sexual assault/rape survivor PTSD & anxiety i am seeking support

[Spencerr]

21 years old & terified about what the future holds for me.

In 2012 on the 6th of July I was walking down my street around 7:30am. I could sense I was being followed but could not see anyone. I was punched twice in the back of the head, as i fell forward someone caught me from behind with their large hand covering my mouth. (I will not go into detail as to what then occurred but i was sexually assaulted) 

Police were called which i almost feel made it even more traumatic as i was in shock and being asked to provide very intimate details. 

For the next year i experienced flashbacks, severe depression, severe anxiety and bad dreams. I kept this my secret as i could not burden my family with something i still didnt understand. My partner was my main support. I eventually exploded and decided to see a psychologist. I remeber feeling soo ill, my partner drove me and came to the initial appt. Every appointment was exhausting, an emotional battle. I would debate whether going would help or make the pain worse. I figured i had suffered enough and accepted that it was goung to be an emotional  rollercoaster and that i needed help. After several sessions the flashbacks and bad dreams were getting worse. My bad dreams of that day were being incorporated into another dream. I kept having this same dream for a couple of weeks. I told my psychologist that it was all getting too much but she encouraged me to keep up appointments as i had come so far. In December 2012 i went to work just like any other day and experienced such an intense flashback my body went into shock and i collapsed. I struggled to comprehend what day, year or where i was. My boss assured me i was in a safe place and sat wiith me until it was over. My flashback was not from my assault in July but was from when i was 17 still in high school.  I explained this to my psychologist as i was so confused and scared at the fact that how can something like this happen and i have no recollection of it?! She explained that the mind tends to block things out when it goes into shock and can not process a traumatic event. I had one more appointment with her after that and then never saw her again. I was not ready to go on another emotional rollercoaster. I am still suffering, i feel dirty all the time, i have trouble being intimate, i fear what the future holds, fear of men and crowded places.

I just need to know that i am not alone.

[pipsy]

Hi Spencerr. My name is Lynda. Like you I was attacked sexually too. I was very young at the time, my attacker made me feel it was my fault. Unlike you, I had no counselling, support of any description. My parents were more concerned my g'mother would find out. I went through what you're experiencing, eventually fainting at school. Everything you're experiencing, the black outs, shame, the constant feeling of being 'dirty'. It is a normal reaction to the violation you experienced. Your psych is right when she/he told you the mind does 'block out' certain extreme traumatic events that are too painful to recall. Unfortunately, the dreams you're experiencing are possibly because during the day, you can't face what happened, so at night, when you're asleep, the mind recalls incidents. I think you're actually experiencing PTSD, this happens when we go through horrific experiences like you had. Returned servicemen suffer the same problem when they return home. You are definitely not alone on this problem. Have you considered contacting an adult sexual victims helpline. They have counsellors who are expert in this field. They would be able to provide coping strategies for the nightmares, the feeling of 'dirt', the feeling of not being able to escape the ordeal. that's a big part of what you're experiencing, the fact that you were helpless, then dealing with ( what you would possibly feel, unsympathetic police). The police are fairly good, but with rape, they're a bit out of their depth. Even when the perpetrator is caught, no punishment seems to 'fit' what he did to the victim. I'm a bit of an 'eye for an eye' person, unfortunately. I feel if someone violates someone else, then he should be jailed for life, no chance for appeal, no possibility of parole. If someone rapes, then murders, why should he be treated better than his victim. Unfortunately, this has caused many fights between me and my ex. He's an ex prison officer and believes perpetrators should be allowed to apply for an appeal if they're sentenced. I'll leave that there. Contact the sexual abuse line for adults, I'm sure someone there will be able to help you better than I can. I understand how you feel, believe me.

[pipsy]

Hi Zephyr7. My name is Lynda. When you say it's your anniversary, does that mean wedding or what happened. I totally understand the feeling of guilt you have because you feel you were powerless to prevent what happened. Your abuser banked on you not being able to fight back too. Would it be too painful for me to ask when the attack happened. If you can't answer it doesn't matter. Most of what you're experiencing is PTSD brought about because you feel guilty because you couldn't fight back. You couldn't fight back, if you had, you might not be here today. Have you thought about contacting adult survivors of sexual abuse? they have counsellors specially trained in this field who would be able to offer strategies for dealing with the trauma you experience everyday. I was abused as a child, like you, I eventually 'cracked' up, I fainted at school. I was never counselled, it didn't exist then. My parents were more concerned about my g'mother finding out and how it would affect her. I was very young when it happened, it was a neighbour. For years after I could still smell him, this is part of PTSD. It needs to be addressed, by an expert in the field. Most of what happened to me, I've managed to box it in a corner of my brain and it doesn't affect me anymore, but it's taken years to reach that point.

[Guest_5218]

Hi there Lynda. I just wanted to point out to you that the original opener of this thread was Spencerr who wrote way back on 3rd Jan. But she never got back to us, leaving the thread languishing for a couple of months.

Last night a new person (Zephyr7) came in on this existing thread, sending her first post last night and her second this morning. I note that when you responded just now, you have responded to the original poster, rather than the current one.

