If you were the victim of a sexual assault, it can take a long time to recover from the traumatic experience. The healing process can not only be stressful but extremely painful too. The impact of having been subjected to sexually violence does not only affect you physically, it also causes psychological damage. It takes a lot of support from people around you to help you rebuild your life, your self-worth and your ability to heal.
To find out more about how to recover from rape and sexual trauma, please read on.
- The Consequences of Being Raped and Subjected to Sexual Trauma
- Facts and Myths Regarding Rape and Sexual Assault
- How to Recover From Rape or Sexual Trauma
- Further Resources
The Consequences of Being Raped and Subjected to Sexual Trauma
Every year throughout the world, women, young girls, men and boys are victims of rape and sexual trauma. The consequences of sexual trauma leaves you shattered, scared, alone and ashamed. You could experience flashbacks, nightmares and earth shattering memories with the end result being that you feel the world is no longer a safe place to be in. People who suffer sexual trauma find it hard or impossible to trust anyone again and can even find it hard to trust themselves.
If you were the victim of rape and sexual trauma, the effects it can have on you often include you questioning the following:
- Your judgement
- Your self-worth
- Your sanity
You could even blame yourself and truly believe that you are “damaged goods” or “dirty”. Another serious consequence of having been raped or been the victim of sexual trauma, is that you may find it impossible to be in a relationship because it feels dangerous. A lot of victims of this type of violence are so traumatised by the experience that they struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and other types of anxiety disorders.
All of the above are normal reactions to a traumatic event, any feelings that you have of shame, defectiveness, self-blame and helplessness are symptoms and not a reality. As such, it is crucial that you seek support so that you can start the healing process and regain a sense of trust and safety which allows you to move on and lead as normal a life as possible.
What Mental Health Conditions Could You Develop After Rape?
Experiencing rape or sexual assault can have significant and lasting impacts on a person’s mental health. Survivors may develop various mental health conditions as a result of the trauma. One of the most common is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD can cause flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive thoughts related to the assault, along with heightened anxiety and feelings of fear or danger, even when the survivor is safe.
Another condition that may develop is depression. Survivors of rape may feel hopeless, experience low self-esteem, or withdraw from social situations. They might also struggle with feelings of guilt or shame, even though the assault was not their fault. These emotions can sometimes lead to self-harm or suicidal thoughts in severe cases.
Anxiety disorders, including panic attacks and generalised anxiety, are also common. Survivors may feel constantly on edge or worried and may develop social anxiety or a fear of certain places or people that remind them of the assault.
Dissociative disorders can occur as well, where a person feels detached from themselves or reality, which can be a coping mechanism to deal with trauma. Some survivors might also experience sexual dysfunction or difficulty trusting others, especially in intimate relationships.
Finally, some survivors may turn to substance misuse as a way to cope with overwhelming emotions, leading to issues with addiction.
It’s important to remember that every survivor’s response to trauma is different, and support from mental health professionals can be crucial in helping them heal. Effective treatments like therapy and counselling can provide survivors with the tools to manage these conditions.
Facts and Myths Regarding Rape and Sexual Assault
Sorting out the myths regarding sexual violence is part of the healing process. This includes all the victim-blaming myths as well as many others like the following:
- Myth – it is easy to spot potential rapists just by the way they act and look
- Fact – it would be impossible to identify rapists by the way they look or act because many rapists seem perfectly normal, non-threatening, friendly and charming
- Myth – if you did not put up a fight during the attack, you must not have believed the experience was that bad
- Fact – it is extremely common for victims of a sexual attack to “freeze”. Your body and your brain shut down because they are in shock. This makes it hard for you to think, speak or move
- Myth – Anyone who is the victim of rape “asked for it” because of the way they acted or they dressed
- Fact – rape is known to be a crime of “opportunity”. Research has established that rapists tend to choose their victims based on the fact they may be vulnerable and not on how they dress or even how flirtatious they happen to be
- Myth – date rape is frequently just a misunderstanding
- Fact – it is common for date rapists to offer up a defence by claiming there was a miscommunication or that the sexual assault was a drunken “mistake”. Studies, however, have established that most date rapists are in fact, “repeat offenders” and that they target anyone who is vulnerable by plying them with alcohol so they can rape them or sexually assault the victims they target
- Myth – if you had sex with the person before, it is not “rape”
- Fact – if you have previously consented to have sex with a person, that does not mean they have “perpetual rights” to your body. It is “rape” if your spouse, partner or other person forces you to have sex with them
How to Recover From Rape or Sexual Trauma
There are steps you can take to help you recover from rape or sexual trauma and which can help you get back your life.
