This is what happened...

[Grace62]

This happened a long time ago.

I was 19 yrs old and I am now in my forties.

I was, at the time just getting experience in acting and was working toward my Equity card, which is like a Union card for those in the entertainment business. I'd done a few things and was advised to meet an agent. I went with my mum and dad (I'd had a sheltered upbringing!). Anyway, we had a good meeting and he, this man, invited us all out for dinner and to discuss further options the following week.

We met; we ate and my mum and sister said they felt it time to go home. The man said I ought to stay and he'd drop me off home later, no problem. I agreed. Some time later, we left the venue and drove some while in the car. He pulled off the road into an area of what looked like wasteland....deserted garages, burntout cars and it was in the middle of nowhere. I knew i was in trouble. He stopped the car and we talked for a while and I knew it wasn't right but being a bit naive (yes, even at 20) I chatted for a bit. He became intimate and I said "what are we doing here, I should really get home". He said I knew what we were doing there and I shouldn't have encouraged him and was verbally aggressive and laughing at me. What followed was "consented" to on my part because frankly, I had felt safe with this man, he'd spent the evening with my parents and I imagined from his demeanour that if I didn't go along with it I might not get home in one piece. At all.

Afterward, he didn't take me home. He stopped the car in the middle of an area I had no idea of and made me get out. I walked some way in disbelief and wondering what I was going to say to my parents.

What happened there? It haunts me to this day. I got into the car with the man. Whatever happened, was my own fault having done that and allowing him to buy me dinner. He expected sex, in return. It was awful and when he could see I was crying he shook his head and said I knew the score etc etc.

A recent traumatic event has happened to a close family member and I find myself unable to stop thinking about something that I've spent 25 yrs plus trying to (shamefully) put behind me.

So many yearsmlater

What happened was NOT your fault. Buying dinner does not equate to buying sex. He had no right to do what he did.

Would you consider talking to someone about it?

You were raped. Plain and simple. You have nothing to be ashamed of at all

Consensual? what consent?

It was not your fault, he took what wasn't his to take. Sex is never payment for dinner.

I'm sorry you went through that

It's high time you seek some counselling to talk it all through and have your experience validated. If you can handle it, contact you local rape crisis centre.

Thanks madhouse, you've verbalised a feeling that I had immediately after, even as I was walking down the road having gotten out of the car, looking for an clue as to where I was and hoping to see a taxi.

I think I'd just had my 20th birthday but was a late starter sexually, having had my first boyfriend at 19. I couldn't tell anyone and just put it down to my own stupidity..... My mum had instilled in me the "never ever get in a car with someone you don't know" mantra. I willingly got into that car. No one jumped out at me on a darkened street. He wasn't a stranger (totally) though I didn't KNOW the man. Also, he was my mum's age and SHE liked him.

I knew I needed to go to a clinic to get myself checked out intimately. It was the only time I thought to tell someone what had happened but felt I'd just be disapproved of in a "what a stupid thing to do" way. I just described it at a one off experience - a one night stand. Remember, this was 1982 and if you were stupid enough to get dressed up, "go out" with someone and then get into a car with someone..... Also, I was an adult. I should have known better than to be so stupid.

And it was all so horribly sordid. What happened, the place (like some kind of tip or broken car lot or something. And in a car. I just felt so utterly ashamed.

Even writing about it now, I wonder if I have the right to feel so upset for younger self? It's only because of the actual rape of someone very dear and close to me that I'm thinking about it so much. I find myself unable to stop crying for this lovely young woman to whom this dreadful thing has happened. She is only 22.

Sorry madMOUSE..... Bloody iPad!

Yes you bloddy well have the right to be upset. It is time that you learn to accept that you were raped - violated-overpowered-insert any other word that would make you see it's not your fault

You are so upset for this other person because of your own history. Just like I get really upset at the thought of any girl I care for going through what I went through. And you're grieving for her because you have not/cannot allow yourself to grieve your own loss.

