Getting Help

As much as I'm sure you're all capable of using Google, I thought I'd round up information on a few organisations which might be helpful if you've experienced sexual violence, or if you're supporting someone who has.

Rape Crisis support women who have experienced sexual violence: www.rapecrisis.org.uk

Survivors UK support men who have experienced sexual violence: www.survivorsuk.org

NAPAC support adults who were sexually abused as children: www.napac.org.uk

The Survivors Trust is an umbrella organisation - you may be able to find support near you: www.thesurvivorstrust.org/find-support

MOSAC support parents and carers of abused children: www.mosac.org.uk

Samaritans are available 24/7, if you need someone to talk to: http://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us

Not an organisation, but Dr Nina Burrowes's book "The Courage to be Me" is available to read online at her webiste: www.ninaburrowes.com/books/the-courage-to-be-me/preface/ It's a great way to start thinking about your recovery.

If you want to get tested for sexually transmitted infections, you can find a clinic via the Family Planning Association website: www.fpa.org.uk/find-a-clinic
I've been tested for everything - it was much less horrible than I expected, and the peace of mind is invaluable. STIs can cause infertility, or shorten your life, but most are treatable. Either way, it's better to know.

This NHS page isn't a pleasant read, but in case it's helpful: www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Sexualhealth/Pages/Sexualassault.aspx

These are UK organisations, as they're the ones I know about. Based on where the blog's mostly being read, here are a few international pointers:

USA: www.rainn.org

Australia: www.1800respect.org.au

Ireland: www.rcni.ie

Rape Crisis Network Europe: www.rcne.com

Please comment if there's an organisation you think should be added to this list - especially if you're from a country I've missed out! 

However you choose to get help, I hope that you do it. Don't let the shame and silence hold you back. You deserve recovery, health, and happiness. These are not your secrets.

1988; 2006

I've previously written about a sexual assault that happened to me when I was 11, and about being raped a few months later. Sadly, these are not my only experiences of sexual violence. 

Writing about the child sexual abuse I experienced has taken me longer, because it is a more difficult story to tell. By which I don't mean more emotional, but that the narrative is less clear. More like a jigsaw puzzle than a book. You will see.

...

At the beginning of 2006 I was 21. I was working a very draining job, and doing an Open University degree; I had a four year old son, and I was unhappily married. Life was busy, stressful, hard.

My mental health (although never good) had been steadily worsening over the previous months. Since my son was born, I had worked so hard at coping: as though I could just box up all of my mental health issues, and hide them under the bed for 18 years. Being a good mother, wife, person, being normal was all that mattered. But the box full of crazy was starting to leak. My self-harming was getting out of control, my eating was more disordered than ever. Anxiety and agoraphobia were starting to make leaving the house difficult.

One evening that January, my husband and I were at home, and our son was tucked up, asleep. We had probably been drinking alcohol, or smoking cannabis. Both were usual means of self-medicating at this time, as we had both struggled with mental health issues for years. I tended to take it gently, though, as I had a busy life to keep on top of. 

I don't remember anything triggering it, but suddenly my head was full of pictures. I had experienced "visuals" while using drugs before, but this was different. My field of vision was full of layers of images, liquid and merging into each other - when I tried to focus on one corner, that part changed to something else: a wooden dining chair; my favourite fork from when I was small; a door; the BBC test card; a stamp, with the Queen in profile; a wooden gate; a cloudy blue sky. But the image which swam in and out the most clearly was a serifed number: 134. I couldn't stop seeing these images. Eyes open or closed, they would not go away, and I was terrified. My husband convinced me to get into bed, and he sat with me, calming me down, until I fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning, my eyes were my own again, but I could not stop thinking about number 134.

Over the next week, more images came - less confusing, but more worrying. I had been so frightened by what had happened, that I had sworn myself to sobriety, but even without intoxication, they kept coming. The way in which the images appeared changed, over time, and I realised that most of the images were of a house. A familiar house. From the street I grew up on. The house over the road? What was the neighbour's name - Jill?* I had no memories of ever having been inside that house - but these pictures, flashes of memory: walking up the drive, my small hand in a bigger hand; standing at the door, head craned up; walking up the stairs; sitting in the bathroom, hearing adult laughter - could these be real? And 134... a door number? Jill's house couldn't possibly be number 134: it was three doors down from our friends at 124. What was my brain doing?