Step 1 – Open up to others
Open up and tell other people about what you experienced. Many victims find in extremely hard to admit to others that they were subjected to rape or sexual trauma because they believe it would make them feel weak and dirty. Another worry is that you never know how anyone you may tell about your experience may react. You may ask yourself whether they would “judge” you or look at you “differently”. As such, you may think it would be easier to just downplay what happened and keep it to yourself. However, if you remain silent, you would be denying yourself the chance to seek the help and support you need.
It is important to reach out to somebody that you know you can trust and not to think that by not opening up about your experience means that it did not really happen. By avoiding the truth, you cannot start the “healing” process and hiding your feelings only adds to the shame you may be experiencing. Opening up may be scary, but by doing so, it would “set you free”. With this said, it is essential that the person you choose to tell about your traumatic experience is someone that you can really trust and confide in because you know they would be empathetic, supportive all the while remaining calm. If you do not feel there is anyone who you can trust, you should call a rape crisis hotline or talk to a qualified therapist.
It is also important for you to challenge any feelings you may have of isolation and helplessness. Any sort of traumatic experience leaves you with feelings of vulnerability and weakness so it is important that you tell yourself that you boast coping skills as well as many strengths that would help you get through rough times. A very good way of reclaiming a sense of power, is to assist and help others which you can do by volunteering your time, donate blood, help a friend who is in need or to donate to a favourite charity.
You could even join a support group that helps other victims of rape, sexual trauma or sexual abuse. Being part of a support group would make you feel less alone and less isolated while at the same time, you would be given advice on how you can cope so that you get on the right road to recovery.
Step 2 – Coping with your feelings of shame and guilt
You may know that you are not to blame for the sexual assault you were subjected to, but it can be hard to ignore any sense of shame or guilt you may be experiencing. These feelings could manifest themselves straight away or it may take years after a rape or sexual assault for them to surface. The thing to bear in mind is that on acknowledging the truth of what actually happened to you, it would get much easier for you to accept the fact that you are not responsible in any way, shape or form and that you have nothing to be ashamed about.
The feelings of shame and guilt you feel frequently stem from fallacies like the following:
- That you did not prevent the assault from happening to you. It is always that much easier to second guess what you did not or did do after an event. When you are being sexually assaulted, your brain and body goes into shock and as such, you cannot think clearly. A lot of victims tell how they “froze” when they were raped or assaulted which is a natural reaction to this type of trauma. It is important to tell yourself that you did your very best under the circumstances and that if you could have done anything, you would have stopped the sexual assault from happening
- That you trusted somebody and you “should not have”. The most difficult thing to cope with after being sexually assaulted by somebody that you know, is the feeling that the person “violated” your trust. You may start questioning yourself because you may have missed the warning signs. This is only natural, but it is important to understand that anyone who assaults you sexually, is not a “decent human being”. If anyone should be experiencing “feelings of guilt”, it is your attacker and not you
- That you were drunk and not as careful as you should have been. No matter what the circumstances, it is your attacker who is responsible for the sexual assault on you. You neither deserved or “asked” for it and as such, it is the rapist who should be assigned responsibility for the attack on you
Step 3 – Prepare yourself for upsetting memories and vivid flashbacks
It is natural for your body to go into “flight-or-flight” mode when you experience a traumatic event. As soon as the “threat” passes, your body goes back to normal and calms down. However, sexual assault and rape causes a person’s nervous system to get stuck in what is known as a “state of high alert”. In short, it means that you are hyper-alert to even the tiniest of stimuli which many rape survivors experience. You may have nightmares, intrusive memories and flashbacks which can occur more particularly in the first few months after a sexual assault. If the traumatic experience leaves your nervous system permanently “stuck”, you are at risk of developing PTSD and this means that the flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive memories last a lot longer.
