Dr Nina Burrowes on "Getting Away With It"

Because we all have only limited time to read and watch an unlimited internet, I haven't previously written a post solely to point out someone else's work. However! When people have emailed me about their experiences of sexual violence, I've often linked them to a video by Dr Nina Burrowes, "The Cartooning Psychologist". And now I want you all to see.

All of Burrowes's work is outstanding: she uses her understanding of the psychology behind sexual offending behaviour, and presents it clearly, and without jargon. 

The video below is about how sexual offenders "get away with it". I would recommend it to everyone, but especially if you've ever been raped or sexually assaulted by somebody known to you - what some might call "date rape".

Burrowes refers to "sexual abuse" whereas I use "sexual violence", but terminology is irrelevant to this vital message.

If you can't see the video, click here to watch it at youtube.com.

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I'll leave it at that for today, and I'll come back to the excellent Dr Nina Burrowes another time. However, if you've already watched the above video, digested and assimilated it, and are ready for MORE, click these links for: Dr Nina Burrowes's website, and her youtube.

I hope that you'll find watching this video worthwhile, and that it will help you to understand the reality of sexual violence. These Are Not Our Secrets.

Thank you, Dr Nina Burrowes, for your permission to use your videos!

Submission from a female reader, aged 24, from the UK.

I found this submission really challenging to read. It seems like the woman who wrote it is still struggling to come to terms with her experience. 

Rape is rape; there are no extenuating circumstances, there are no excuses. All stories of experiencing sexual violence are different, but they all share one thing: they are never our fault.

 

Please read this story, and leave a comment for the author. 

 

The author's words are exactly as I received them.

 

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In the early hours of the morning on New Years day last year I was raped by a man who I had met three times before. 

 

The day before, I had come out of a 4 year relationship. I had driven to the other end of the country to try and save my relationship. We lived together for 3 years, but were struggling to survive a few months of long distance. When we finally called it a day, I found myself miles from home, and all alone on new years eve. I climbed back in my car and drove another hundred miles to a friends house, crying the whole way and praying for a lorry or a bus to knock my tiny car off the road and kill me.

 

It didn't. I made the journey.

 

My friend was holding a party. I had met some of the people there a couple of times before and they all helped me to drink my problems into oblivion. Particularly Him. He kept my glass full of drink and let me smoke his cigarettes. 

 

Everyone else went to bed. I had the spare room and he joked that he would have to sleep on the sofa, unless I wanted him to stay with me. I smiled and said no. Very clearly, no.

 

A few minutes later as I sat in bed and cried, I saw his shadow hovering outside the bedroom door. He knocked and asked if I wanted a drink of water. I went to the kitchen and he made the joke again Yet again I replied no.

 

The next time he didn't knock. He just came in. He climbed into the bed and wrapped his arms around me. Told me it would be okay, and that I would get over my ex. I would be better without him. Someone like me would find someone else in no time. He told me to close my eyes and pretend I was my ex. 

 

He raped me. He raped me, and the thing I feel most guilty about was that he manhandled me first and brought me to a dreadful sobbing orgasm. I had stopped saying no by this point as I had realised it wasn't going to stop him and so I just closed my eyes and waited for it to be over. I hate that part. Hate that I gave up and cared so little about myself that I just stopped fighting.

 

I never told the friends whose house I was at. I didn't want to ruin her friendship with Him. I didn't come forward because I was so ashamed. Plus I didn't want to ruin the guys life did I? I rang my ex and told him and he didn't believe me. Called me a slut. Said that he would never touch me again. 

 

I decided my ex must be right. Nobody in the world knew me better than him, or so I thought. I found a thousand ways to blame myself for what had happened. To absolve my rapist and make it my fault and not his.

 

A year later, and I am finally starting to come to terms with what happened. I can't believe how easy it was to punish myself. How everything I read in the press allowed me to resent myself for  being drunk, for wearing a dress and make up and for talking to him that night. For not screaming. I see a cognitive behavioural therapist who tells me that I can still report, but I still am scared of ruining his life. I genuinely don't believe he thinks of himself as being a rapist.  I still haven't cried about what he did. I haven't stopped moving long enough to cry. I just carried on with my life and pushed it down. I know it's there which is why I speak to someone and why I am sharing this but I don't know how to let this out and hurt properly. 

 

He apologised to me the next day. "Sorry about last night. Wasn't the smartest decision I have ever made." The whole group of people from the party went to the pub for food and he offered to pay for my meal to say sorry. 

 

I will keep his secret. I will even keep it from him.

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Leave the author a comment; tell her what you think. 

 

All submissions to the blog can be found here. If you would like to share your story anonymously on this blog, email me: thesearenotmysecrets@gmail.com -  I'd really appreciate it if you could include your age, gender, and nationality.

Broken

Throughout my teens, I had an inescapable feeling that I was broken. I had no clear idea of how I should have been, but I knew that this wasn't it. There was something wrong with me - everything wrong with me: I was a faulty human being, and it was all my fault.

My body was disgusting, shameful, wrong. All wrong. I wanted to cut it up into tiny pieces, make it disappear. I tried.

I was crazy. Crazy crazy crazy. Deviant. Other people didn't think this way, think these thoughts. Nobody else was broken like this.