Without giving anything away, I asked my mum whether I'd ever been in the house over the road. Her response surprised me: "I don't think so... but Jill used to babysit you, at our house, while I was at work." When was this? It was when another neighbour, Monica, had ceased to be available on the right days. Jill stepped in. 

This confused me. I had so many memories of being babysat by Monica: playing with the duplo with Monica; eating lunch with Monica; watching Monica fold towels; being in the garden with Monica; hearing stories about Monica's older and very exciting son; Monica helping me to write a letter to the fairies. How could I have retained these older memories of Monica, but remember nothing at all about Jill - a woman who had apparently been a regular fixture in my life for quite some time?

I didn't understand.

...

This next part is hard to write: I cannot remember a time before I was sexualised. I cannot remember not having an awareness of sexuality. And not having guilt and shame about my body. I didn't know what sex was until I was ten, but I can remember, with absolute clarity, being five years old and knowing things that I should not have known. It never occurred to me that somebody might have shown me these things.

This is harder still: despite having been potty trained precociously early, I suddenly became incontinent aged four. My parents assumed that it was in protest against the birth of my brother, and that it would soon stop. I learned to hide it, manage it, but I was a teenager before I regained full control of my pelvic floor. I cannot tell you how much I disgusted myself. It never occurred to me that somebody might have caused me an internal injury. 

...

One day, I was at home, alone, and suddenly all of the fragments of memory - sights, sounds, feelings, physical sensations - slammed together. It was violent, intense. I threw up. 

Jill, who lived over the road, sexually abused me.

I still lived in the town I'd grown up in. I made my way, shakily, across town, to the street I had lived on from a few months to 15 years of age. I stood outside Jill's house, the house over the road from my childhood home. And there, on the gate: 134.

Maybe this seems like nothing to you, but to me, seeing the number nailed to the gate, serifed exactly as it had been in my mind, at a small child's eye level... it gave me permission to believe myself: Jill, who lived over the road, sexually abused me.

...

The next few weeks were horrendous. My head was so full, I thought it would explode. I desperately wanted to talk to my mum about this. Maybe she could shed some light on things. I wanted her to know. But I felt certain she wouldn't believe me. I didn't know what to do.

I spoke to a dear friend. I told him all about the images, the memories, number 134. I told him about the sexual assault, about the rape. I told him that I wanted to tell my mum, but that every time I imagined telling her, I imagined her getting angry and throwing something. My friend listened to everything I said. I had never experienced empathy like it. After I'd finished talking and crying, my friend told me that he was going to pray for me, and he was going to fast. Religious beliefs entirely aside, that is an incredible show of support for someone. I was overwhelmed by his love and solidarity. 

It gave me the strength to talk to my mum.

My relationship with my mum has never been straightforward. Now, in 2015, it is better than it has ever been. She even reads my blog. (Hello, Maman!) But in 2006, we barely spoke. So, it was foreign territory for both of us when I sat her down and told her everything. Everything. About the sexual assault, about the rape, and - somehow - about all of the memories that had recently resurfaced. And she didn't throw anything.

Instead, she believed me. And she told what she remembered. Coming home from work one day, and three year old me telling her "Mummy, we went to Jill's house!", and the shock on Jill's face, the hasty explanation, it not quite adding up. I never mentioned going to Jil's house again, but I know that we didn't stop going. Bumping into Jill at the shops, stopping to chat, and Jill asking my mum about me - only me - I am one of four, but Jill never asked about my brothers. Lots of little things - each meaningless in isolation - all knitted together now. 

...

By this point, my under-the-bed-box-of-crazy had burst open. Dealing with these memories, dealing with the truth, was too much for me, and my carefully constructed attempt at normal had fallen apart. By March, I was in a full-on meltdown. 

I went to the GP, and told her as much of the story as I could get out, shaking and hyperventilating. She referred me to a consultant psychiatrist, and I had to do it all again. Finally, I was referred to a therapist for cognitive analytic therapy. Bit by bit, I told her everything. Being believed, being understood, was amazing.

Through therapy, I started to learn to trust myself. I learned that memories of early trauma resurfacing in adulthood is not that unusual. The concept of dissociation - which the brain uses to protect one's ongoing functioning - means that memories can be inaccessible for years, decades even. It doesn't make the memories not real.

Should you like a bit of evidence (I do!), this paper is from a 1999 study into memories of childhood abuse.

It's the same mechanism that causes some adults who experience car crashes to have a "blank" in between buckling their seatbelt and waking up in hospital. It was suggested that my memories may have been "triggered" by my son reaching the same kind of age as I was at the time of the abuse.

...