I hope you dont mind me pointing this out to you. It is a little confusing I agree.

Sherie xx

[Zephyr7]

Hi Sherie and Pipsy,

Thank you so much for your replies to my posts. I really needed to read that encouraging note about being able to get through this. Pipsy, it was my assault anniversary (2010). I've been under a lot of anxiety pressure at the moment and that's exacerbated in March most particularly. I got myself admitted to a PECC unit just overnight to try and settled ams have now been discharged and am at home reading up on anxiety and how to manage it. It pre-exists the rape but the two issues intermingle when I'm having a bad day, dealing with rejection or trust/intimacy issues. They're my biggest triggers. The next biggest is my work relationships and getting along in the work place. I love being around people, but my anxiety really tends to take over and its just destroyed my new job. Does this happen to other people with the combination of anxiety and assault in their history? How do you work out a career when this trauma comes out? Any advice from people who've been there would be great as I'll be seeing professional counsellors (CBT and psychodynamic) & they've put me on  antidepressants but I'm scared about what this has just done to my life and my job.

[pipsy]

Hi Zephyr7. Anytime we're assaulted in any way, we tend to never forget the assault, the time it happened or the date. This is all part and parcel of PTSD. Learning to relax and trust people is hard because you tend to worry that you might be attacked even emotionally. I used to have issues dealing with the young girls I worked with (mother hennish on my part), particularly those who loved hitch hiking. It used to freak me because all I could see was the possibility of them being attacked. I never hitch hiked myself, it took years to even get up the courage to go on dates. Unfortunately, the only thing that helps get past these fears (and they're rational and understandable) is time. All you can do is continue to work with your counsellor. If you could ring the adult sex abuse line it might also help in your recovery. Can I ask what became of the person who attacked you. Knowing he was punished for what he did might help you a bit. Any sort of personal violation is hard enough to deal with, but with everything else you're coping with it's hardly surprising you're feeling overwhelmed. It's great you have a counsellor to help you work through these emotions. Another suggestion here, instead of trying to put all your troubles in one box, try mentally (ask your counsellor to help, here) putting each situation in it's own container. Put the sexual assault in one box, the family situation in another box. Try dealing with them separately, instead of putting them altogether. Try writing down how you feel about your father and uncle. Also try writing down when you're having difficulty concentrating on your law studies. Write down your anger/disgust at your attacker/s. When we try to deal with too much, our mind goes into shut down mode, because it is too much information at once.

[Guest_5218]

Hi Zephyr,

Thanks for getting back to us. I was relieved when I saw your post, as I was worried about you yesterday.

Yes you certainly do have a lot happening in your life right now. And the fact that you are struggling as a result is totally understandable. I am not able to advise on ways to help with your career, thats a toughie. I was never very career orientated even when I was young. Thats not to say that I didnt enjoy my work, because I did. These days I only work part time. But there again, I am in my mid 50's. ( - :

Do I understand you correctly that you are yet to see a counsellor / psychologist? I think you will find that when you do, they will teach you some relaxation techniques that you can use to help reduce some of the physical affects of the anxiety when it hits hard. Hopefully that will help a little. I try to practice my relaxing breathing when I feel okay, because when you need it the most, thats unfortunately when it just flies out of your mind, forgotten. It really does take practice.

It sounds like you will be doing some CBT therapy which I have also received together with prolonged exposure therapy last year. Both were beneficial, but only to a certain point. Today I had my first session of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) therapy. It is a method originally developed to treat PTSD but is also known to be effective for other mental disorders. I really cant tell you much about its effectiveness just yet. After a 2 hour session this morning, I am feeling totally drained mentally and physically, along with typical anxiety symptoms of shakiness and heart racing at a 100 miles an hour. ( - :

Bear in mind that therapy will make you feel worse before you start to feel better. Its tough, and you need to persevere. It stirs up all the memories you've tried so hard to forget for so long. But with traumatic memories and ptsd, they remain at the forefront of our minds, easily accessed and triggered, until such time as we are finally able to process them. And thats what these therapies aim to do. I have no experience with psychodynamic therapy, so cant comment.

If you've only recently started ADs, I expect they would have told you that it will take some time before you notice any improvement. You will need to be patient. Everyone reacts so differently to ADs, so I hope this one works well for you.

Pipsy's suggestion to compartmentalise different issues sounds good to me.

Take care ok

Sherie xx

[Zephyr7]

Hi Pipsy,

Sherie, I will write to you in a moment. I'm scheduled to get a referral for the psychologist from my GP tomorrow. I am hoping I'll be seeing someone by Monday, given today is Friday. It has been over a year since I was last on ADs and I'm remembering that it took me a good month to get the real benefits from it. When the attack happened, it wasn't expected as I was on a date with the attacker. The shift in how things changed from being pleasant to frightening was very quick and I didn't quite grasp what had happened until it was over. Consequently, I never reported it, also because I know the legal conviction statistics and wasn't in the financial position to hire a lawyer for advice let alone proceed. In hindsight, I should have gotten more post event care sooner. I did organise extensive counseling and that was fantastic. I think though that is a long term process and if you have a supportive family, getting them along to a psych team so they understand what has happened is essential. I imagine for families that it is confusing if you're seemingly fine years later and then having an anxiety attack about contemporary issues which then drag up the past. I also think that getting comfortable with my body again has been a genuine process of being loving and understanding of my body's needs and really tuning in to its limitations in response to overstimulation from work stresses or relationship stresses, etc. I have my up moments and really down moments about how I'm going with all of this and worry if I'm stretching the capacity of my family to cope. In this sense, I'd love it if my attacker had this shit to deal with, but the reality is that he doesn't, I do and I just need to work out my life to suit what I can handle and just concentrate on what I am doing. In an hour, I could be teary about work again, but I can see that there is a bigger picture at play.

