Was I sexually assaulted

[PrettyUgly]

I don’t know if it’s just in my head, but I think I was sexually assaulted by my ex boyfriend a little over a month ago. I never screamed, but I did fight back. He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to suck his penis. I started gagging and tried to fight against him but he wouldn’t let me go. My vision started to go black when he finally let me go. When he was done, he told me to never tell anybody, he could get charged with rape. Do you have to penetrate in order to assault someone, does it not count because we were dating. I can’t stop thinking about it, I feel so disgusting. Should I tell my parents??

[Siân]

Hi there,

Welcome to the boards, I'm glad you found us.

I'm so sorry that this happened to you. Yes, what you're describing counts as sexual assault and fits the FBI definition of rape which is “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” As you can see, it doesn't matter if he was your boyfriend, or whether you screamed or fought, what matters is that he did this without your consent.

I want you to know that this is not your fault. It's common for survivors of sexual assault to feel guilty or disgusting, but he is the only person to blame for this. Would you like to talk about this some more with us? Would some resources to understand and process this a bit more be helpful?

It's up to you what you decide to do now, would you like to tell your family? Do you think they'd be supportive?

[PrettyUgly]

Thank you so much, I’ve been very depressed. I’d like to tell my parents but I don’t know how. I don’t want to hurt them. What should I do?

[Alice O]

Hi PrettyUgly,

I'm so sorry to hear about your sexual assault You have shown real bravery in sharing your experience here and reaching out for support!

You know your family best and it sounds like you feel like they are safe people to share this with. But I understand how scary it must feel. We never want to hear that the people we love have experienced pain or trauma, and so I'm sure the news will hurt them, but I also hope they will be grateful that you trusted them with the information, happy that they are able to offer you support, and proud of you for your strength in dealing with this.

How do you think it would feel easiest or best to tell them? How can we support you?

Also, you mentioned feeling depressed. I'm sorry to hear that. That makes a lot of sense and is one of many normal responses after being assaulted. Have you gotten any mental health counseling--in general or around this in particular? If not, would you like help accessing those resources?

[PrettyUgly]

Thank you Alice, I recently told my mom but she wasn’t very understanding. She’s very conservative, and honestly didn’t understand how this could’ve happened with my own boyfriend. I am in therapy, so I’ll probably tell my therapist

[Sam W]

Hi PrettyUgly,

I'm so sorry your mom wasn't understanding. It can really sting to confide something so raw to someone and have them not give you the support you need. If it's something that you think would be helpful to you, we could give you some articles to give to your mom to help her understand things, so that you aren't stuck trying to explain it to her when it's still painful for you. Are there other people in your life, like friends or family, who you want to tell and (hopefully) get support from.

Telling your therapist sounds like an excellent step in taking care of yourself. Have you also considered reaching out to a local rape crisis center? They'd have people you could talk to and get support from who are trained specifically to help survivors.

[PrettyUgly]

Luckily, I have so many amazing, supportive friends who have made things so much easier to deal with. Without them, I don’t know what I’d do. I’ll try to bring it up to my mom again, who knows how she’ll react

[Heather]

If you don't mind a suggestion, I'd do yourself a favor and not try that again super-soon. I just don't see it being likely she will react any differently than she just did (though I certainly get wanting her to!), and I don't think you don't stand to benefit by putting yourself through more non-acceptance from her now.

Why not instead wait on that, and give yourself some time to only talk to people who are already being supportive, or who you are pretty sure will be, like your therapist? You can also ask your therapist for strategies for living with family reacting like that to your sexual assault. It can be really hard, I think, to know how to deal with that, especially when you want or need that acceptance or acknowledgement badly.

Do you want to talk about your options with reporting this?

[PrettyUgly]

I don’t think I’ll ever report it. It’ll just be stressful, and I don’t think I could ever talk about it in a trial setting. I’d rather work on moving on with my life. But it still bothers me so much. Will it ever get better?

[Heather]

Reporting doesn't mean a trial setting, but you're right, it often does involve a lot of stress. It's also a choice. So, if it's not one that feels like a right one for you, it's not. This is about what you want and need for yourself.

It will absolutely get better, pretty much no matter what. It sometimes doesn't get better as quickly as we'd hope, but even in another month or two, you should be feeling a lot better, and usually every day on -- with the given that some days are just better than others -- it will feel more manageable and less like it's taking over your life.

Suffice it to say, the last month has been extra, extra hard on most survivors. I honestly can't imagine how I'd have felt if my own sexual trauma had been fresh in the last few months with the way things are in the world. No doubt if you have been paying any attention to current events, getting through the last month was probably very hard. But you did it, and that's a big deal.

You also can help yourself process and heal by doing some of the things you already are, like finding supportive friends and like telling someone like us and asking for help. Participating in healing work with a therapist who also knows how to work with someone who has survived sexual trauma is also often really helpful. Perhaps obviously, doing what you can to stay away from the person who assaulted you so they can't harm you again or harass or otherwise abuse you afterwards is also really important. Trusting and standing up for yourself as you can when it comes to people reacting like your mother also helps.

[ButterflyBaby16]

As a victim of a brutal sexual assault ( my cousin raped me with a boxcutter and a screwdriver) when I was 11. I'm currently 28 and I don't know how I would have made it thru that horrific experience without telling my parents. The police told me I was lying with over 300 stitches inside my vagina. My parents were all I had. For the longest time I felt like it was my fault, I walked the wrong way, wore the wrong outfit, said the wrong thing etc but then I finally realized that it had nothing to do with me as a person and that no matter what I would change it still would have happened because he is a sick and twisted man. Also it doesn't matter if you were dating at the time or not you did not consent and the fact you did not consent is the only thing that matters.. Feel free to private message me (if possible) if you need someone to talk to.

[Sam W]

Just popping in here to say that while it was a really kind offer, private messaging isn't something available to users but, PrettyUgly, if you want to get support from other survivors like ButterflyBaby, you're more than welcome to ask for it here, make a thread specifically for it, or check out some of the already in process survivor discussion threads on other parts of the boards.

As an aside, while I'm glad to hear your parents where so supportive ButterflyBaby, sadly that isn't the case all the time, as PrettyUgly's mom has demonstrated. So while reaching out to parents can be great for one survivor, for another it can be something that's likely to compound a lot of the hurt.