“Half rape” experience?

[spotteddog]

This happened over a year ago and I just
completely ignored it. I’ve always dismissed it as nothing to get upset over but it always creeps back up, I never even talked about it til recently

Maybe like end of summer 2016, I was 14, I snuck out to see a guy I had a little bit of a crush on. He started trying to take my clothes off immediately, and I thought he just wanted to hang out, but I stayed anyways after telling him no. We made out and got touchy, I was okay with just oral but no means ready to lose my virginity yet. He kept begging me to have sex, I kept saying no and making excuses, he was pressuring me so hard. I didn’t even intend on doing anything with him. I don’t even remember exactly how it happened but it was like I was watching everything happen to my body, I was confused and he was all “baby girl it’s okay you’ll like it trust me” and I’m like please don’t but he just kept going and I ended up losing my virginity like that. He didn’t forcefully attack me or anything, he was physically assertive but there wasn’t any actual hitting or beating or violence. I’ve always considered it my fault for not leaving, my fault for being so dumb to think he actually just wanted to hang out.

He told people about it after and I just went with it and acted like it was consensual, I’ve brought up that it was pressured before but I tried to avoid the impact. I got into drugs and got more promiscuous, he left town for a bit and I didn’t see him for a while. I think it’s always had an emotional impact on me but I tried to mask it. I feel invalid for being upset by this, when there are women who get violently raped so much worse. I struggle to even consider it rape, even though I know I said no multiple times and he held me against my will. I get my story twisted in my brain, wondering if I actually consented and am just being dramatic. I hear me too movement stuff all the time and I’m all for women standing up, but I just can’t seem to see it that way.

I also am so emotionally connected to the guy, I’ve kept his snapchat ever since and he contacts me all the time. I need to block him but I just can’t. It makes me actually cry sometimes which I hate because I feel so dramatic. He’s apologized many times and said he feels so horrible, then asks for nudes right after (ugh). I ended up having sex w him again a few weeks ago, NO IDEA WHY I was again just like watching my body. It was 100% consensual but the whole time I just felt so numb and hurt. I still always want to go out of my way for him even tho he’s barely even in my life. Idk what’s wrong with me, if my feelings are normal, if it is even considered rape?? I would never ever turn him in, sometimes I still pretend like it was consensual to those who ask but I’ve gotten more open about it. Whenever I’m open, I feel like I’m lying about it or overdramatizing the situation for pity.

Idk what the point of my post is. I’ve gone to so many online resources over the past year and a half but it always creeps back up. Thanks for listening, any validation or response is loved. Sorry if it seems like I’m just looking for likes

[Heather]

It's okay to need support and validation and affirmation that what happened to you did after abuse and assault. It's really good to reach out for that, and so important for surviving and healing. It's also very normal to feel a need for that, particularly given how much gaslighting goes on with and about sexual abuse.

I'm so sorry this has all happened to you. I hear you describing sexual assault here and what sounds like an ongoing abusive relationship to me. Also, the idea that more physically violent assault is somehow automatically worse is wrong, because trauma and abuse doesn't work like that. (As the survivor of all kinds of abuse and assault, I like to affirm for people, too, that not only do I know full well that all kinds can be traumatic, and one kind isn't generally more so than another, I also know that other survivors aren't helping me by discounting or dismissing their own abuse. I promise, you don't hurt anyone else, including those of us who are survivors of more physically violent abuse/assault by allowing yourself to own that abuse and assault happened to you or by asking for help. It's good for all of us for all survivors to ask for help and to speak truth to power. <3)

I don't think any of your responses are dramatic. I think they are traumautic, which is not surprising,because assault and abuse cause trauma. Feeling like you have to hide what has happened, or present it as something else, being unable to get or stay away from the person abusing and assaulting you, all of this still going on so you can't even really start to heal from it? More trauma. That feeling of being outside your body with what he did this last time? That's you dissociating, which is a very common post-traumatic and survival response.

I'm afraid I am at the end of my workday, but I'd be glad to talk more with you tomorrow if you'd like, or other staff or users can chime in. If you can get more of a sense of how we can best hep or support you here -- of more specifically what you're looking for -- reply and let me know. Otherwise, I'm happy to just keep talking with you and following your lead that way.