I saw the way my friends' parents looked at me. I saw the mistrust and fear. As though I might infect their clean, normal children. Bite into them, and turn them into zombies, vampires, or worse: the same as me.

And maybe they were right.

Everybody else seemed so normal, so complete, so utterly unlike me. Even my friends. Especially my family.

When I was 15, I met Tasha at a gig at an arts centre. She went to school in the next town, but we knew some of the same people. We recognised the same brokenness in each other; the magnetism was immediate: "Hey, dollface."

Tasha knew she was broken, but she didn't feel the shame that I felt. Or, at least, she didn't let on. Tasha was proud to be her. While I was hiding my repulsive body under jeans, t-shirts, jumpers even in the summer, Tasha was going out in a nightie. While I wanted to silently disappear from existence, Tasha wanted to fill the world to bursting. 

Tasha saw the world as divided: the two of us - beautiful, brilliant wrecks - and everyone else - ordinary, envious, dull as ditchwater. I remember Tasha describing another girl: "She's pretty fucked up for a normal person." An enormous compliment, but still, an acknowledgement that this girl was not truly one of us. The friendship with Tasha was too intense, too exclusive, and it only lasted the summer. 

Along with the friendship, I lost Tasha's ability to revel in the brokenness, and I was back to hating myself.

As time went by, the self-loathing got worse. I've mentioned before about the self-harm, disordered eating, and suicide attempts, but it was more complicated than that.

My head was filled with intrusive thoughts, of flaying my flesh off, down to the bones, of digging my nails in and ripping my face from my skull. I itched to tear myself apart. 

But, what if dying wouldn't be the end? What if there was an eternal hereafter? What if I was trapped, being me, forever? The idea that being me was inescapable terrified me. I used to cry at night, feeling the walls of my bedroom closing in, desperately wishing I could simply cease to be.
 

Teenage angst is normal. Believing oneself to be fundamentally unworthy of oxygen is not.

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This is a blog about sexual violence, so I'm sorry if this post seems off topic. The thing is, I am now able to look back, and see with perfect clarity that everything I've just described to you was a direct result of sexual violence. I was sexually abused aged three to four, I was sexually assaulted aged 11, and then three months later I was raped, shortly before turning 12; OF COURSE these events would have repercussions. No adults knew about any of what had happened. And it didn't occur to me that it was relevant.

It never, never occurred to me that there might be an external reason for feeling the way I did. For being the way I was. That something - something not my fault - might have broken me, rather than me being innately inadequate.

At various points, between 12 and 16, I was made to see different counsellors, psychologists, people who were meant to help. Or, at least, meant to make me normal. I was on anti-depressants, several different types, for the whole time. Not one of the adults in my life - parents, teachers, doctors, educational welfare officers, counsellors, psychologists - nobody asked any questions that could have led to me telling them about what happened to me. So the secrets stayed secret, and I stayed crazy.

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I believe that there are lots of people who, just like me, were victims of sexual violence. And that they, just like me, will suffer mental health repercussions. Not necessarily in the same way, but repercussions that prevent them from being the person they would have been otherwise: happy, healthy, free.

So, if you have been keeping a secret about experiencing sexual violence, and any of what I have described sounds familiar to you, please understand: there is nothing wrong with you - none of it is your fault. 

Nobody is innately broken, but sometimes people do things which can temporarily break us. 

Recovery is possible. It won't happen overnight, but it is worth it. All of the feelings above, I still feel sometimes. I'm still at war with my body. 

But, I know where the feelings come from, I know it's not my fault, and I know that these are not my secrets.

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All posts about my experiences are collated here.

If you've ever felt broken - maybe you still do, now - please comment. I know that there are hundreds of you reading this blog, and I would love to hear what you think. 

 

Submission from a female reader, aged 19, from the UK.

This post is the blog's second submission from a reader. I am so grateful to the courageous woman who sent this story of her experiences of sexual violence.

The author's words are exactly as I received them.

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I was six when I remember it first happening, I was having a bath and my step brother (he is six years older than me) came in. He asked if he could use the toilet and I thought sure why not, there was no problem. But then he came in and locked the door and started telling me how beautiful I was. He started stroking me and telling me I was special. I didn't feel special. It was just a touch here and a touch there, I didn't know it was wrong. Then a few days later it happened again except in my room. 

He didn't penetrate me until I was eight years old. The first time was excruciating.. I couldn't scream as he had placed his hand across my mouth. When it was over I was bleeding, I went to the bathroom and cried. Not long after I started realising it was wrong. 

The rape and sexual abuse carried on until I was eleven until he moved away with his girlfriend. He went on to have children. I worry about them. 

I was fourteen when I spoke out. We never rang the police because it was a family matter. I see him in the streets sometimes and I feel sick, I'm back to being a child again. hurt and scared. 

I have a baby of my own now, he is seven months old and I am loving every second..I still feel the hurt, the pain, I still hear his voice, feel his breath. I am still afraid. I wish he got what he deserved, I hope one day he will. The scars don't fade, the voices don't stop. But when you have your own child you realise you have to be strong no matter what. I find peace in knowing my child will never be put through what I was.

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I have created a Submissions page (it should be visible on the right hand side, under "Terminology", but I know that this doesn't work on all devices) - click here to get to it. Both  this story and the first submission to the blog will be linked to from there. Future submissions will, of course, be posted individually, but now they will also be collated on the Submissions page.