Has every woman dealt with SA

[Chickencuddle]

Sometimes I feel so alone and ashamed but I know I'm not.
I was sexually abused as a child and I've never really spoken about it. It was 2 main people when I was a child (not together)
Then as a teen I was in foster care and a neighbour who had kids had split with his wife and I baby sat his kids. I think he groomed me although I've never really been sure as again it was never spoken about and turned messy in the end. I was 15.
Then as n adult multiple men grabbing me on nights out trying to force me to kiss them. One man put his hand up my skirt.
Also another thing which I won't bring up now as too long of a story.
But it haunts me. I feel disgusting and ashamed and I can't talk about it. But it effects me every day. I push it down all the time as I can't afford for it to come up. I am busy with kids and work etc. There's no time to fall part. I'm terrified of coming undone.
But I know it's not jyst me. Does anyone ever talk about it all? I desperately need to talk about it but who to? It's not something you bring up and talk about and I feel like people would look at me different or might not believe me. I don't have time/money for counselling.
I wonder how many people feel the same.

I was SA as a child by my uncle from around 7-12, I was able to say no to it after that. The only person I ever told was my now husband when we'd been together some months and I regretted it at the time because he tried to push me into telling someone and now I think we both just pretend it didn't happen. Which is a bit shit and makes me think not telling is better, which I kind of know is incorrect but can't actually believe it.

So no advice but I get you

I mean has everything woman dealt with ssome kind of sexual assault.

Thanks naemates and I'm sorry you get it too. Sending you a handhold.

Yes I think so, if we are running the spectrum from unwanted touching or attention to rape.

Sadly I’ve not met a woman who hasn’t been on the receiving end of some form of sexual abuse from a man at some point in their life!

I’ve had too many encounters to even number 😒

Im sorry you have been through this. I have to say that no I haven't and to my knowledge, none of my close friends have. I don't know if it helps or not to know that..I hope it gives you some kind of optimism that it is possible to go through life without it. I wish you luck.

I'm so sorry this happened you.

You can ring or contact https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-help/it-happened-some-time-ago/

They deal with all sorts of sexual assault including historic cases.

I'm not sure about in the UK but usually organisations like this provide free counselling too.

A friend says not. I wonder whether she actually recognises what I consider practically universal women’s experience as abuse. I am open in conversation about women’s experiences about men being routinely handsy.

I haven’t had any real comfort from telling people about the serious incident. I’ve had bad reactions and I’ve had indifferent reactions, where I wonder why I bothered.
The only reason I mention it now, irl, is because it shouldn’t be something I feel I have to hide. It’s not my shame.

I'm so sorry that happened to you. I can honestly say I've never been SA at all. I'm obviously just incredibly fortunate.

I have never met a woman (myself included) that hasn't been SA in some way or other.
All the way from unwanted touching to rape.

I am really sorry that these things have happened to you.

Yes, a lot of women have been sexually assaulted at some time in their lives.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that your experience sounds 'normal' - the childhood experiences you mention sound horrific. Most people don't have to go through this as children. That said, childhood sexual abuse is still far more common than a lot of people assume so you are far from alone.

Everyone's experience is unique, so even someone with similar-sounding experiences to you might have found it very different. Yes a lot of women have to deal with sexual assault but that doesn't mean they have to deal with it alone. A lot of people really struggle and can't just 'move on' from the past. I would say I've 'only' been seriously sexually assaulted twice, with various other dodgy experiences that Iess are harder to label, and even now many years later I still think about it and think it continues to impact on me. But I have been lucky enough to have people I can talk to and I think that's helped me to cope and move forwards.

There is some support out there and I really hope you have the chance to talk to someone and get what you need. The NHS has this advice page: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sexual-health/help-after-rape-and-sexual-assault/. Also if you have PTSD-symptoms or depression or anxiety related to what you've been through, NHS talking therapies might be able to support with that for free to some extent (I know people's experiences of that free therapy are not always great but I also know some people who feel it has helped them).

Yes unfortunately I think most women have. I've been inappropriately touched, inappropriately propositioned, coerced with threats and grabbed. Most of my friends have the same experiences as well as rape. With the me too movement I found out that my DS's girl friends had it happen to them.

But it's not our shame to carry.

I would say there’s a variation in what women have experienced for example for me now I would consider it SA would be sleeping with someone while I was at uni and clearly too drunk to consent, at the time I wouldn’t have said this but more because now there is a change in attitude towards it. As well as unwanted hands up dresses in a nightclub etc. mostly my experiences would relate to that sort of thing

I think most woman have but don’t talk about it or acknowledge it.
It’s not something I ever mention to people and even when discussing it with a therapist they didn’t seem to want to talk about it (even though it was the only reason I was there). I think finding a good therapist that is knowledgeable and sensitive about it is best. That way if it becomes too uncomfortable you can stop going and not have to worry about the awkwardness of people knowing.

I think most of us have. I am in therapy but not sure I ever dealt with mine properly. It started for me low level but I was very young. Was I damaged by it? I don't know because there was violence and emotional and verbal abuse at home that was pretty horrific so it's hard to distinguish where the damage came from. I'm in treatment for definite CPTSD and trauma induced BPD.