To help reduce the stress and anxiety because of the upsetting memories and flashbacks you experience following a sexual assault, you can try the following:
- Anticipate and prepare yourself for any triggers with the more common triggers being places that are associated with the rape or sexual assault, anniversary dates, specific sights, sounds as well as smells. Being aware of the triggers that could cause you to experience an upsetting reaction would prepare you and therefore put you in a stronger position so that you can take necessary steps to calm down again
- Take note of your body’s “danger signals” – your emotions and your body lets you know when you start to feel unsafe and/or stressed. This includes clues like holding your breath, feeling tense, thoughts racing, a shortness of breath, dizziness, hot flushes and nausea
- Take steps to self-soothe straight away – if you experience any of the symptoms mentioned above, you must act quickly to calm down before your feelings spiral out of control. A quick and effective way to calm any feelings of anxiety and panic you may be experiencing, is to slow your breathing down
A simple breathing exercise can soothe a panic attack:
- Stand or sit down comfortably holding your back as straight as possible. Place one hand on your chest while placing the other hand on your stomach
- Breath in slowly through your nose while counting to four. The hand you placed on your stomach should rise while the hand you placed on your chest should not move much at all
- Hold your breath while counting to seven
- Exhale through your mouth while counting to eight and push as much air out as possible while at the same time contracting the muscles of your abdomen. The hand you placed on your stomach should move while you exhale but the hand you placed on your chest should not move much at all
- Inhale once again and repeat the same cycle until you feel centred and relaxed
Step 4: Reconnecting to your feelings and body
Because your nervous system is in hypersensitive mode after you experience a rape or sexual trauma, you would naturally attempt to numb yourself against anything that connects to the trauma. However, you cannot numb your feelings at will. When a person shuts down any unpleasant sensations, it means that self-awareness and the ability to enjoy things also shut down because you effectively close off your self-awareness.
The signs that you could be numbing or avoiding in ways that are not helping you could include the following:
- Having a feeling that you are physically shutting down. In short, you cannot feel bodily sensations as you used to do – you may find it hard to differentiate between pain and pleasure
- Having a feeling that you are separate from your surroundings or body – you could have the impression that you are watching yourself or the circumstances you find yourself in and not participating
- Having difficulty focusing, concentrating and remembering
- Using alcohol, drugs and other stimulants, taking part in risky activities, or exposing yourself to physical pain as a way to feel alive and to counteract the feeling of emptiness you have inside
- Escaping through watching television excessively, playing video games, daydreaming etc
- Feeling detached from people, the activities you used to enjoy and the world in general
Recovering from rape and sexual trauma: you need to reconnect to your feelings and body.
After experiencing rape or sexual trauma, getting back in touch with your feelings and body can be extremely scary. Studies show that having been raped, makes an enemy of your body because it has been contaminated and violated. The result is that you start to hate it or you want to ignore it. It is also extremely frightening when you have to face all the intense feelings you experienced that are connected to the assault.
Although the process of reconnecting to your feelings and body may make you feel threatened, it is important to understand that it does not put you in any sort of danger. While powerful, your feelings are not reality and therefore cannot harm you or drive you mad. The “actual” danger to your mental and physical health comes from attempting to avoid them.