It's now nine years since the memories resurfaced, and - as far as I can tell - 27 years since Jill sexually abused me. 

I'm still learning about the impact of the sexual abuse, and my other experiences of sexual violence. Over the past year, I've been coming to terms with the idea that all of the apparently discrete issues I've been struggling with (for almost two decades) are in fact symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

In a recent post, Broken, and also in my account of being raped, I talked about the impact that experiencing sexual violence had on my mental health, particularly in my teens and early twenties. I plan to write about the continuing effects of PTSD, soon.

 ...

This post has been added to the My Story page, along with other posts about my own experiences. Please have a look, to get the full picture. 

*All names used are pseudonyms.

Submission from a female reader, aged mid-thirties, from the UK.

This story - about minimising sexual violence in one's life, ignoring its impact, and coping - sounded so familiar to me. It seems that so many people who experience sexual violence assume that their story isn't bad enough to be worth telling, that they didn't suffer enough to be worthy of others' understanding. 

Sometimes it's only when looking back, years later, that we can see the truth.

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

...

Once upon a silent time

Once upon a time – isn’t that how childhood stories go? I was 6 and my babysitter’s teenage son put his penis in my face. It may sound odd, but apart from telling my vastly over-worked mum I did not want to go back to that babysitter and did not like her son, I did not think to tell anyone for decades. I think I have told three people in my life, including my husband. It struck me that in my telling of my story I was quick to state it really was not a big thing, (no penetration etc.), that others suffered more than me, and it was not such a big deal in comparison.

I was wrong. It was part of an unseen web that has criss-crossed my life. My mother, who is beautiful, wise and giving, had not had the best of fortune in the men department. Father figures in my life included an abuser, a lovely man with schizophrenia who was paranoid and aggressive when he did not take his medicine, and a gentle, troubled man who later took his own life. My mother, with the untimely death of her own father, had not seen what to expect from a healthy relationship. It’s not about gender, but about experience. No one is ever responsible for being abused, but it can be hard to tell if your positive experiences have been limited. It is possible though.

My road was rocky for a while. I have been sexually misused by a partner and was later raped by someone who I had called family for years.  I realise in retrospect that I did not name it rape at the time because he told me it wasn’t. Then I saw the little girl in me, with the babysitter’s son’s penis in my face and all those years of putting it to the back of my mind, filed under ‘could have been worse’. The worst silence is the one we hold inside ourselves so not even we can hear our own stories.

The ‘friend’ hurt me during a hard time in my relationship where sexual intimacy had been long lacking. When he had asked me if I was happy I had said “Not yet, but I am working on it.” I had trusted this person who I had known since my late teens and shared many life experiences with. We were affectionate friends who had not seen one another in a while due to him living abroad. I don’t really know why I still trusted him because one 1^st of May, when I was 18 and he in his twenties, he had held a knife to my throat while off his head on a cocktail of drugs.  Somehow, my frightened child’s voice had hushed that memory and brought a million others to the fore, refiling that unsafe moment in my past (along with the penis in my 6 year old face) under ‘could have been worse.’

 A group reunion, many miles from home had bought many of us together in a familial way, reminiscent of the old days. There were hugs and teasing between us all. These were later reframed for me as flirting when I was told I had wanted it. He blamed me for not cumming because I was frigid. For several days I was so shocked, pained and confused I did not know whether to believe him. When I had said “no, I don’t want this” and he told me I did, should I have pushed him harder away? I was in shock, both during and after as to how or why this was happening. When you love someone as family you can’t quite believe it. That love and shock stopped me punching, scratching, screaming though I was inside. For a long while it delayed me understanding that it had happened.

A week after I got home I found myself taking an overdose, not  consciously trying to kill myself, but just to remove the pain at all costs. It shook me that I could do that. I had been through quite a lot in my life, but tend to be positive.  It was not only that pain but the issues in my life that had lead me to the fragile position which he had abused. He left me with a damaging but not lasting infection. For years he intermittently tried to make contact. His story was it “just had not worked out”. His explanation reminded me of that teenage boy saying to a 6 year old me, “You want to suck it”. 

‘Once upon a time’ is a phrase used for stories that transcend time and change our perceptions of the world and ourselves. Once upon a time something made me feel that abuse was to be expected.  I am now turning my own story into a story with me as my own hero. Beyond surviving, I choose to love and flourish. There is the magic in my story that I found by learning to hear my own voice. 

 ...

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.

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.

...

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.

...

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.