The assaults I experienced as an older child (one by kids the same age) and one by an adult stranger as a teen) I remember the humiliation and sense of shame .

I've always been sensitive to shame and never really felt comfortable in my own skin.

I can talk about it in therapy and in forums like this. It was actually MN that helped me see it wasn't my fault . My father minimised it and actually got angry with me as a teenager for mentioning it, calling me toxic and a troublemaker and liar.

I really recommend speaking about it to someone professionally. I also found Carolyn Spring's books on shame and trauma from sexual abuse v helpful. I know the emotional and physical stuff from my dad really affected me and those books helped.

you probably can't accept this now but it truly wasn't your fault. I promise you. No one causes that to happen. @Chickencuddle . You didn't cause it. That shame belongs to the abuser.

I've experienced it as a child and as an adult.
I have spoken about in therapy to some degree and a lot I've just processed in my own time.
It still adversely affects me and I really don't like men (I know very well that not all men are abusive, so it's a 'me' issue) and have remained single and celibate for nigh on 8 years (the night I conceived my twins was the last time I had sex).

I honestly believe that the women who say they've never experienced sexual assault have just normalised/ accepted the assault because it's so common in society. I'm my early 20s I would have confidently said I hadn't been sexually assaulted- now I look back and there were so many incidents of unwanted touching/ harassment that I just disregarded as a normal part of being a woman.

I was also sexually abused as a child by a family member and although I told my parents I was never able to tell them exactly what happened. So although they believed me I don’t think they understood the severity of it. As as adult we just don’t talk about it, it’s brushed under the carpet even though as a result my mum hasn’t seen any of her family for years.

I remember being about 16 and talking to a group of girl friends after we’d been drinking. Out of about 9 of us, 4 of us had been sexually abused/assaulted by a family member or family friend.

Unwanted comments, yes, but actual assault, no, never.

I haven't but have heard your view supported many times from lots of different sources. To the point that (and I know this is awful and I would only ever say it anonymously, never in real life!) I sometimes feel really bad about mysrlf for so unattractive that nobody has ever tried! I know that's internalised misogyny and shocking mental health talking but it's hard not to wonder why you've never experienced sonething that so many say is universal.

I'm 51 and don't think I have ever met a woman who has not been the victim of sexual assault- from unwanted touching to rape. Usually multiple times. For me it was groping from an uncle; to being propositioned by my Year 5 English teacher to bum touches on public transport, to attempted stranger rape when walking down the street after work to actual rape as my first experience with my first boyfriend that for years I did not even understand was rape. He forced me but made out that I was just stupid and naive because that's how it always is for people. I spent the rest of our relationship apologising to him for not being what he expected in bed- it was usually forced.

I would agree with the majority that most women have been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, I read some statistic once that said 95% of women had experienced sexual assault to some degree. I believe the remaining 5% just don’t recognise catcalling / unwanted attention / being grabbed on a night out as assault / harassment.
I once passed out a party and came to in a random man’s bed naked and it was very clear what had happened. When I told my “best friend” I had been raped, she told me to stop being an attention seeker and that I was drunk so probably just didn’t remember consenting. Attitudes like that are why women don’t talk about it, although I’ve noticed a change in recent years since the me too movement - I just wish the change was fewer women being assaulted rather than more
of us talking about it. Oh and needless to
say, she is no longer my best friend or any kind of friend at all.

I was sexually abused as a child by 3 close family members, for many years. I was also sexually attacked as a young teen walking home from school and again on a bus.

More low level sexual abuse as an adult.

The childhood abuse completely changed me from becoming the person I should have been as an adult. I will never recover. And yes I've had years of trauma therapy, talked loads and reported it all to the police. Nothing will make this better. They took away something I will never get back. Most days I don't know how I'm still here.

I'm very very sorry about your experience.

To answer your question in your OP, whilst I think the vast majority of women have been, neither myself nor my sister ever have. No unwanted touching or anything else. I will say this though, whether it makes a difference or not, I don't know but I have been with my husband since I was 17 years old, now 41, my sister was 15 when she met her husband, she's now 45 and we have done most of our socialising with our husbands. I'm assuming that's the only reason why.

I think about this a lot. I have 2 young daughters, one on the brink of teenagehood. I have always told them, my number one job is to keep them safe. As they get older, it has dawned on me that the biggest danger in their life is not drugs l, or cars, or alcohol, or other kids. It is men. Every woman I know has been assaulted or abused on at least one occasion.

This has driven a lot of my thinking around gender ideology. If my job is to keep my daughters safe, teaching them that trans women are women, effectively says to them that there is a section of males who don't pose the same risk as other men. There is no data to support this theory, and actually the data we do have raises the chance that transwomen actually pose a greater risk. (A much higher proportion of TW in prison have been jailed for sexual and/or violent acts that the general male population).

My girls are lucky to have many wonderful male role models in their life. I am very much not looking forward to bursting this bubble. But I believe has to be done to keep them safe.