Update on previous post.

[Salemthecat]

Hi everyone. I hope you don't mine me posting here again. I posted a few months ago after realised that I had been sexually assaulted twice by two different people in 6 months. I can't find my post so I can't update it, sorry.

I was given some excellent advice before so I'm hoping for some more.

I referred myself to rape crisis and I've been having sessions there for the past 2 and half months. They have been helpful but I can feel myself slipping further and further down this depressive hole.

I've been signed off work for the past 5 weeks after I couldn't take anymore. I thought that I would be back to normal now and that I'd be myself again but if anything I feel worse. I hadn't told my parents but I since have and although they were shocked, they did believe me even though they still think I shouldn't have let myself get in that position.

They're so worried about me that I now feel like such a burden. I'm also off work so I'm creating more work for my team and I've been a pretty shit friend. Not been going out much and when I do I'm pretty quiet and don't feel like I have anything to say. I've started to think that everyone would just be better off if I wasn't here anymore.

I have a doctors appointment next week for a review and I think I need more time off but I'm terrified they are going to send me back to work. It's a different doctor I'm seeing and she knows the history but I'm scared she'll think I'm better off at work. My boss also knows but has been less than supportive since I've been off (when I phoned in to tell her and apologise she said "oh well". )

I'm sorry for such a long post, I'm not really sure what I'm asking for. Maybe some hope that I can get out the end of this?

Firstly, well done for getting help. Secondly, please don't think that everyone would be better off without you, it simply isn't true.

Going to work gets you out of the house and gives you other things to focus on.

So sorry to hear you are feeling bad. No wonder after what you've been through. Sending you a huge hug.

I don't have any advice but I can tell you two things with absolute certainty. Firstly, your family and friends wouldn't be better off without you. And secondly, yes you can and will get through this and there's a lovely happy life waiting for you. I know it might not seem possible now, but one day before too long you'll look back and see how far you've come. You're strong and brave and you can do it.

Sorry, chubby fingers pressed post too soon.

Your boss is an insensitive twat who was probably thinking of herself than you. Don't dwell on her response. Ignore it. You need time to heal. Would you consider telling one of your friends so that you have better support?

Sending you an unmumsnetty hug. x

Has your GP given you any treatment for your stress/depression eg counselling or ADs? Might be a good idea to talk to her about how she can help you, and just tell her outright that you're not well enough to go back to work.

Thank you for all your nice replies. And hugs!

Cookie, thank you. I know she has been a bitch but I'm quite hurt. She was the first person I told as we were quite close and she encouraged me to tell my parents. I thought that by telling her, and because of where we work, that she would be supportive if it got to this point. I'm scared of telling people in case a similar thing happens again.

Irrationall, I do agree with that. However the first incident happened in June last year and I worked until March by which point I didn't think I could carry on. My work involves looking at a lot of sexual violence (and other forms of violence) cases which just made me feel horrendous as what happened me wasn't as bad as what happened to all the women in those cases.

Western, I've been on citalopram since November. At my last appointment my dose was increased from 30mg to 40mg. I know it takes a few weeks to work but I'm still feeling pretty bad.

I'm scared that I'm just broken now. That this is what my life is going to be.

No, your life is not going to be like this from now on. It's a blip. You will get better but it will take time. I don't know if it will help you believe me that you will get better but I was incredibly suicidal eighteen months ago, I could barely leave my bed to care for my children let alone leave the house without bursting into tears or hyperventilating. It's taken months and months for me to stop feeling that way but the point is I have, and so will you eventually.

Could you do something else for work? Just until you feel mentally prepared to cope with your current line of work?

Don't wait until next week to see the doctor, see if you can get an appointment for today and be honest about how bad you are feeling.

Things are always darkest before the dawn. A cliché but true. You have done so well, and you have done everything right. If your work deals with cases of sexual violence, you must know that you have managed to do what so many women daren't or perhaps can't do. You need to acknowledge that and feel proud of yourself. You work in this field and you have led by example, however terrible it is that you've had to.

What goes on at work can go on without you for now, and is doing. But if you don't go through this and start healing, your life really will be broken. What you're doing now is rebuilding yourself. Doing that is more vital and important than any job, okay? Ignore anyone, even your boss, who would make you feel guilty or slack for not being at work right now. You were raped not once, but twice. Anyone who resents you for trying to heal from that is absolute scum and not worth getting upset over.

That what happened to you wasn't as bad as other cases does not mean you weren't really raped, or 'properly' raped. There is no sliding scale of victim worthiness in cases of sexual violence. This is your way of trying to minimise events or blame yourself. You need to own your own 'right' to be suffering as a result of your attacks. This happened to you. What you need to do, or not do, to come to terms with it and work through it and recover is unique to you, and what others have suffered, and how they've dealt with it, or not dealt with it, has zero to do with your situation, however bad those other situations were. They have no bearing on your recovery, or your right to heal.

Also, please don't listen to your parents about you 'getting yourself into' those situations. This is a very old-fashioned view of rape, but it is not true. 100% of the responsibility lies woth your attackers. You were raped because they chose to rape you. Nothing you did caused it, or facilitated it. Nothing. Not your outfit, your behaviour, drinking, past relationships with these men, nothing. It feels paradoxically like the victim had some power to try to make them in some way culpable, but the truth is, you had no influence on the terrible events.

Thank you for saying I've done well, Oxford. I have to say it doesn't feel like it. I feel like a bit of a failure since I've had to ask for time off work. I'm also doing a degree part time which is suffering slightly. I haven't failed anything yet but I'm struggling much more than before. What you said about using other victims stories to invalidate my own really hit home. I spent months and months analysing other cases and law books trying to decide of what happened to me would count. I've accepted now that it was but I can't seem to stop blaming myself. There seems to be a mental block in moving from thinking it's my fault to thinking that it was theirs and there it doesn't matter what I did or didn't do.

Cookie, thanks for telling me your story. I'm glad you're feeling better now. It's such a horrible way to feel - I never thought I'd feel like this! I don't want to leave my job as I'm hoping to be employed through they're graduate scheme when I graduate and it's much easier to do so when you already work for them. I will ask to be moved to a different unit that doesn't deal with such cases but again that makes me feel like such a failure. I should be stronger to keep helping prepare these cases. I shouldn't let it bother me.