Hi all. I've been looking at mumsnet for a while just because it's interesting but I made an account to ask for some advice. Obviously this is going to be a bit depressing sorry, I'm not going into graphic detail but i do say rape loads.
When I was 14, an older boy (16) groomed me online then emotionally and sexually abused me (a lot, in different ways). He raped me by emotionally wearing me down over months until I didn't have it in me to argue anymore. For example, he used an experience I had when I was 12 of a 16 year old trying to sext with me online to say that was why I didn't want to have sex, and that I needed to get over it and manipulative things like that. He'd guilt me and make me cry all the time. I was only 14 and didn't know how to set boundaries properly. He also manipulated me to cut off friends, argue with my family, I'd be in big trouble if I spent too long away from my phone not texting him, the normal emotional abuse tactics. I already had anxiety issues throughout my childhood (my mum always called me a worrier, lol) but after the abuse ended I became severely depressed and anxious, suicidal, self harming and absolutely wracked with guilt and shame. He didn't physically force me so I thought it was all my fault, technically I let him do it.
I started to really struggle at school and after an ECG to investigate the severe chest pains I was having the doctor was pretty sure it was anxiety, and I got referred to CAHMS by the time I was 15. In the mean time I opened up to some friends at school who were also dealing with mental health issues and one of them took me to the head of SEN. I spoke to her, I didn't use any words like rape but I told her I thought my boyfriend had emotionally manipulated/abused me and he made me do things I didn't want to do. She said, and I'll never forget this, "it sounds like you're upset he broke up with you". Then she ended it and they booked me in to see the school counselor, who said the same sort of things basically.
I brought that up because it deeply affected me, and it also seemed to start a pattern of the adults I'd open up to not believing, or minimising what happened to me. The first therapist at cahms was extremely patronising. Maybe that's not relevant but it just made it all feel like a joke. One of the first things she did was write down everything I'd told her in a letter and tried to make me give it to my parents. I can't describe to you the sheer, sheer panic that evoked in me. She spoke to me like a baby, and she never actually addressed what had happened to me. That's another common theme.
So I switched therapists, still at cahms, and after a while waiting for a new therapist she gave me IPTA. She told me that I couldn't keep friends because I would get too clingy then push them away (that was true at the time). She lumped my relationship with my rapist into the same category. She never spoke about the rape. Just like the others she would gloss over it as if it wasn't the problem. I mean she would be sympathetic but she always wanted to get down to it being my fault. It was my fault I got raped just like it was my fault I couldn't keep friends? That's what I got from every single session with her. They were completely different. I didn't have trouble keeping friends before I got raped.
I found the IPTA too upsetting after a while so I stopped that too. I was under cahms for a few more years, it still never got addressed. Obviously they kicked me out at 18. Just when I finished my a levels and was going to start full time work alongside another qualification. I went on antidepressants so I felt better for a while. I think all of the dismissing I'd dealt with just made me want to repress it, I was still so ashamed. Nobody said the word rape to me either, it took me years to figure out that's even what it was.
I started work and I was okay for a while, and then it was like it all hit me at once. I started getting frequent nightmares where I'd get sexually assaulted or raped. Any reference to sexual assault/rape etc in movies or anything like that would make me so upset. Working started getting really hard because I was always getting distracted remembering snippets of the abuse, it came to me like intrusive thoughts. I got signed off work sick and got referred to a rape crisis place local to me. Obviously there was months wait but then I finally got a therapist and it felt like deja vu. It was like she didn't want me to talk about it, she just wanted to address the individual symptoms. When I opened up she started excusing my rapist saying he probably had a tough childhood and things like that. How is that helpful? Why does she want to empathise with him not me? She also told me to try to improve my relationship with my shit, arsehole dad. So that resulted in me putting in effort and him continuing to be the shitty arsehole he always was. I quit that therapy too. Maybe I was unreasonable or something but I don't think it's wrong for me to not want my therapist to sympathise with my rapist. I was leaving every session feeling worse.
I don't think all therapists are bad. Maybe I was wrong to quit those times. But I think most of them didn't believe me. The ones who maybe did never took it seriously. It hurt so much when they said those things to me and it still hurts
Anyway I'm 20 now and I don't want to live anymore. I'm on a waiting list for another service but it's been months more than they said already. The GP pretty much said not to bother trying to get moved up the waiting list. Even if I get therapy I'm scared they're not going to take me seriously either. I couldn't take that. I'm starting to think what happened wasn't serious otherwise why wouldn't any of them address it? i talk to the GP but they just switch up my antidepressants. Thing is they don't stop any of the memories. I hate being alive. I hate my body and wish I could cut it away from my brain. I still get the nightmares. I can't have sex, I just start crying, it feels like being raped. Actually I've had sex loads of times since what happened to me and I don't think I ever liked it, i just learned it's what I'm meant to do. My partner now is lovely and taught me I don't have to. I'm signed off work again now because I can't focus. I feel angry a lot. I feel like a dead person, like I'm being forced to keep on living in a body that's just a rotting corpse. That's the only way I can describe it.
I don't know what I want from this. I guess I want advice. Can it get better? Because I can't live like this much longer. I've been thinking about trying to get a private therapist but there's so many online that I don't know how to choose and it's so expensive. How do I find a therapist who will seriously help me get through this and won't keep invalidating me? Was what those therapists said to me right?
Sorry I guess realistically this is just a rant I just feel hopeless.