Submission from a female reader, aged 20, from the UK.

This post shows the devastating effects sexual assault can have on a person's mental health, but it also shows that recovery is absolutely possible. It's such a powerful message, and one that is important to remember if you're struggling.

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

...

I'm not ashamed of my story. 

My story is not a story of rape but sexual assault and violence.

I'm not scared to speak out about this or ashamed. 3 years ago no-one knew my story and still only a few do who helped me come to terms with what actually happened. I want people to know that you are not a victim, you are still a person. Nothing that has happened to you defines you.

When I was 13 I started going to a youth group, I used to travel once a week for an hour on my own. I had a friend at this group who used to stick with me, a few months later I met his friend who was a few years older than me, we all hung out a few times which started becoming a normal thing and we all got along. He asked me to go out with him, I said no as he was too old for me and he left it at that. The next time I saw him we were stood outside having a cigarette at our group and there was just us two. He started moving closer to me and was then right next to me. I was leaning against a wall and so was he at this point. He spun round and pushed himself onto me. So close I could feel every disgusting inch of him. Practically crushing me to the point where I couldn't say or do anything. I just thought to myself, oh it'll be some sort of joke. Then his hands were on me. It made me feel sick to my stomach. I couldn't speak or move and I was just frozen. The feeling I can't even describe. I was in shock with it. His hands were down my trousers, I was in tears at this point. Silently crying to myself, not knowing what I could do. Then my friend started to walk through the door around the corner and he let me go. I was still stood in shock and felt sick from it all. Every time I met up with my friend and he was there I used to always stay on the other side of the room and with someone. But whenever he did end up alone with me, he always tried to touch me and It was scary knowing he could get away with it.

This was when I went in a self destructive downhill spiral which I couldn't seem to get out of. Still not really coming to terms with what had actually happened and just pushing it out. 

A year or so later, I was drinking, and doing other things I shouldn't be doing at the age of 15. However for me that was really my way of coping with everything that I was going through. I was out in town one weekend with my friend we'll call her Sarah. She wanted to nip to her friends which was only 15 minutes away, so we started walking there, I was fairly tipsy but the walk sobered me up. We got to her friends house and I'd never met these people which was scary for me to deal with. My friend went upstairs to have sex with one of the guys which meant I was left alone with his friend. We started talking and he seemed genuinely nice, just chatting away. Next thing I remember was being crushed with his body on top of mine. I had blacked out with shock. Knowing it was happening again and I still wasn't able to fight back or say anything was soul destroying. His lips were on mine and I was trying to get away, I couldn't move under the pressure of him. My wrists were bruised, my top was over my head and I couldn't move. His hands felt disgusting on top of me and I couldn't move. I was crying, trying to shout. I couldn't do anything. I was hit. I hurt everywhere. I managed to get away when he let my wrists go and I struggled to get out from under him. He kept grabbing me and pulling me back. I managed to get out the house. I had no top on and looked a state. I had nothing left of myself anymore. 

I suddenly had no dignity and everything was gone. I felt no hope after what I had been through and thought that would always be me, I'd always be the victim and never be able to gain control of my life again.

I ended up in a really deep hole that I couldn't get out of and I was killing myself with what I was putting my body through. I went to the doctors after some pushing from a friend. It was the most daunting thing I'd done. But I got help, I had therapy to help me over come my depression and PTSD. 

I finally managed to come to terms with what happened and that I am not to blame for it.

...

When we experience sexual violence, we are never to blame and we should never feel ashamed. These Are Not Our Secrets.

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.

All of the posts and pages can be easily found via the blog's contents page. Have a look.

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.

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.

...

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.

...

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.

...

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. 

 

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.

May 1996

In May 1996 I was 11 years old. I was a tall child - 5'3", the same as today - and puberty had already given me full hips and C-cup breasts, which made me feel awkward and fat. I dressed in jeans and t-shirts, and I loved reading science fiction and listening to indie music. I was starting to look like a woman, but I was still a tree-climbing, football-kicking tomboy. 

Along with around 50 classmates, I went on a five day school trip to Beaulieu, in the New Forest national park, staying in a residential centre on a working farm. The staff accompanying us on the trip included Mr Holmes (a pseudonym) who had been my class teacher (meaning he taught me for most subjects) the previous year.

Shortly after we arrived, we were given a brief tour of the farm by a middle aged man we understood to be The Farmer. Trailing along behind the school party was a young man, maybe 19 years old, who also worked on the farm. I'm going to call him Mark. None of my close friends had come to Beaulieu, and I tended be more comfortable with boys; it made perfect sense to chat to Mark. It didn't occur to me for a second that the dynamic would (even could) be any different to that between me and my friends or brothers. 

On the second day, we were taken to get a proper look at some of the animals, and again, Mark tagged along. I spent the whole time talking and laughing with Mark. Because it was muddy, we had been wearing our wellies, and borrowed boiler suits, so when we got back to the centre, we entered by a back door, onto a hallway with shoe racks and coat hooks. I was still chattering away, and clambering out of my boiler suit when everyone else was turning the corner of the L-shaped corridor, filtering past the doors to the girls' bedrooms, and passing through the double doors into the centre's communal area, where we ate our meals. 

It was then, with the rest of the group gone, that Mark suddenly and roughly shoved his hand into my scoop-neck t-shirt, and groped my breast. I had no idea how this had happened, how to react, or what had caused it. I had no context for this. Mark stared at me hard, as if trying to judge my reaction. Tears filled my eyes, and a cry rose in my throat. I turned and ran, round the corner, past the bedrooms, and through the double doors. As I flew into the communal area, panting, tears running down my face, my eyes met those of Mr Holmes. He looked at me, a crying child, and turned to another teacher, "Looks like someone got turned down."

Looks like someone got turned down. Looks like someone got turned down. Looks like someone got turned down. Looks like someone got turned down.

I didn't even really understand what those words meant. But I knew how they made me feel: guilty, ashamed, caught out, dirty.

Instead of any of the words that I could have said, words that could have explained, words that could have told the truth, words that could have put things right, I said nothing. 

I said nothing. I said nothing. I said nothing. I said nothing. 

These moments still spin around in my mind. As though by replaying them, maybe they'll turn out differently. But of course they can't. 

I was so full of emotion, I couldn't speak. Perhaps most of all, I was shocked. I had fallen down a rabbit hole into another world, and I didn't understand anything that was happening there. The way that he looked at me, Mr Holmes' face said "I know you. I know things about you that you don't know." I was confused and scared, and I spent the rest of the day in silence. Mark kept away.

The rest of the trip is fairly blurry in my memory. But I do remember one occasion when Mark somehow isolated me from the rest of the group, and forced me to repeatedly touch an electric fence. I remember being so scared. But I didn't challenge him, and again I didn't tell anyone.

The best thing about the trip was receiving a short letter from my mum, which she'd "dashed off" while breastfeeding my baby brother. This little snippet of familiarity and safety kept me going until I got home.

I didn't tell my mum about what happened in Beaulieu for ten years.

The confused, shameful feelings about what happened, and a certainty that it had been my fault, grew in me over time. It felt so important to keep that secret.

...

Three months after this sexual assault, I was raped. Read about it here.

All posts about my experiences are collated here.