[Zephyr7]

Hi Sherie,

As promised, this is reply to you. I'm sorry I was such a grotty girl the other day with my upset reply. I was feeling very down, scared and upset about my anxiety rearing its ugly head and reliving bits of the assault didn't help me at all.

EMDR sounds very interesting. Is it covered by private health insurance? Do you know how many sessions you will need to do? I am familiar with CBT and did this for 4 months last year. I benefited, but it didn't have a sustained long term effect. What actually worked was deep breathing, getting to yoga classes, reading many self help books and really concentrating on what I'm doing in my life and knowing what my smaller goals. I phased that out to start up my law studies but I am wondering if that was a big mistake.

Sherie, youve been really helping with your posts. Is getting better like quitting smoking in that, you think "I don't need to do that anymore because I'm going so well" and as soon as a crisis unfolds, you're teaching for the cigarettes as a way to cope and then realise you've gone about things in a very wrong way? I guess I'm wondering if this will have to be a life long commitment: meditation daily, exercising, journaling and all of those things? Is it possible to eliminate anxiety triggers to reduce the older traumas from getting reactivated?

I'm finding it hard to make new friends as well. This is not because I'm anti social, as I love people, but because I get scared in social settings sometimes. This can be just because I go and entertain the thought of "Am I safe or not?" even when I know that I am. Its like I cant help but pick at myself until I've worried myself into going home early or out of a good job. I know this will all be talked through with the psychologist, but I'm fearful of how to take this all on from here. I get scared of being left alone because I worry about having a panic when I am alone. It's a curious beast, being quite a social person bit with this awful anxiety holding me back. Anyway, thank you so much for your reply. I really appreciate the time. I have my teddy bear with me, camomile tea and the tv and lights on so it's snuggly here.

Speak soon

Zephyr

[Guest_5218]

Hi Zeph,

Thanks for your reply. My apologies as I am not feeling all that well, so I will keep my reply brief.

Firstly, please do not feel bad for your post the other day. You have no reason to apologise. It was pretty obvious that you were upset and I'm only sorry that you had not received any responses in your hour of need.

My EMDR therapy is being administered by my psychologist, and as such should be able to be claimed through your private health extra's policy. I think EMDR therapy specifically is not currently paid through medicare (mental health care plans), but if used in conjunction with other 'allowable' therapies then it will get through. It isnt suitable for everyone however, and not all therapists are trained in its use. But it could be worth asking about when you see your therapist. Just to see what he/she thinks.

After 20 years now, I am of the belief that 'it never goes away'. It may do for short periods of time, but it always comes back. Triggers, both known and unexpected, are just around the corner. I went through a really hard time last year when I had a number of stressful events over a 2-month period and it all combined to put me back in a bad place. For me it was the death of a couple of friends, my brother being involved in a bad car accident resulting in serious injuries to himself and death of my 11yo niece, my elderly parents not coping, loss of my part time employment when the business was sold, and the discovery that once again my husband was cheating on me.

I really think that the secret is to learn how better to cope when this occurs. And the psych therapy is useful in helping to reduce the severity of the impact to our lives, and to learn coping methods.

My hubby is away at present, not due back for another few days. So I'm on my own, but I have my little dog Holly (profile pic) and she's great company.

I will write again when I feel more mentally 'with it'.

Hugs and kind thoughts to you,

Sherie xx

[Zephyr7]

Dear Sherie,

I'm sorry to hear you're having a tough time of it at the moment. It is not easy but you've done a great job writing your reply to me, which I really appreciated, so you've had a positive impact on someone today that you don't even know! It may sound twee, but I'm focusing on positives this morning. Its my challenge for the day to test out all my positive strategies like a bingo card game. The idea is to think of each trigger as a bingo item and each strategy you deploy to deal with the trigger gets you closer to your reward. For me, a trigger to getting the shakes is ruminating about work and whether I can hold down work over the long term. So I got out of bed, changed and went for a walk around the block and ended up taking an hour to just slow my breathing and feel less anxious and now in the moment. I still had pockets of anxiety and tight breathing and then had another bingo moment where I dealt with it by focusing on the birds flying around and looking at different trees on my walk. I am still quite scared and judgey in my head about how I will go in the coming weeks, but I've tried to refocus on my cup of tea, reading the paper, I'll need to shower soon; etc. I can only hope each day will be better and come to grips with the uncertainty of things. You can do the same and we can share ideas on how to make it easier on ourselves?

Have a good morning. Thinking if you.

Zephyr