You will feel a lot safer, more confident and powerful if you get back in touch with your feelings and your body which you can achieve by doing the following:
- Try rhythmic movement – rhythm is known to be extremely healing because it helps you relax and it can help you get back in control of your body. The combination of movement and rhythm works which includes marching, dancing and drumming. This could even include in a running or walking routine by focusing on the movements back and forth you make with your arms and legs
- Try mindfulness meditation – it is possible to practice mindfulness meditation anywhere you happen to be whether you are eating or walking as two examples. All you need to do is focus on what you are feeling in the “present” and this includes bodily emotions and sensations with the end goal being to “observe” without being judgemental
- Try yoga, Tai Chi and Oigong – all of these activities help combine awareness of your body with relaxation. Any sort of focused movement can go a long way in relieving the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and trauma
- Try massage – if you have been raped or been the victim of sexual trauma, you may not feel comfortable if anyone attempts to touch you. Being touched and touching is an essential when it comes to receiving both comfort and affection. Massage therapy can help you open up to human contact again
Step 5 – Stay connected
If you have experienced a traumatic event such as being raped or being the victim of sexual trauma, it is natural to feel disconnected and isolated from the world around you. It is natural for you to want to withdraw from any social activities and from the people you love. It’s important that you remain connected to life around you and to the people who care a lot about you.
The support you receive from those around you is an essential part of your recovery. But you should not think that support means you have to dwell on your traumatic experience or that you have to always talk about what happened to you. It is equally healing to laugh, have fun with the people you love.
You should participate in social events and activities even if you do not want to or feel like it. It is important to do “normal” things that have absolutely nothing to do with the rape or sexual trauma you experienced.
Reconnecting with old friends can also help and it is important to try because it would help you through the healing process.
Making new friends can also help you “stay connected” and a good way of achieving this is to join a group or club where you would meet others who have similar interests to you.
Step 6 – Nurturing yourself
The healing process following rape or sexual trauma is gradual and does not happen overnight. The memories of the traumatic event will not disappear completely either which can make your life extremely hard to cope with at times. There are several steps you can do to help you through this difficult time which can also reduce any fear and anxiety you may be feeling.
You should take the time to rest and restore your balance. You can achieve this by taking a break if you feel tired. To avoid throwing yourself into lots of activities as a way to keep yourself occupied. You should also avoid doing things “compulsively” and this includes working. If you find it hard to relax, you should try doing yoga and meditation both of which are excellent relaxation techniques.
Avoid immersing yourself in watching television and avoid any programs that may trigger flashbacks and bad memories which even includes news reports as well as TV programs and movies that are sexually explicit. It might also be a good idea to avoid anything that could over-stimulate your sensations which includes the use of social media.
Take care of your physical self by eating the right things, exercising regularly and getting plenty of sleep which is especially true for anyone who is recovering from rape or sexual trauma. Exercise is especially soothing on your nervous system it relieves stress and makes you feel more in control of your body and therefore “powerful”.
How to Cope with Flashbacks
You cannot always stop having flashbacks but when you think you are losing touch with the “present” and you feel like the sexual trauma is happening to you again, there are things you can do to help yourself.
Reassure yourself that it is a flashback that you are experiencing and not a “reality”. Reassure yourself that you survived the traumatic event. You can use a simple script to help achieve this which is as follows:
- “I feel panicked, overwhelmed and frightened because the rape/sexual trauma I experienced is coming back to me but when I look around, I see that I am not in danger because the assault is not happening to me right now”
You need to ground yourself in the present using “grounding” techniques which direct you away from any flashbacks you experience and which bring you back to reality and the present environment you find yourself in. An example being as follows:
- Tap or touch your arms or describe what is around you at the time so you can see where you are, name the place you find yourself in as well as the current time. Name three things that you see around you
Further Resources
If you were the victim of rape or suffered sexual trauma and would like to contact someone for support, the following links will take you to organisations that offer help, support and advice to those who need it most:
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sexual-health/help-after-rape-and-sexual-assault/
https://www.supportline.org.uk/problems/rape-and-sexual-assault/
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/gender-violence/rape-and-sexual-assault/