I was raped? Maybe I’ve been wrong all these years, and I don’t deserve to be a member of society. What scum I must be, for the rape to have happened in the first place. I must not be a good person after all. I must not be human for the rape to have occurred. Was I wearing/saying/acting in some way that made my rapest do what they did? Was I asking for it? Did I deserve it?”

What about you, the reader? Are those the thoughts whizzing around in your head? I have fought so long and so hard to try and change my feelings about this. Despite therapy progress, since Alex’s most recent repeated violations of my body, those thoughts are flying thick and fast in my mind again. My sense of self worth has vanished again.

Notice, however, that I say “again”. Even after rape I, and you the reader, can start to rebuild that all important feeling of value, love-ability, and sense of belonging. It won’t happen in an instant. Self esteem and self worth are an essential part of you, and worth pursuing.

Did you notice I have been extremely careful? I have not referred to either myself nor any other raped person as a victim. For one thing, it does nothing to help my, and yours, healing process. If you, like me, have been raped or sexually assaulted in any way, no matter the perpetrator, you are no victim. The very fact that you have even read this post proves that. You, just as I am, are a survivor.

For the gem of positivity this time, I have chosen a quote from Zig Ziglar, in keeping with my theme for this post:

“Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth”

Despite how I feel or what I might think at this point in time, it is nevertheless true. Your self worth is not dependent upon others seeing your worth. Self worth is a belief in yourself. You matter. If to no one else, it matters to you. And that’s enough.

Thank you for taking this walk with me, in my journey towards healing. Please leave a comment on your definition of self worth, and how you are showing yourself your own self worth in your journey. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby

Rape and the Aftermath

 20. RAPE AND THE AFTERMATH 

Hello and welcome to my blog, Raped 25 Years. At this time, I invite you to join me as I travel through my journey of healing, from rape and abuse. Please come with me, and don’t forget to stay to the end in order to enjoy my gem of positivity.

The aftermath of rape and childhood sexual abuse among individuals is many and varied, simply because every individual is different. I can only really speak from my experiences. It may be similar to the experience of others, and maybe even the reader. I will speak of my point of view from my most recent experience of sexual assault this year, by the man I refer to as Alex. 

When I saw him turn up at my front door, my heart pounded and my brain automatically panicked into overdrive. My automatic thought was, “How could he have found me after all these years?” I have moved eleven times since I last saw him. I even moved areas of the country three times. So he should not have known where I was.

He tricked me into letting him in. Then he pushed me to the ground and raped me.

Immediately after the rape, I felt so dirty. So dirty that I couldn’t get clean. I even scrubbed my body all over in the shower afterwards with steel wool. I scoured my vagina until it bled.I stayed in that shower scrubbing myself for half hour, before I finally realised that the shower had made me as clean as it possibly could. But I still felt dirty on the inside.

My body left that shower raw and bleeding in places. I didn’t want to believe the reality that I had been raped yet again. There was also the feeling of my body having let me down. I wasn’t strong enough to fight him off. My body had had a physical response that seemed to be positive to the act itself, as if I enjoyed the assault.

I felt my body was against me too. Then came the thoughts. I was weak for the rape to have happened. I must have consented for my body to react in a positive way (I had orgasmed). I felt I would never be safe, no matter where I moved to. I should have stayed in my bedroom, then he wouldn’t have seen me. Just basically, it was all my fault.

I finally talked it through with Dr H. And he tried to set me straight, which worked mostly. But even that took time to sink in and help me to better cope with my feelings of worthlessness and body betrayal.

Dr H explained over and over again that the rape had not been my fault. I wasn’t the one who pushed me to the floor. I wasn’t the one who violated my body. And as for my body, Dr H explained several times about its automatic reflex reaction. 

Just because an orgasm may happen during the act of rape, it doesn’t mean consent of any sort. It it merely a base involuntary reaction. The body responds regardless of whether consent is given or not. You have no say over it, any more than whether or not you breathe. But if you haven’t said yes of your own volition or have said yes under duress, it’s rape. Even if you are willing to have sex, but your partner changes the ball game, such as slipping the condom off before entry, that still counts as a sexual assault. If it is not what you agreed to freely, it was not consensual.

I’m now in the position of having to start again, in my healing process. Not completely from the beginning, but a lot of processing and healing just the same. My hyper vigilance is now back at full force.

