She/You will never get over that.

[Tetsuo]

This is possibly contentious, but I feel the need to speak about it after seeing a comment today about a woman who was molested and a poster said;

'She'll never get over that'

I'm putting it in FChat because It's something I'd like to speak about with women.

I've been raped & I got over it, I got over it quite well. I'm not saying it was a brilliant experience, but it was just something that happened to me and I hate the idea that it will define me in some way, that I will never 'get over'. I've put it here in FChat because at the same time I don't want it to be an idea that men get that rape is all cool and good because women get over it.

But I also don't want the idea that women are permanently damaged by an experience.

I hate the 'abortion will scar you' idea too. I've had abortions, they didn't bother me.

I am not scarred by rape and abortion.

I hate the idea that I am damaged.

I'm OK.

And it's absolutely ok to not be ok about these things too.

But I do think it's important for women to say, I'm alright, I'm OK, it didn't really bother me, I can shove it to the side.

Thank you for this. I was physically abused as a child and have only started understanding the damage it caused now, after 20 years! I hope I will get over it. It has caused me to live a life where I cower in fear internally when people are emotional, and it hasn't allowed me to enjoy sexual intimacy properly. But I am finally getting the right therapy and I seeing small changes. I am definitely more fearless and more brave, I am definitely more open than I used to be. I hope I will heal fully. Your post gives me hope. I don't have to stay the victim once I have healed.
Part of me thinks that some people may be more sensitive or may need more effective help to cease being a victim but I think this mindset of committing to being empowered is great! We can access that place of having a choice and making choices. I know now that if my father would ever hit me or anyone else again I would immediately call the police!
Happy to hear more on this topic

@Idontlikefakenames I'm very pleased to hear that you are making steps to heal yourself.

You absolutely can move on.

You are not defined by what happened to you.

You aren't.

I hope you have a good therapeutic relationship and can find some healing.

I wish you well.

Onwards!

I agree with you. I was sexually abused as a child and only realised when I was older. It hasn't affected me at all. I appreciate not everyone is like this but I'm happy as I would've assumed I'd have some trauma over it by hiw its generally spoken about.

Yes! It's the idea that we MUST be traumatised or damaged that pisses me off.

It's ok to be ok.

I also understand that many people are damaged by experiences, so to say I'm not, either diminishes them or makes women's experiences lesser.

I get that.

BUT, it's also OK to say;

I'm OK.

It's the bit about being "damaged goods" that is an echo of patriarchal, property over women etc ideas that needs to be rejected. There is unequivocally no stigma on the person that got raped. We need to consciously and clearly square the stigma and blame on the rapist! Why would a person being raped have anything wrong with them for the perversion of another put on them??

Absolutely!

I've been raped.

The rapist is the one that has something wrong with them.

Not me.

And I never felt that.

I always felt that he was wrong and did a shit thing to me.

It was fuck all to do with me really.

It was about him being bad. Not me.

I totally agree with you, Tetsuo.

I was raped when I was 19. I went to a group meeting for survivors a month or so after and the first thing the leader said was “You’ll never get over this” (or “This will scar you for life” or similar, I don’t remember it word for word now and it was an opinion repeated in different ways throughout the meeting) and I found it really damaging. It seemed unreasonable to me then but also really discouraging. I stayed till the end but didn’t go back because I couldn’t see how that attitude could help me.

And in the end I didn’t find it to be true at all. I was definitely not over it for a while. But by the time I graduated, I really was. I was something that happened to me, but it didn’t have lingering negative impacts on my life.

It’s okay not to be okay, I don’t want women who find it never leaves them to feel like they are in the wrong somehow, but the message that you can’t be okay after rape is one I abhor.

Sometimes a one off or short term experience is easier to get over as it doesn't become trauma. Continuous chronic negative experiences cause trauma