Raped and now lost...

[Katielovebug11]

I was at a party two years ago and was raped by three guys that lasted hours. I was threatened afterwards never to tell the authorities about what happened and to this day I haven't. Since then my life has been a mess, too long to explain here. What's the best way to get over this and move on? People say you need to talk about what happened to someone but I don't think I could ever do that, and thinking about that doesn't make me think it will help? Any help is good help but where do you start?

First of all, I am terribly sorry this happened to you. I hope you know that, no matter what , it was NOT your fault. Which, incidentally, can be the first step in feeling better: recognizing that you are not responsible for what happened, and your perpetrator(s) are the ones in the wrong.

I don't know how to tell you to navigate your experience. I was also raped at a party, and I had problems afterwards for a long time. What helped me WAS talking. Processing in therapy, both groups and individual. Talking with a few trusted friends. Learning I was not alone, that other people had my experience, was a huge piece of my recovery puzzle. Journaling also helped, especially with things I felt I couldn't talk to other people about. Just getting out the thoughts and feelings surrounding the rape was cathartic. It takes a toll to hold all that inside. You don't even have to use words; you can draw it, or paint it, or write poetry. Something to take that negative energy and release it.

I am not healed from my trauma yet. I still have nightmares, flashbacks, and dissociative episodes sometimes, but they are fewer and farther between than they were in the year after my assault happened. My hope is to do a trauma therapy program that's offered where I live. It also helps to have a trauma-focused therapist who can do something like EMDR or CPT.

You CAN live a healthy, beautiful life after assault. That's what I believe, anyway. While I sometimes feel like crap and unsafe, I've also managed to have many beautiful and happy moments since. So it's possible to recover.

Good luck. Feel free to PM me if you need anything. I'm here for you.