However, it’s not all bad news. I’m not starting from the complete beginning, in that I already have my safe supports in place, namely Dr H and Dr Q. They’re both doing the hard work of helping me get through the feelings of pain and loathing I have for myself again. But they’re being brilliant in their efforts, and slowly I’m coming round.

The path in the aftermath of a sexual assault is never easy. But it does help to have family, friends, and professionals in your support team. Because every time you give up telling yourself, “It wasn’t my fault”, they will be there to help you. And one day, in the long dim distant future, you may actually come to realise that yourself.

This time, the gem of positivity comes from a sticker I have on my journal, so I can see it every day. I don’t know who or where the saying comes from, but I am grateful to the person who came up with it:

You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think

And yes, those words do apply to me. Yes, even me. I am brave, and strong, and even smart, no matter how I may feel at times I’m not. And take it from me, you are too.

Thank you for joining me on this short walk. Don’t forget to leave a comment on what words encourage you to get through. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby

Rape and Fear

 19. RAPE AND FEAR

Hello and welcome. At this time you get to walk with me, as I take you along in a part of my life as a sexual abuse survivor. Please stay to the end, to enjoy my gem of positivity.

Fear is an emotion that I am well versed in. Although fear is traditionally associated with the colour yellow, for me fear is the colour green. Why green? Fear reminds me of the trees and grasses trembling in a cold wind. It is not beauty. It is shrinking away from a force which seems unstoppable.

I have lived in fear for most of my life. In fact, the first emotion I remember ever feeling was fear (at eighteen months of age). That was when the sexual abuse began. Fear has dogged my footsteps ever since.

Fear is invasive, affecting every part of the life of the person who is fearful. I know — it affects every part of my life. To me, fear is trembling, unsure of what will happen next. Fear is startling at every sound and action around me, never certain if I will be hit or raped again.

Fear is withdrawing from the world, in an effort to stay or be safe. But this is a false sense of security. Because life still happens, no matter how hard you try to hide. Let me give you an example from my own life.

Out of fear, I don’t leave my house. In fact, there are days where I even struggle to leave my bed and bedroom. But this action to deal with the fear didn’t work. It didn’t keep me safe. The man I fear most from my adult life, who I refer to only as Alex, recently found where I was living. He came into my house, the house I feared to leave. My “safe” place. And yet again, he raped me.

My fear had not kept me safe. All it had done was close down my world. It stopped me from living; I merely existed. Fear had stopped me from having fun, enjoying other people’s (safe people) company. Even now, fear keeps me from family gatherings.

When fearful, there are classic thoughts:

“I can’t do this”

“Something is bound to go wrong”

“If I just stay here, nothing bad can happen”.

But it wasn’t true. Bad things can, and indeed still do, happen. Fear had cut me off from joy, excitement, just plain being happy. But it didn’t stop the bad things from happening. All it had done was trap me.

My fear had made me a victim. My fear told the world that my abusers had won. My fear spoke the volumes that I was fighting to hide. So, how do I change my life from that as a fearful, trembling victim, into a strong survivor.

Well, first of all, no matter the extent of my fear, I am a strong survivor. I have lived through the abuse. Yes, I am a changed person, but I’m still here. I’m still breathing, I’m still thinking, and I can still make choices.

One of those choices is to fight my fear. I now know that despite my actions of fear, I can still be abused. My fear doesn’t keep me safe, which was what I thought, for the longest time, it did.

Despite my fear, I now spend time in places other than my bedroom. Admittedly I’m still in my home, but it’s a baby step. I now attend my appointments outside the house, willingly, and what’s more, with healthy expectation of the encounter with the other people I mix with. Admittedly, at the moment, I only see health professionals and some of my closer family. But it’s a start.

My fear is no longer keeping bound, tied to the abusers of my life. Now, I fight my actions driven solely by fear. Yes, there are many times I ,

And now, what you have been waiting for. This time , I have chosen an affirmation:

I believe in my ability to succeed 

When stuck in the depths of fear, it has been easy for me to forget this. That I do have the ability to succeed, despite my fears. The more I believe that I can overcome my fears, the more I do actually succeed, and you can too.

Thank you for taking this brief walk with me. Please leave a comment on what you are doing to fight your fears; it may just help another reader. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby