I compare a lot of my healing process from rape as how things were when I got sober. I relied a lot on my family and friends and less on a higher power like God. My fellow addicts would often attack me because I didn’t have a strong higher power and my sobriety hinged on my family and friends support group. Because of this, I was always the odd one out in rehab. Likewise, in all communities, I am a minority. I don’t follow a major religion so I never felt that euphoric bond to a higher power when healing.
If you are an atheist, or you have an obscure religion that healing processes do not coincide with, there are things you can do to help you heal. Use rational thought and logic to process everything that happened around you and how you reacted to it. This is a lot of work. One has to know what would illicit a negative response out of themselves and how tosee it coming and how to deal with it before it happened. Needless to say, my mind never shut off when I was in a relationship.
Dealing With Triggers
When you’re being triggered by something, most of the time one has an idea of what is triggering them, but they can’t isolate it and figure out what it is. This is probably the hardest thing one will have to do in order to overcome triggers. Once it has passed, find a happy place where you feel safe and you know, logically, nothing is going to hurt you. Once you have done this, think back to what exactly triggered you. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What triggered you?
- Why do you think you were triggered by that action?
- If you can’t avoid doing this triggering action, what can you do to make yourself feel comfortable when you’re in a situation that will possibly trigger you. This can be an act as small as crossing your arms across your chest, standing in a way that makes you feel comfortable or rubbing your thumb and your index finger. It doesn’t need to be overtly obvious. It just needs to be something that brings you comfort.
- When you’re finally understanding what triggers you and what you can do to overcome it, begin desensitizing yourself to that trigger. If a trigger of yours is being in a crowded place, once you feel strong enough, begin going to a crowded area and get use to it. There is no point in allowing somebody to take away anything from you when they have already taken so much.
Dating
One thing that a lot of victims are absolutely terrified of is dating again, especially when their attacker was an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, ex-lover or friend. If you’re afraid of dating because you were assaulted, there are logical ways to go about overcoming your fears.
The first and most important thing to remember is: Rape is not about sex. It’s hard to differentiate between the two but what it comes down to is that rape has nothing to do with sex. Rape is about humiliation, power and control at the most basic level. Once you can differentiate between sex and rape, the rest is extremely easy. By using logical thinking exercises, you should be able to, eventually, understand that if you have sex with somebody, they aren’t going to rape you. Sex is something beautiful, special and pleasing and one should not be ashamed about having sex and one should certainly not feel terrified of it.
- Be open: If you’re looking to have a serious relationship with somebody, but you’re hesitant of the physical aspects that come along with it, be open about what happened to you and explain why. If the person you’re hoping to have a relationship with is as serious as you are, they’ll understand. If they don’t, it’s not worth it.
- Don’t jump into anything you aren’t ready for: If you’re not ready for a intimate relationship with somebody, then don’t do it. It will only cause more problems in the long run.
- Don’t feel obligated to do anything you are uncomfortable with. This is your mind, body and soul.
- Don’t be ashamed: What happened to you was extremely traumatic. You shouldn’t feel ashamed as to how you feel about everything when coming into a new relationship. You should love yourself and it is important that you love yourself.
Flashbacks and Nightmares
Many people have flashbacks and nightmares of when they were assaulted or raped. The logical way of dealing with these is as follows:
- Remember it was just a dream. In order to heal from something, your mind wants to relive it and process it on its own accord. The same thing happens for soldiers and Marines that come back from war. The Department of Justice says that by playing Call of Duty, or another simulated war game, that it helps troops heal from the things they saw in war. Likewise, your mind desperately wants to heal you from your traumatic episode. However, if you avoid doing anything that triggers you, you’re avoiding allowing your mind to help you heal from your rape or assault.
- Think about why you had a nightmare or a flashback.
- Write down how it made you feel and analyze it. It will help to understand what is going on in your head.
- Most importantly, again, remember it was just a dream and it’s no longer real. You can’t be harmed, you can’t be hurt and you are not being silenced.
What You Can Do
There are many techniques that you can try to see if it helps you heal.
- Write a letter to your rapist or attacker whenever you’re feeling triggered or have had a nightmare. You need to get the negativity out of your system and out of your mind and a pencil and pen, a keyboard, or in my case, a typewriter, are extremely cathartic and extremely helpful. Once you get everything out of your system, you’ll feel at ease. You don’t even have to send the letter to your rapist or your attacker, just getting it out is helpful enough.
- Write to yourself.
- Give yourself a pep-talk or a self-affirmation. You’ll feel better when you’re done.
- Be creative. Paint, draw, color. Just expel the negativity.
- Exercise. If you have frequent nightmares, exercise for a half hour before bed. It exhausts your mind as well as your body and you feel better after you’re done.
- Don’t keep it bottled in. You’re only destroying yourself by doing that, one day at a time.
Elizabeth Kiss
January 8, 2012
