Rape

[Addisonp311]

Can someone help me with this? Two years ago I was raped and I still don’t know how to trust guys. I like this guy at work, he’s incredibly sweet and understanding but I still have trust issues in fear of someone assualting me again. Please help

[Sam W]

Hi Addison,

I'm so sorry that is something you went through, and that it's still influencing parts of your life. It's not at all unusual for survivors to find that they experience issues around trust and intimacy, so know that you're not alone in this. To start out figuring how to best help you, can you give me a sense of what kind of support, if any, you've received around this assault?

[Addisonp311]

Since my assault, I haven’t recieved any kind of support or help . I’m fact, I lost my friends and my family refused to talk to be around me. So I’m still trying to deal with this and help myself but I need someone to support and help me. I hope this helps. And thank you so much I didn’t think anyone would respond to me

[Mo]

It's no surprise that you're still trying to sort through your feelings and reactions to your rape without having had any support! I'm sorry the people in your life weren't there for you in this. One thing you may want to try is contacting a local sexual assault hotline; if your location in your bio is correct, this one looks like it's your local hotline: https://purpledoortx.org/help-services/sexual-assault/
We're happy to talk about this with you too, of course! Do you have a sense of how we can best support you, or if there's something in particular you'd like to talk about? We are here to listen.

[Addisonp311]

Thank you so much! I just need my confidence back. And I know I need to learn how to trust again, and every time a guy put his hands near me my blood runs cold and I flinch, considering my rape was so brutal. I’m so thankful I finally have someone to help me

[Mo]

It's understandable that you'd be nervous about having people touch you, after this experience. A lot of people who have experienced rape find that it takes time to feel comfortable being sexual with people afterwards. One thing that might help is being really clear with people what your boundaries are, and only being intimate with people who are super respectful of those boundaries. For example, if you go on a date with someone who's being really handsy with you without asking first if that's ok, or if you say "I don't like being touched in that way" and they keep doing it, that's someone who's not prioritizing your boundaries. Learning to trust also involves being with someone who's trustworthy in the first place - so if you find that you're with someone who makes you feel unsafe or that you feel you can't trust, you don't have to try and make yourself trust them when they're acting in a way that makes it difficult.

Moving slowly with people to see if they are trustworthy can help you build up that trust. You don't have to give partners any details about your assault, but it may even help, if you get involved with someone, to explicitly say "I've been sexually assaulted in the past, so I really need to make sure we're communicating clearly around sex and that I can set boundaries around certain things and you'll respect them." A good partner will prioritize communication and respect for boundaries to begin with, but sometimes having that context will help someone step up their communication a bit.