DD victim of date rape

Emaheevul07
Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:57:42 +0000

Part of the reason my parents still don’t know about something that happened to me four years ago is because I know they’ll react like this. After four years of healing, for them it will be a fresh wound and their reaction could very well rip the scab off for me. I am not willing to risk that. There is an overwhelming sense of self-preservation that comes into play after something like this happens, which lasts probably forever. You do what you feel that you have to do because you feel like the world will end if you do anything different. Logic does not matter. You do what you have to to survive it. For some people that’s talking, for others it’s keeping it a secret, and for most it changes as they heal. That’s just the way it is, you can’t control the healing process.

The reason I didn’t say anything to begin with was because at first I was confused and the idea that I hadn’t done something wrong to lead to that happening didn’t even occur to me. It had been months before the word “rape” ever even occurred to me, if it had I probably would have told my parents right away when it happened. But by the time I understood what had happened so much time had passed that it was too hard to go back there. Someday I’d like my parents to know but I don’t want to have to deal with it to the extent that they would make me by freaking out about it right now, I already did that four years ago and don’t want to do it again. I’d have liked the opportunity to press charges but since I didn’t right away it’s not like there would be any evidence so I didn’t-- there is so much aggression against women who lie about rape and I was afraid if I reported it and he got away with it that everyone would think I was lying. Not to mention the risk that he’d come after me if I made him angry, I am lucky he let me live the first time. Since I knew I by no means had a slam dunk case I just didn’t do anything.

It’s not as obvious how to handle it when you’re in the situation as it is when you’re not. And even when you are, my sister was assaulted and did report it and regretted it the entire time because everyone treated her like a criminal, the guy got away with it and she had to keep going to school with him even though he was threatening her, the school flat out told my parents they thought she was lying, and it was all a giant circus. I told her that she made the right decision because it’s damned oppressive to have to look back and know you /might/ have been able to get justice for yourself if you’d gone for it, but if anything like that happens to her again I doubt she’ll talk. It’s just not easy. Rape is an inherently different sort of crime-- “innocent until proven guilty” means to the victim “disgusting liar until proven innocent.” When you’re already dealing with the rape itself, how do you deal with that?

OP, unless you see signs that your daughter is not coping, I would try to back off short of offering support and counseling if she ever wants it. I know as a parent that must be impossible to do, but you have to realize that her sense of control has been violently ripped from her in the most traumatic way possible. The way to “fix” that is not by encroaching on her sense of control further by trying to micromanage her recovery. You have to follow her lead.