TW SA rape. Male rape survivor AMA

[Imaginative1]

Hi

maybe I need this, and hopefully someone may take something from it who is trying to support someone.

I am a 32 year old gay male and I was raped in November last year and it has completely derailed my life, caused a chain of events in my head that have honestly resulted in it feeling like life before and after . Ask me anything

It’s possible I could see him I walk past his work most days, to be honest I just want to pretend he doesn’t exist

Thank you. I’m sorry you have had similar experiences. It does feel like things are moving but unbelievably slowly

please can I ask what was the best way your friends and family supported and continue to support you. Currently know someone going through this (they have reported) and we are all at loss at how to help, we are there to listen, is that enough?

please feel free to ignore my questions if thinking back is too triggering

I really want to get this right so I am probably going to reply tomorrow when I have a bit more time to think x

Thank you, I appreciate any advice

Also it would be helpful for me to answer this properly if I know how close of a relationship you have to the person , how involved you are in their life

You’re welcome I will Try my best tomorrow to type something out that gives a bit of background on how people have supported me and what is an isn’t helpful- obviously everyone is different but I can only speak from my own experience. the meantime I would say one of the best things you can do would be to google things like ‘rape trauma syndrome’ and ‘stages of recovery from rape’ - I found this helped me , and I also found info varied from source to source and also info from smaller organisations or maybe obscure or that seem very location specific are still really detailed and informative . I would also look at how trauma affects people . This is essentially to make you aware of what the person has been / is / is about to experience. What you need to remember too is that whatever this person is going through will probably also feel very much like the unknown for them. When someone is raped from pretty much the day after , a process happens, a little bit lik it’s different for everyone and is non linear but it’s a bit like someone tripping on drugs and it’s a case of it lasts however long it lasts and they are essentially riding it out. I will reply with some more specific advice though about supporting people but the best thing you can do is build up a picture of what this process typically looks like for people x

i would liken it- the event happening- the initial reaction in the days / weeks following .. accepting you’ve been raped, accepting it has had an impact , starting to experience PTSD AND accept that that is what is happening , followed by slowly getting your head around how significant the whole thing is, is a bit like a brain injury . You experience really extreme emotions which change all the time, some of which you may not have felt before i e anger , and you feel things to such extremes that it actually all feels a bit not real, and there are lots of different realisations / thoughts / shifts in the way you’re thinking and you feel like you don’t have the full use of your normal brain. It brings other stuff up too and all of a sudden every trauma you have ever experienced comes to the surface, you start to see things from the past that you had just accepted as trauma or other ways people have mistreated you, insecurities and worries you don’t think about all come to the surface, and of course dealing with this and having to maintain your day to day life / job / relationships is absolutely knackering

Sorry for the slow reply, this has sadly happened to a close friends son.

I think advice on how to support someone probably varies depending on the individual but I would say in general

ask them what they need or how you can support them, and remind them that this is their situation they are in control and whatever they need or how they deal with it is upto them.

in any serious conversations just give them as much space as possible to tell you what they want to tell your/ talk however much they want to talk but don’t push them to go any further

avoid asking questions

do not ask the about the actual event itself. if they start to open up about something else they haven’t previously talked about remember this might be triggering. for them and they might still be getting used to learning what they can and cannot talk about easily and remember that they may not feel themselves at the end of that conversation so a little check in about how they are feeling may help
avoid talking reporting to the police or not - this is really triggering for some people but just let them know you will support whatever decisions they make.

remember that there is no time frame for recovery from this sort of thing and it may be helpful to gently remind them of that During any conversations- and essentially that whatever support you are giving them / offering to them will not end at any point in time. Also remind them that it’s okay if what they need changes

this is all very general and would apply to most people and is pretty much in line with the resources out there on how to support someone who is recovering from sexual assault / rape and is probably more related to conversations around it

i will post again about what support I received and what wasn’t helpful in general whilst just trying to navigate through it

Thank you!

im sorry you have had to go through this as well

thank you for your comment , I’m actually having to remind myself of this all the time x

i do know things will get better and I’m kind of having to get used to it just taking a really long time as there have been lots of repercussions and it actually feels like the last 6 months has changed my life and turned me into a very different person .