TMI

Don't you hate those weird, over-sharey people? You know the ones: you're minding your own business, at the bus stop or the supermarket, and you exchange words or a smile with a stranger. Suddenly, without warning, you're getting their life story. And it is grim. Always. No stranger has ever, uninvited, regaled me with tales of their blissfully happy marriage, or idyllic childhood. And it is awkward. What do you say? What do you do with this information? It is too much. Too much information.

And now, here I am. Sharing the worst things that have happened to me, with people I have never met. Worse, even: with people I have only just met. I began university (as a mature student) six weeks ago, and when I publicly launched this blog, with much Facebook fanfare, it will have popped up in my fellow students' newsfeeds. Some of them even got invites! 

My best friend (Leila, to you), tried to reassure me: "Everyone knows that you're not a rape-obsessed lunatic." Aha. Not everyone.

So, if I know that this behaviour is not normal... why am I doing it? 

Well, as strange as it may sound, this blog is not about me. Or, rather, it is not for me. If I want to talk about (as I refer to it) "grisly stuff", I have wonderfully understanding friends, an endlessly patient and gentle partner, and a mum with whom I can now talk easily, about even the most upsetting topics. I am very lucky. And, thanks to an extremely valuable course of cognitive analytic therapy (no Blob Trees, I promise), I am genuinely pretty much resolved about the whole thing: well, functional, and rarely unhinged. Who could ask for more?

For whom, then, am I writing this horrible blog? Two groups of people. And I'm sure you will fit into one of them...

1) People who have experienced sexual violence.

    One of my brothers understood my reasoning as being "so other people know they're not alone". Yes. Of course. But much more than that. 

    If you are carrying around the secret of a rape, or child sexual abuse, the person who did that to you may have told you "don't tell anyone", even "nobody will believe you". They told you that to protect themselves. 

    I want to tell you: forget that. Talking about what happened is the first step to undoing the damage that was done to you. It will be hard at first, but the right kind of help will make your life immeasurably better. Before I had my therapy, I was so unwell that I could not leave the house, I was so anxious and depressed. A year later, I had a job I loved, I had passed my driving test, and I was making plans for the future. I just had to start talking. I just had to stop keeping the secrets.

2) People who have not experienced sexual violence.

    Sorry, everyone else. The way that society treats victims of sexual violence is appalling. Victims are stigmatised, ignored, disbelieved, and blamed. The fans of footballer and unrepentant convicted rapist Chedwyn Evans have hounded and harassed the woman he raped, subjecting her to "psychologial GBH", as one police detective put it. You probably think that that isn't how you behave, or would behave. Hopefully you're right.

    One in every five women has been raped. The true figure is probably higher. This number does not include men, or people who have experienced child sexual abuse, or other types of sexual violence. You will know people who have experienced sexual violence. You will know lots of them. Have they felt able to tell you, or have they felt too ashamed? We need to change. We need to stop protecting perpetrators, and start protecting victims.

...

On this blog, I have shared my own personal story of experiencing sexual violence. I will be talking about sexual violence in the news. I will be linking to other blogs about sexual violence. I will be signposting websites and services that may be useful to those who have experienced sexual violence. But, most of all, I will be repeatedly reminding you: these are not my secrets. And they're not yours, either.

And if that makes you uncomfortable... I think you need to do some thinking.

Terminology

I love words. I have a two volume dictionary in my living room, along with various key texts of linguistic pedantry. But, I don't love all words. Some words I positively despise: fresh, portion, and prepare all make my skin crawl, for no obvious reason. Perhaps it goes back to a particularly stern home economics teacher...

Of course there are other words that I dislike, and for rather more valid reasons. Unfortunately, in beginning this blog, I have run smack into terminology that I usually avoid using. In a conversation about sexual violence, I am able to skate (wafflingly) around these words, or say them with "air quotes" and eye-rolling, to distance myself from them. Not so online.

So, I want to discuss some of the terminology I'm using (and not using) in this blog. I'll alphabetise the list, and add to it when more come to mind.

Child abuse: This term is appropriate when talking, in general terms, about maltreatment of children. It is inappropriate when it is used as a euphemism for the rape of a child. In the words of Christopher Hitchens, "'Child abuse' is really a silly and pathetic euphemism for what has been going on: we are talking about the systematic rape and torture of children" (God is Not Great, 2007).

Date rape: To me, this term trivialises an act of violence. Rape is rape. An estimated 90% of rapes and sexual assaults are committed by a perpetrator known to the victim. So, it could be said that most rape is "date rape". I could write an entire post on this, and I fully intend to! I'll put a link to it here, as soon as there is one... Edit: Tada! Here it is!

