To not know what to do about the fact I was raped?

[Itssnotunusual]

About 4 and a half years ago I was at a house party with mostly work colleagues who I was pretty good friends with. I was 20 at the time. I was drinking. Others were taking drugs- weed mostly and I think coke too. I ended up staying at the hosts flat sleeping on the sofa as it was a fairly long taxi ride home for me and I would have been going back to the same town as the couple staying so we decided to go home together in the morning.

It gets a bit hazy from here for me. I remember being woken up by the host kissing me but I was completely out of it at the time. I then remember him sticking his penis in my mouth. I'll make it fairly clear that I was in no fit state to consent nor was I totally conscious- I'd describe myself as being in that state between asleep and awake. I'd have considered my self friends with the host at the time and he wasn't someone I had ever felt unsafe with before- to be completely honest I think he was absolutely off his face on drink and drugs at the time and may not remember it himself. This man has since been to rehab due to substance abuse problems.

I've spent to best part of the past few years not thinking or talking about it. It has affected me. Since then I've always had to be to one to initiate sex else I would panic. I would never had sex whilst drunk, even with my long term partner. There was a period after the rape where I self harmed- I still have the scars today though they mostly blend with post pregnancy stretch marks.

I broke up with my ex-partner almost 2 months ago. The rapist was a mutual friend of ours. My ex is the only other person who knows what has happened. I'm really struggling with the idea that there's now no one else I can really talk to about what happened.

I'm on online dating apps. I'm talking to someone in a bit of a friend's with benefits sort of arrangement at the minute. He seems pretty nice, good communication and has actually asked a few big questions about boundaries, contraception STIs ect. Part of me wants to mention what happened. I've clammed up on him a bit a few times. We are now ex colleagues but he came to visit me in my office before we both left our old workplace (not the same place I worked when the rape happened) to ask my out for a drink. He's was extremely lovely and straight forward but at the same time a felt really caught by surprise and a little cornered. Not his fault. He was a gent and didn't try anything.

I don't know whether to tell him about the rape or not. I feel like you don't bare your soul to a casual hook up partner. But I think it's an important piece of information regarding my sexual history that maybe puts a few of my hangups and big sexual no no's in a lot of context.

All in all I'm feeling a bit lost and alone about the whole situation. The only other person that knows what happened is my ex and I can't ask his advice. I don't know how to carry this with me moving forward in my life. Who to tell. Who not to tell. What I'm meant to do with it all.

Firstly tell him if you want. Don't think about "should", think about whether you want to. He may back off he may not, but what you're actually wondering is whether to cushion him from it. I'm firmly of the idea that men shouldn't be cushioned from the realities of women's lives. And as you're wanting to say it in the context of "I don't want to do X or Y because I was raped" I think it's healthy. I've said the same in the past and actually nobody backed off, but they were extra careful with my boundaries in most cases. I wouldn't go into the details of it though, just the headline of "because I was raped".

I think the real person you should speak to about this is a specialised rape therapist. They exist and will be able to help you. I'd suggest Rape Crisis or speaking to your GP - of both! You'll likely have to go on a waiting list anyway, so the sooner you do it, the less people ahead of you.

Sorry you're in this situation. You're not the only one though and there is help out there. Also the sooner you get that help the better, so please do reach out.

Thank you, I needed someone else's input and Google wasn't exactly fruitful. I think I'm quite afraid that if anyone knows the true depths of my emotional bagged they'd run a bloody mile. I'm already a single mum to 2 year old with a self harm scars. I'm currently trying to start again after everything started to go a bit wrong for me about 7 years ago. I think part of this is actually tackling what happened to me.

Dealing with an individual through my work who had also been raped really brought it back to the forefront for me when it was something I'd almost let myself forget about. Looking back through all my issues with sex since then I realised how much of it I had internalised and never really knew why.

I've spoken to 101 this morning, the police are coming to my house on Thursday to talk about it. I'm not really expecting anything to happen to him but I think he was so high on drink and drugs that he likely doesn't know and I need him to know what he did to me. I've spoken to my Ex about him this morning as he has a few mutual friends so he's going to try and figure out his contact details and current address for me. Last my ex heard he was back in rehab which I think might have been mandated by someone (maybe police or he was sectioned. I don't really know).