This is a VERY sensitive subject, I know, but I am curious to know just how big a problem this is

[VeniVidiVickiQV]

How many people on here have been assaulted/raped and have either reported or not reported it?

I found out that the conviction rate rapes was just 6% . 6% of reported rapes. There are many many many more that go unreported. I want to know roughly what kind of figure we are looking at. Please change your name if need be, but do post.....

I'll start..

Me - unreported.

me - unreported. Assaulted, not raped.

i would never believe that people i 'talk/listen' to everyday on this board have gone through so much horror. i recognise so many of your 'names'. it makes me frightened for my dd.

i have always said she is going to karate when she turns four and now even more so.

thanking my lucky stars that i am don't usually feel bad about saying 'no' and don't care if others think i am a miserable git if i don't want to agree to make everyone else happy.

Oh Jeez, tamba, that 'checking' business - I know it so well! That's when my idea that I'm a 'survivor' begins to ring false. I was getting by ok I guess until I had dd then I found I can't bear to be here alone at night without dp. When he has to go away I travel miles to be with my mum. If I didn't I would spend the night listening for sounds.

no not strange fattiemumma. People cope with these things in very different ways. Personally I would feel more of a victim if I had counselling - I don't mean that epole who do have it are iyswim, just that it's not for me - I suppose I am of the stiff upper lip brigade and brush yourself down and get on with it........

I think, for me, part of the problem was, I didn't see my body as my own. My parents hit me (not lots, not really badly), and when I was having consensual sex in my teens, they told me I wasn't allowed to do that.

I want my kids to grow up aware that their bodies are theirs.

I remember once Imagenaryfriend, I grabbed a moses basket, put the kids in the push chair and walked 15 minutes in the middle of the night through a dark and deserted park/waste lands to get to Mils because in my messed up mind I thought that was safer than staying put in my own home!

Twice - Both unreported

1st was by my now ex partner, It was the same day we brought our newborn son home from hospital. He damaged me quite badly as I had stitches from the birth but I was too ashamed/shocked to report it. He went on to assault me many times afterwards.

2nd was by a man I went out for the night with about 4 years ago just before I met dh. He felt like I owed him for the night out (His words). I didn't report it as I just wanted to forget about it.

3 Sexual assualts -

1st when I was 9 by a family friend

2nd on a bus by another passenger who pinned me to the seat when I was 13.

3rd by a schoolfriend when walking home from school when I was 14/15.

All unreported as I was too scared/ashamed to report them. Talking to my dh has really helped me though.

My mum was also raped when she was in her early teens. My brother was assaulted by a family member. Both incidents were unreported.

This thread has made me realise how common this is, It is really horrifying.

Actually three fairly serious assaults by three different blokes under totally different circumstances. I've always thought virtually every woman gets at least assaulted at some time - I know all my close female friends have something of this nature in their past.

Fattiemumma, I don't think you're strange, but counselling doesn't make you feel vulnerable and you don't have to talk about anything until you feel like it. I did go for counselling eventually (about 30 years after), for pnd. Over time I felt complete trust in my counsellor and told her many things, including rape etc. Cried about it for the first time and felt completely safe. After a while, I also felt that it really was in my past and no longer had an influence over me.

Assaulted on train home from school at age 14. Didn't report. A few years ago my mother told me how she had been assaulted by a friend of the family when she was a similar age. If I'd been raped when I'd been assaulted I wonder if I'd ever have ended up married with children?

tamba, I remember going out with a 3-month -old dd at 2am, chainsmoking (I'd quit 6 months before I got pregnant), until 5am when the sun came up and I felt I could return to the flat. If I'd had somebody's home to walk to I'd have no doubt turned up on their door. I really can't tell you how much I relate to your story.

Message withdrawn

brokendoll
That is horrific.
It must be obvious to anyone reading this thread that the same themes are emerging. It is so very very sad - just look at all these posts coming fast and furious. It is so painful to read all this. How do we protect our children when this can happen at literally any age? with people in our homes, people we are familiar with. In the things that happened to me, drink was not an issue in any of them except possibly the last experience, and certainly I hadn't been drinking, or wearing provocative clothes or anything like that.

trefusis - your mum's reaction made me so so angry, people like her and my gran have a hell of a lot to answer for protecting the perverts and letting us down very badly. How could they? HOW COULD THEY LET IT HAPPEN TO US?????
I feel betrayed by them.

kiskidee, that excatly how I feel....I know this is a niave and stupid thing to think. And proabaly even a bit patronising...
I "know" so many of you and I would never in a million years had thought that you had gone through such horrific things....you are all so happy and funny and ....god I know this is the wrong word...you're all normal people.

I think thats what has shocked me too....in my head I stupidly thought any experinces like those you have been through would break anyone. But from your MN personas it shows me that that is wrong...very wrong.

You're all amazingly brave....all of you.

I was sexually abused between the ages of about 4 and 12 inlcluding being raped, and someone tried to rape me when I was 16. None of which I reported.

My daughter. Reported. No prosecution. I'm so angry

Fattiemama, I hated the counselling, made me feel even worse, but maybe that was just me. Think it prob works with right person. Mine was full assault and rape by a stranger, but now it's in it's box and i rarely allow it out

Sexually assaulted, not reported. I was 10, family member, 'our little secret', you know the form. In fact to be honest, I didn't even know it was wrong until much later, so dysfunctional was our family. Didn't affect me till recently, now I have kids of my own. Heavy stuff.

I havent had counselling, but I have had many years to get to grips with things. I suppose I feel like I work through things by helping others work through the same. Then its not really me, but it is.

The thing with it also is that you always feel that there was/is something that you could have/should have done to try and stop it. For as long as you feel that, then you are never going to report it, and as long as you believe it, you wont get past it.

Its difficult to know what being paralysed by fear unless you have been there i suppose.

Tamba, your court experience is truly shocking, as are many of the stories here.

I hope I havent opened too many raw wounds here tonight....

My mum's experience has taught me that 'stranger danger' is not the only important lesson to teach children when trying to protect them. I feel I need to give them the confidence to say no in situations where they feel uncomfortable and i will make sure that they know they will be believed and trusted - at the very least by their parents. i know my mum gave me that confidence and support.

This is absolutely disgraceful. I thought I'd had a bad experience but oh, reading everyone else's has made me cry. How can these things be happening in a 'civilized' society? I am bewildered. How can we make the world safer for our girls? I almost don't want her to grow up. No, I don't mean that, I don't.

It's strange how raw those wounds actually are.
I knoow that my experiences have affected me deeply but I can live my life in a way that feels normal to me and appears normal to those around me and then the subject appears and i feel like i am falling apart all over again.
Feel very weak and not very in control. But i know that tomorrow i will box it back up and get on with life.

I know that councelling is generally a good thing. i just kind of self medicate if you like.

I do worry about my kids though. DD was conceived through rape and i am terrified that the knowledge of that would hurt her in any way.

fattiemumma, she's loved though isn't she.

ok - no time (or emotional strengh, frankly) to read the thread... but in answer to the OP

2 seperate occasions/men, both unreported, when i was 16, trusting and naive.
then, at 18, 1 street assault (attmpted rape and murder) from which i escaped before he managed it. that one was reported, and they took DNA evidence too, but they never caught him and as they dont routinely cross reference old cases with new ones, theres fat chance he will ever be caught for my attack, even though he has undoubtably been caught for something since then. (i was far from his first victim, of that im sure. and that was 12 years ago now)