"My" rapist/abuser/etc: I personally prefer not to talk about the people who committed crimes against me in a way that implies relationship. I would not refer to "my burglar", and so I talk about "the woman who abused me", not "my abuser". Clunky, yes. But it feels better to me.

Survivor: When used by individuals who have experienced sexual violence, I completely respect their right to describe themselves in this way. However, to me it seems glib when used by others as a blanket term. For the decade after I was raped, survival was a pretty precarious business. Telling, for instance, an individual suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, "You are a survivor! You have survived!" strikes me as rather missing the point.

Victim: I hate using this word; I have enormous issues with it. The mindset of "victimhood" has been written about by many people, with the emphasis on ceasing to see oneself as a victim, and reclaiming control over one's life. The reality of crimes of sexual violence, however, is that the perpetrator took control. While it is important to feel in control of life, day to day, I think that recognising that temporary, non-consensual loss of control is an important part of coming to terms with one's experience of sexual violence. So, I would not say, "I am a victim of sexual violence" but, when talking about the crimes that were committed against me, I might say, "I was a victim of sexual violence". 

However, far more important than the words we use when talking about sexual violence is whether we talk about it at all. Because talking about sexual violence, and drowning out the silence, is of vital importance. Because these are not our secrets.

And! A word on gender.

I am a cis woman. I absolutely understand that crimes of sexual violence are committed against people of all genders. According to current statistics, rape is predominantly a crime committed by men, against women: a 2012 datasheet from the USA's Center for Disease Control estimates that 18.3% of women and 1.4% men have experienced rape. This is not to say that all men are rapists, or that all rapists are men. I was sexually abused by a woman, sexually assaulted by a man, and raped by a teenage boy. 

If I talk about sexual violence in a way that seems exclusionary, please forgive me. My perspective comes from my experiences, but I am very open to discussion on the topic.

What do you think of these words? Are there words that you avoid when talking about sexual violence? Please comment below (anonymously, if you'd like) - I'd love to know.

Shame, Blame, and Silence

Sexual violence has been in the news in the UK a lot this week. As distressing as it can be to hear about such awful crimes, I am always glad when society is forced to examine the attitudes and practices that maintain the unhealthy status quo. Ignoring sexual violence does not make it go away. I hope that, as we are challenged to confront the reality of sexual violence, those who are keeping secrets of crimes committed against them will be better able to break their silence.

Tuesday saw the release of the independent report into child sexual abuse in Rotherham, and the council's failure to protect the estimated 1400 children exploited over a 16 year period.

The majority of the perpetrators in the Rotherham case were men of Pakistani heritage, and the majority of the victims were white British girls. These facts have led some (particularly in the right wing press) to query whether fear of being seen as racist was what prevented action being taken against the perpetrators of these crimes. I think this type of accusation is an oversimplification, which ignores how complicated attitudes are toward sexual violence.

On Radio Four's PM programme this week, an anonymous educational engagement officer from Sheffield shared his experience of working with looked after children, with the brief of improving their school attendance. This man's frustration was clear; his work to get the best outcomes for these vulnerable children has been repeatedly blocked, by management with skewed priorities.

(This is the link to the programme: listen from about 33:30. It will only be online until Wednesday 3rd September. I may attempt to transcribe it...)

I would recommend listening to it if you can, but here are two horrifying points made:

"The majority of girls that I was dealing with were known to be sexually exploited, and one or two trafficked - openly." The majority.

"It was accepted as normal behaviour for a girl in looked after local authority care to be vulnerable to and involved in sexual exploitation." Normal. 

Yesterday, the Guardian website published the story of Ruzwana Bashir, a British-Pakistani woman from Skipton, who was abused by a neighbour from the age of ten. Having left for university at 18, it took Bashir ten years before she felt able to return to Skipton, and tell the truth about what happened. It was then that she met a further challenge: the shame and blame.

"When I first told my mother about the abuse I’d suffered, she was absolutely devastated. The root of her anger was clear: I was heaping unbound shame on to my family by trying to bring the perpetrator to justice... She begged me not to go to the police station. "

I find real inspiration in Bashir's story. She refused to bow to the shame, blame, and silence which would otherwise have kept her from seeking justice. Because of this, the perpetrator was imprisoned for eight years, and two other victims have broken their silence.

With support, we can all break the silence. These are not our secrets.