IT-WAS-NOT-AND-NEVER-WILL-BE-YOUR-FAULT

Have a virtual hug - and get yourself some long overdue and well deserved support x

What an utter shit this man is. Please bear in mind that he deliberately and consciously set out to rape you. He planned the whole thing because he feels that he is entitled to rape any woman he feels like raping. None of it was your fault at all.

Me too so sorry for what happened to you Grace 62 and do you know that reading your post has taken me back about 50 years (when I was 17) and I accepted a lift from a bloke I knew, and he too drove me to a lonely spot and put his arm around me - fortunately I was able to get out of the car and run and run. I had left my bag in his car and he drove up to the main road and only asked me to get in again and he would take me home! I didn't of course and he put my bag on the pavement and drove off and I never told anyone. Sorry it is nothing to what happened to you, but it just shows how things can be triggered.

I think you have had some brilliant posts on here, all giving good advice. I think the fact that you have been triggered by something similar happening to someone you know demonstrates how you have buried your trauma and once the top soil is blown away (as it has been) then you have to look at your trauma buried deep in the soil. You need to talk about this to a competent therapist - it won't take the pain away, but it should make it more manageable. It doesn't matter how long ago your trauma was. I know of a woman of 79 who is having counselling for the child she was forced to give up for adoption when she was 19 and she has carried the pain all through her life (60 years) so time is irrelevant really. I think it's really good that you have been able to post this, and PM someone who has been through the same thing may help, but I think you need to unearth this trauma which might protect you from future triggers.

It was rape.

It was NOT your fault.

He is a rapist.

Nothing that you did makes it your fault. He is a rapist who planned to rape you.

You are perfectly justified in feeling angry but ONLY towards him. You did NOTHING wrong.
You are perfectly justified in feeling traumatised and upset. Its natural. You were raped.
You should not feel ashamed-it was not your fault.
Please talk to someone who can help about this.

usingmainlyspoons ... Yes, that was the link I was trying to do but just couldn't manage.

I cannot bring myself to call it rape. I associate rape with dark alleys and strangers jumping out and dragging you away.

I felt I didn't do anything to help myself. I could have put up stronger resistance but just allowed it to take place. Where we were, with no one about on a strip of wasteland....is that an excuse to allow that to happen?

I hadn't been drinking by the way and am not an overtly flirtatious person. I'm naturally reserved.... It took me 5 months to become intimate with my husband!

Just a tiny percentage of rapes happen as you describe. The majority are rape within relationships or with some that the woman already knows. Rape is sex without consent. You didn't consent or consent was forced/co-erced. You didnt willingly enter into the sexual act with him. You said yourself you were frightened of him and the environment around you. You did what you had to do to avoid further danger to yourself. If you had protested or fought back he might have progressed to violence or put you out of the car in a dangerous environment.

With a man who is a not a rapist you could have been drinking heavily, completely naked, have a rich sexual history and consented to foreplay/penetration. But a man who is not a rapist would have stopped the moment you became uncomfortable/unhappy/distressed or simply said 'no' for any reason. That is the difference between a rapist and a man who is not a rapist.

Let go of this idea of dark alleyways. Rape can even take place within marriage or another intimate relationship. Like child abuse, most rapes are carried out by someone familiar to the victim.

Maybe it helps to read up on what rape is - anything to help you accept that it happened to you and help you let go of that shame that is not yours to carry. But I cannot reiterate enough my suggestion to get some counselling. No one else needs to know if you so wish, but you need to give this traumatic event a proper place.

I will visit my GP and ask for a referral. I'm going to find it hard to support the young woman I wrote of earlier, in the way she should be supported if I'm close to breaking down all the time, as I am at the moment.

Thank you all.

I think you'll find great strength in seeking help and relief. Noone deserves to be raped or provokes a rapist. Seems like this rapist had a plan, I wonder how many others there were/are.